BRASELTON, Ga. — Shortly after the midway point of the Motul Petit Le Mans, Laurin Heinrich held a four-point lead over Ross Gunn in the Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) driver championship standings.
A few minutes later, Gunn was back in front by 16 points. Then he wasn’t, and then he was again. And on and on it went, a back-and-forth, hours-long battle for a memory that will last a lifetime.
When the 10-hour race ended, Heinrich had won the championship by holding on to 11th place in the finale race of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season while Gunn’s spirited battle to catch Daniel Serra for second place ended just 1.845 seconds short.
As Heinrich crossed the finish line knowing he’d won the championship, he lost his composure.
“I completely freaked out,” Heinrich said. “I took the fan in the car and I shook it so much that it ripped off. I had it in my hand. It was crazy. … My engineer was speaking to me in the moment and saw it live (on the in-car camera). He was like, ‘Dude, you’re going to pay for that.’”
Heinrich’s No. 77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R encountered mechanical issues early in the race and fell five laps behind. That’s when the championship battle between Heinrich and Gunn turned into a math problem. Heinrich solved it by just four points with the help of his co-drivers, Michael Christensen and Julien Andlauer.
Being out of the car was the most difficult part of the drama, Heinrich said.
“I didn’t leave the pit for the whole race,” he said. “I was checking our race, which was quite uneventful, and then I was checking the race up front and where the (No.) 23 was. That, for me, was probably the hardest part.”
Gunn and his co-drivers, Alex Riberas and Roman De Angelis, gave it all they had. With 30 minutes remaining, Gunn recorded the fastest lap of the race in GTD PRO – 1 minute, 18.954 seconds – but he couldn’t get past Serra for second place, which would have won him and the No. 23 the championship.
The stress of the situation wore on the entire team.
“I think the race today took at least 10 years off my life,” said AO Racing co-owner Gunnar Jeannette. “We have had incredible reliability all year. So, of course, when it mattered, we had a simple issue put us six or seven laps down. We managed it how we manage races all year – minimize the losses and have some luck.”
While the drama unfolded behind him, Jordan Pepper held on for victory in the No. 19 Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2 he co-drove with Franck Perera and Mirko Bortolotti. In the end, Pepper finished 2.361 seconds ahead of Serra for the team’s first IMSA victory.
“It was such a good feeling obviously, to close it out this time,” Pepper said. “I’m very proud. It was just an intense, intense battle out there on all stints. There was a point when we were mixing it up with the GTD cars and I got the lead.”
Two hours into the race, the No. 77 Porsche – which started from the GTD PRO pole position – began to slow dramatically with a gearbox issue. Andlauer stopped and restarted several times on course before pitting so the team could work on the problem. After falling five laps behind the leaders, the Porsche returned to its early race pace.
The rest was just a matter of addition and subtraction.
“I was always asking on the radio where the (No.) 23 was,” Heinrich said. “With 15 minutes to go, they told me he’s half a second behind Serra. If he overtakes Serra, we lose the championship. I just thought, ‘This can’t be true.’ In the end, it was enough.”
Conquest Wins GTD Race, Winward Claims Championships
The drama of the GTD PRO race carried over into the Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) class, as Albert Costa Balboa passed Loris Spinelli for the lead and went to win the race in the No. 34 Conquest Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 he co-drove with Manny Franco and Cedric Sbirrazzuoli.
The victory completed an eighth-to-first run for Costa Balboa and Conquest, which prevailed over Spinelli and the No. 78 Forte Racing Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2 and co-drivers Misha Goikhberg and Devlin DeFrancesco by just 0.718 seconds.
The pass on Spinelli left Costa Balboa speechless.
“I knew I had better traction on the last corner,” Costa Balboa said. “He was fighting, so I tried to drive to the outside on the last chicane on braking. He was protecting, and then he was on the right. … He was pushing every lap and every corner, trying everything, but in the end, we managed it.”
While Conquest was working hard for the race win, Philip Ellis and Russell Ward were already celebrating driver championships and a team championship before their ninth-place finish in the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3.
“It was an incredible result by the team,” Ward said. “There were a lot of long, hard nights. It’s been difficult but exciting at the same time. It’s really good to be able to bring it home. … In reality, all the work is done at home. We show up here and just try to execute.”