LE MANS, France — In one of the most celebrated and highly competitive events ever at the famed Circuit de la Sarthe, the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship drivers shone brightly on the world stage – claiming a victory and filling the podium across the classes at the centenary celebration of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Longtime IMSA competitor Ben Keating and endurance power Nicky Catsburg hoisted their trophies high, co-driving with Nico Varrone to an LMGTE Am class win in the No. 33 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C8.R – rallying from an incident early into the race to climb atop the podium.
Keating, 51, who drives the No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA LMP2 07 in the WeatherTech Championship’s Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) class, has proven especially adept at tracks hosting endurance races, with Motul Pole Awards at both the Rolex 24 at Daytona and the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring this season. He has 19 career WeatherTech Championship wins, the most recent at last year’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen.
“The way we won it is special,” the Texan said of rallying from an incident that damaged the No. 33 Corvette’s front damper and required a visit to the garage less than 90 minutes into the race. “To feel like it was out of reach and then watch this team claw back and get victory out of defeat’s grasp was really special.
“It was really nice to feel like I was a part of that. It’s one of those deals where you can look at every member of the team on this win and you know everyone contributed. That makes it special.”
Catsburg, 34, of the Netherlands, has driven a Corvette to victory in the Twelve Hours of Sebring (2022) and the Rolex 24 (2021), giving him victories now in three of the most prestigious endurance races in the world.
“Now I have all the big ones,” Catsburg said. “This is super awesome. Even yesterday afternoon, I didn’t think this was possible. But somehow, we made it back to the front. These two guys drove unbelievably fast, and all of a sudden, we were back in contention and won with a massive lead (of more than a lap). It’s an unbelievable feeling.”
Another General Motors product also had to earn its hard-fought position. While the No. 3 Cadillac Racing Cadillac V-Series.R – fielded by Chip Ganassi Racing that runs as the No. 02 in the WeatherTech Championship – did not win, its fourth-place effort in the highly competitive Hypercar class at Le Mans may have felt like a victory. The car was fast all week but had to battle through troubles on track.
Throughout the event, the car was fast, if unlucky. The team of Sebastien Bourdais, Renger van der Zande and Scott Dixon set the fastest lap at Le Mans that held until the overnight hours and ultimately finished only one position off the podium and just one spot behind its sister car, the No. 2 Cadillac that competes fulltime in the FIA World Endurance Championship. After suffering a fire to the car during qualifying on Thursday, the No. 3 crew made repairs good enough to help Bourdais set that fastest lap immediately into the race.
After running as high as second, the high-stress weekend continued when the team had to pit to change a rear-wing assembly after being hit by another car, change the front assembly after a spin during heavy rains on Saturday and take a badly timed pit penalty for a technical infraction. That the No. 3 Cadillac rallied to finish ahead of several prerace favorites was a positive turn on the challenging weekend.
“There was a lot of adversity leading up to and throughout the race,” said Bourdais, a Le Mans native. “I think we can all be proud of the effort we put out on the track. It was very competitive; we just ran out of luck at a couple of points during the race. Ultimately, third and fourth for the team, I’m really happy for everyone involved.
“I think we would have probably signed up for this result if anybody had told us we’d be fighting for those positions at the end out of 16 cars (in the Hypercar class). We’re going to learn a lot, fix everything that didn’t work, improve everything that did and come back stronger.’’
The No. 51 Ferrari AF Corse Ferrari 499P took overall honors Sunday – marking the first overall Le Mans victory for Ferrari since 1965. Two of its drivers – Alessandro Pier Guidi and James Calado competed in the 2023 Rolex 24 driving the No. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 296 GT3 in the GT Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) class.
Pier Guidi and Calado each have a pair of Grand Touring Le Mans (GTLM) WeatherTech Championship wins.
Longtime IMSA competitor Action Express Racing, out of Daytona Beach, Florida, finished 17th overall and 10th in the Hypercar class in the No. 311 Cadillac with drivers Pipo Derani, Alexander Sims and Jack Aitken. This year’s Twelve Hours of Sebring winners battled throughout the race after an incident on the second lap sent the car to the garage for lengthy repairs.
The No. 75 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963 with drivers Felipe Nasr, Mathieu Jaminet and Nick Tandy had a strong showing, running toward the front and leading four laps before retiring due to fuel pressure problems.
The LMP2 class at Le Mans featured numerous WeatherTech Racing regulars taking part. Louis Deletraz, endurance driver for Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport in the WeatherTech Championship Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) class, was part of the No. 41 Team WRT ORECA 07-Gibson lineup that finished second in class.
The No. 45 Algarve Pro Team ORECA claimed the LMP2 ProAm victory. Each of the three drivers boasts winning WeatherTech Championship experience. Colin Braun has 18 career IMSA wins and is part of the Meyer Shank Racing GTP lineup this season. George Kurtz drives the Crowdstrike Racing by APR LMP2 this season and was the 2021 Le Mans Prototype 3 (LMP3) Sebring winner along with Braun. Third driver James Allen made a memorable charge to victory this year at the Rolex 24, winning an LMP2 drag race to the finish line by 0.016 seconds.
The Garage 56 effort of IMSA, NASCAR, Hendrick Motorsports and Chevrolet was deemed a success with the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 still running when the checkered flag fell, completing 285 laps and finishing 39th overall as the only car in the “Innovative Car” class.
WeatherTech Championship competitors return to action June 22-25 for the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen, the third race of the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup.