2023 Petit Le Mans

International Motor Sports Association's (IMSA) president John Doonan confirmed the race was part of the schedule for the 2023 IMSA SportsCar Championship (IMSA SCC) in August 2022.^[1] The 2023 Petit Le Mans was the last of eleven scheduled sports car races of 2023 by IMSA, and it was the fourth round held as part of the Michelin Endurance Cup.^[2] The race took place at the 12-turn, 2.540-mile (4.088 km) Road Atlanta in Braselton, Georgia on October 14, 2023.^[3]

As the final race of the 2023 season, the race marked the final appearance for the LMP3 class.^[4] The Chevrolet Corvette C8.R also entered its final IMSA event, ahead of the switch to new GT3 machinery for Chevrolet in 2024.^[5]

This would be the final race for entry for Jr III Motorsports after team principle Billy Glavin was appointed general manager for United Autosports.^[6] It was the final IMSA appearance for Meyer Shank Racing as a result of pausing their sports car effort.^[7] Corvette Racing also entered their final IMSA race as General Motors will solely focus on customer teams with the new Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R.^[8]

On October 9, 2023, IMSA released the latest technical bulletin outlining Balance of Performance for the GTP, GTD Pro, and GTD classes. In GTP, The Acura ARX-06 received a 1 kilogram weight break while the BMW M Hybrid V8, Cadillac V-Series.R, and Porsche 963 received a small power increase.^[9] In GTD Pro and GTD, the Ferrari 296 GT3 received a 20 kilogram weight increase and a fuel capacity increase of 1 liter. In contrast, the Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2 and Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo were made 15 kilograms heavier. The BMW M4 GT3 received an increase of 4.4 horsepower and a fuel capacity decrease of 1 liter. The Acura NSX GT3 Evo22 received a fuel capacity decrease of 1 liter while the Chevrolet Corvette C8.R GTD and Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) received 1 extra liter of fuel capacity.^[10]

Heading into the final race of the season, Pipo Derani and Alexander Sims were leading the GTP Drivers' Championship with 2460 points, 3 ahead of Filipe Albuquerque and Ricky Taylor in second with 2457 points, and Nick Tandy and Mathieu Jaminet a further 2 points behind in third. Connor De Phillippi and Nick Yelloly were fourth on 2422 points while Matt Campbell and Felipe Nasr were a further 35 points behind in fifth. Tom Blomqvist and Colin Braun were also in mathematical contention on 2333 points, 127 points behind Derani and Sims with a maximum of 385 points available for the final race weekend.^[11][12] In LMP2, Mikkel Jensen and Steven Thomas led the Drivers' Championship with 1680 points, ahead of Paul-Loup Chatin and Ben Keating with 1660 points followed by Ben Hanley and George Kurtz in third with 1580 points.^[11] With 1838 points, Gar Robinson led the LMP3 Drivers' Championship, 294 points ahead of Wayne Boyd and Anthony Mantella.^[11] Robinson needed to start the race to claim the title.^[13] Ben Barnicoat and Jack Hawksworth led the GTD Pro Drivers' Championship with 3495 points, 188 points ahead of Antonio García and Jordan Taylor.^[11] Barnicoat and Hawksworth needed to start the race to claim the title.^[14] With 3331 points, Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow had secured the GTD Drivers' Championship at the previous round, the IMSA Battle on the Bricks. The duo led by 405 points ahead of Roman De Angelis and Marco Sørensen in second.^[11] Porsche, Lexus, and BMW were leading their respective Manufacturers' Championships, while Whelen Engineering Racing, TDS Racing, Riley Motorsports, Vasser Sullivan Racing, and Paul Miller Racing each led their own Teams' Championships.^[11]

A total of 52 cars took part in the event split across five classes. 10 cars were entered in GTP, 8 in LMP2, 7 in LMP3, 8 in GTD Pro, and 19 in GTD.^[15] In GTP, Jensen Button joined Tijmen van der Helm and Mike Rockenfeller in the No. 5 JDC-Miller MotorSports entry.^[16] Laurens Vanthoor joined in the No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport while Josef Newgarden will join in the sister No. 7 entry.^[17] Scott Dixon continued in his endurance role for Cadillac Racing, as did Louis Delétraz, Marco Wittmann, Sheldon van der Linde, Jack Aitken, and Hélio Castroneves for Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport, BMW M Team RLL, Whelen Engineering Racing, and Meyer Shank Racing, respectively.^[18] Neel Jani joined Proton Competition.^[19] In LMP2, AF Corse made their first appearance since the Watkins Glen round.^[18] Rick Ware Racing withdrew from the event.^[20] John Falb returned to the No. 35 TDS Racing entry.^[21] Scott McLaughlin rejoined Tower Motorsports.^[22] In LMP3, Andretti Autosport and JDC-Miller MotorSports returned.^[21] Bijoy Garg joined Garett Grist and Nolan Siegel in the No. 30 Jr III Motorsports entry.^[23] Sean Creech Motorsport withdrew from the event due to a family emergency for Lance Willsey.^[24] In GTD Pro, AF Corse and Risi Competizione made their first appearances since the Watkins Glen round.^[18] Kévin Estre joined Pfaff Motorsports.^[25] In GTD, Kelly-Moss with Riley scaled down to one car due to Alan Metni being injured.^[26] Iron Dames, Triarsi Competizione, Magnus Racing, Cetilar Racing, and the No. 16 Wright Motorsports entry returned as a part of their Michelin Endurance Cup campaigns.^[15] Thomas Merrill joined Bill Auberlen and Chandler Hull in the No. 97 Turner Motorsport entry.^[15] Lone Star Racing and Andretti Autosport were absent.

There were three practice sessions preceding the start of the race on Saturday, all three one on Thursday. The first session on Thursday morning lasted 90 minutes. The second session on Thursday afternoon lasted 105 minutes. The final session on Thursday evening lasted 90 minutes.^[27]

In the first practice session, Sébastien Bourdais topping the charts for Cadillac Racing, with a lap time of 1:11.674. Mathieu Jaminet was second fastest in the No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport entry followed by Matt Campbell in the No. 7 Porsche.^[28] Ben Hanley set the fastest lap in LMP2 with a time of 1:13.919, followed by Alex Quinn's No. 52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports car.^[29] Garett Grist was fastest in LMP3 with a time of 1:16.732.^[30] The GTD Pro class was topped by the No. 79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Jules Gounon with a time of 1:20.279. Mirko Bortolotti in the No. 63 Lamborghini was second fastest followed by Alessandro Pier Guidi in the No. 62 Ferrari.^[29] Bill Auberlen set the fastest time in GTD.^[31] The session was red flagged twice. 30 minutes into the session, Antonio Fuoco, driving the No. 47 Ferrari, spun at turn one and hit the tire barriers. The car sustained heavy rear-end damage.^[29] The final stoppage came when Jonathan Woolridge's No. 38 Ligier made contact with the No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963 of Laurens Vanthoor at turn three causing debris to be scattered on to the circuit.^[28]

The second practice session saw Bourdais topping the charts for Cadillac Racing, with a lap time of 1:09.671, ahead of Augusto Farfus in the No. 24 BMW.^[32] Scott Huffaker set the fastest lap in LMP2 with a time of 1:13.357, followed by Paul-Loup Chatin's No. 52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports car. Garett Grist was fastest in LMP3 with a time of 1:16.749.^[33] The GTD Pro class was topped by the No. 3 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C8.R GTD of Antonio García with a time of 1:19.543. Daniel Serra in the No. 62 Ferrari was second fastest followed by Jack Hawksworth in the No. 14 Lexus.^[34] Madison Snow set the fastest time in GTD.^[32] The session saw one stoppage when Giedo van der Garde driving the No. 35 TDS Racing car, crashed at turn three.^[32]

Filipe Albuquerque led the last practice session for Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport, with a lap time of 1:11.299. Tom Blomqvist was second fastest in the No. 60 MSR Acura followed by Matt Campbell in the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport entry.^[35] Mikkel Jensen was fastest in LMP2 with a time of 1:12.833, followed by Paul-Loup Chatin's No. 52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports car.^[36] Nicolás Varrone set the fastest lap in LMP3 with a time of 1:16.846.^[37] The GTD Pro class was topped by the No. 63 Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2 of Mirko Bortolotti with a time of 1:19.803. Jules Gounon in the No. 79 Mercedes-AMG was second fastest followed by Jack Hawksworth in the No. 14 Lexus.^[38] Auberlen set the fastest time in GTD.^[39]

Friday's afternoon qualifying was broken into three sessions, with one session for the GTP, LMP2 and LMP3, GTD Pro and GTD classes, which lasted for 20 minutes for the GTP session, and 15 minutes for the LMP2/LMP3, and GTD Pro/GTD sessions.^[27] The rules dictated that all teams nominated a driver to qualify their cars, with the Pro-Am LMP2 class requiring a Bronze rated driver to qualify the car while the LMP3 class required a Bronze/Silver Rated driver to qualify the car. The competitors' fastest lap times determined the starting order. IMSA then arranged the grid to put GTPs ahead of the LMP2, LMP3, GTD Pro, and GTD cars.^[40]

Rain fell and the track was damp.^[41] The first was for cars in the GTD Pro and GTD classes. Jack Hawksworth qualified on pole in GTD Pro driving the No. 14 car for Vasser Sullivan Racing.^[41] Mirko Bortolotti had set the second fastest time, but had all his laps deleted after getting out of the No. 63 Iron Lynx Lamborghini before the session ended.^[42] Antonio García in the No. 3 Corvette was promoted to second followed by Jules Gounon in the WeatherTech Racing entry.^[43] Ian James set the fastest time amongst all GTD cars driving the No. 27 car for Heart of Racing Team, 0.052 seconds faster than GTD Pro pole sitter Hawksworth.^[44][43] James was over six-tenths clear of Doriane Pin in the No. 83 Lamborghini followed by Aaron Telitz in the No. 12 Lexus.^[45]

The second session was for cars in the LMP2 and LMP3 classes. Ben Keating's No. 52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports Oreca was fastest overall, lapping at 1 minute, 13.859 seconds, beating Steven Thomas in the No. 11 TDS Racing entry by 0.020 seconds.^[46] John Falb was third in the sister No. 35 TDS Racing Oreca followed by George Kurtz in the No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing car, and François Perrodo rounded out the top five.^[43] Glenn van Berlo's No. 36 Andretti Autosport Ligier was fifteenth overall and the fastest LMP3 class car with a 1-minute, 16.674 seconds lap. Rasmus Lindh's No. 85 JDC-Miller MotorSports Duqueine was second and Bijoy Garg's No. 30 Jr III Motorsports Ligier was third.^[42]

The final session of qualifying was for the GTP class. Louis Delétraz in the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura was sixth overall and would start from pole position with a lap time of 1 minute, 15.402 seconds. Delétraz was over two-tenths clear of Sébastien Bourdais in the No. 01 Cadillac followed by Augusto Farfus in the No. 24 BMW M Team RLL entry.^[46] Filipe Albuquerque and Ricky Taylor took the lead of the GTP Drivers' Championship by nine points over Derani and Sims.^[44]

Pole positions in each class are indicated in bold and by ‡.

Pos.	Class	No.	Team	Driver	Time	Gap	Grid
1	LMP2	52	PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports	Ben Keating	1:13.859	_	11‡
2	LMP2	11	TDS Racing	Steven Thomas	1:13.879	+0.020	12
3	LMP2	35	TDS Racing	John Falb	1:14.380	+0.521	13
4	LMP2	04	CrowdStrike Racing by APR	George Kurtz	1:14.547	+0.688	14
5	LMP2	88	AF Corse	François Perrodo	1:15.157	+1.298	15
6	GTP	10	Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport	Louis Delétraz	1:15.402	+1.543	1‡
7	LMP2	20	High Class Racing	Dennis Andersen	1:15.547	+1.688	16
8	LMP2	8	Tower Motorsports	Ari Balogh	1:15.559	+1.700	17
9	GTP	01	Cadillac Racing	Sébastien Bourdais	1:15.632	+1.773	2
10	GTP	24	BMW M Team RLL	Augusto Farfus	1:15.731	+1.872	3
11	LMP2	18	Era Motorsport	Dwight Merriman	1:15.771	+1.912	18
12	GTP	60	Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian	Tom Blomqvist	1:15.847	+1.988	4
13	GTP	6	Porsche Penske Motorsport	Nick Tandy	1:16.219	+2.360	5
14	GTP	25	BMW M Team RLL	Connor De Phillippi	1:16.371	+2.512	6
15	LMP3	36	Andretti Autosport	Glenn van Berlo	1:16.674	+2.815	19‡
16	LMP3	85	JDC-Miller MotorSports	Rasmus Lindh	1:16.803	+2.944	20
17	GTP	7	Porsche Penske Motorsport	Felipe Nasr	1:16.860	+3.001	7
18	LMP3	30	Jr III Motorsports	Bijoy Garg	1:16.947	+3.088	21
19	GTP	31	Whelen Engineering Racing	Pipo Derani	1:17.657	+3.798	8
20	GTP	5	JDC-Miller MotorSports	Mike Rockenfeller	1:18.204	+4.345	9
21	LMP3	13	AWA	Orey Fidani	1:19.693	+5.834	22
22	GTD	27	Heart of Racing Team	Ian James	1:23.116	+9.257	26‡
23	GTD Pro	14	Vasser Sullivan Racing	Jack Hawksworth	1:23.168	+9.309	27‡
24	GTD	83	Iron Dames	Doriane Pin	1:23.795	+9.936	28
25	GTD	12	Vasser Sullivan Racing	Aaron Telitz	1:23.847	+9.988	29
26	GTD	97	Turner Motorsport	Bill Auberlen	1:24.036	+10.177	30
27	GTD Pro	3	Corvette Racing	Antonio García	1:24.099	+10.240	31
28	GTD	57	Winward Racing	Philip Ellis	1:24.151	+10.292	32
29	GTD Pro	79	WeatherTech Racing	Jules Gounon	1:24.220	+10.361	33
30	GTD Pro	9	Pfaff Motorsports	Patrick Pilet	1:24.287	+10.428	34
31	GTD Pro	62	Risi Competizione	Daniel Serra	1:24.419	+10.560	35
32	GTD	66	Gradient Racing	Katherine Legge	1:24.760	+10.901	36
33	GTD	70	Inception Racing	Brendan Iribe	1:24.797	+10.938	37
34	GTD Pro	23	Heart of Racing Team	Alex Riberas	1:25.047	+11.188	38
35	GTD	80	AO Racing Team	Sebastian Priaulx	1:25.080	+11.221	521
36	GTD	93	Racers Edge Motorsports with WTR Andretti	Kyle Marcelli	1:25.088	+11.229	39
37	GTD	1	Paul Miller Racing	Madison Snow	1:25.123	+11.264	40
38	GTD Pro	61	AF Corse	Miguel Molina	1:25.131	+11.272	41
39	GTD	78	Forte Racing powered by US RaceTronics	Misha Goikhberg	1:25.529	+11.670	42
40	GTD	32	Korthoff Preston Motorsports	Mike Skeen	1:25.533	+11.674	43
41	GTD	47	Cetilar Racing	Antonio Fuoco	1:25.5352	+11.676	44
42	GTD	16	Wright Motorsports	Zacharie Robichon	1:25.569	+11.710	45
43	GTD	96	Turner Motorsport	Michael Dinan	1:25.733	+11.874	46
44	GTD	77	Wright Motorsports	Alan Brynjolfsson	1:26.060	+12.201	47
45	GTD	023	Triarsi Competizione	Charlie Scardina	1:27.718	+13.859	48
46	GTD	44	Magnus Racing	John Potter	1:27.758	+13.899	49
47	LMP3	17	AWA	Anthony Mantella	1:36.721	+22.862	23
48	LMP3	38	Performance Tech Motorsports	No time3			25
49	GTP	59	Proton Competition	Neel Jani	No time4		10
50	GTD Pro	63	Iron Lynx	Mirko Bortolotti	No time5		52
51	LMP3	74	Riley Motorsports	Did not participate			24
52	GTD	92	Kelly-Moss with Riley	Did not participate			51
Sources:[47][48]

• ¹ The No. 80 AO Racing Team entry was moved to the back of the GTD field for starting the race with a different driver than who qualified.^[49]
• ² The No. 47 Cetilar Racing entry had its four fastest laps deleted after failing to adhere to boost control requirements.^[50][51]
• ³ The No. 38 Performance Tech Motorsports entry had all qualifying laps forfeited after Cameron Shields got out of the car before the session ended.^[43]
• ⁴ The No. 59 Proton Competition entry had all qualifying laps forfeited due to the team making unapproved work on the car.
• ⁵ The No. 63 Iron Lynx entry had all qualifying laps forfeited after Mirko Bortolotti got out of the car before the session ended.

A 20-minute warm up session was held on the morning of October 14.^[27] Felipe Nasr lapped fastest with a time of 1:20.007, 1.082 seconds faster than Harry Tincknell in the No. 59 Porsche.^[52] Anders Fjordbach led LMP2 while Rasmus Lindh was fastest in LMP3.^[53] The fastest GTD Pro lap was a 1:28.320, set by Daniel Serra in the No. 62 Ferrari, and Danny Formal's No. 93 Acura set the fastest time amongst all GTD cars.^[51]