Big success at Petit Le Mans - Motorsport Recap
Petit Le Mans
It was a great weekend for Kiwis at IMSA’s final round of the year, the Petit Le Mans.
The 10-hour race at the iconic Road Atlanta circuit was won by Scott Dixon’s crew in the #01 Chip Ganassi Cadillac GTP car. The team fought back from early drive through penalties that put them two-laps down, taking the lead with just 15-minutes remaining in the race.
Hunter McElrea and his TDS racing crew won the LMP2 class by over 17 seconds, and with this victory, claimed the IMSA Endurance Cup Championship.
A damper on the weekend was heartbreak for Brendon Hartley’s #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura GTP car, which was taken out by a spun GTD car as they were moments away from taking the lead in the latter stages of the race.
Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe
Brendon Leitch had a stellar one-off appearance in the Super Trofeo Europe Championship with Leipert Motorsport in Barcelona.
The 2023 Super Trofeo Europe Champion dominated with his co-driver, taking pole-position and two wins. It would have been a clean sweep for the pairing, but contact with another car in the third race scuppered any chance of a good result.
Bathurst 1000
The Great Race ended in great disappointment for our drivers during the Bathurst 1000 weekend in October 2024.
Things looked promising when Matt Payne and Andre Heimgartner qualified with times good enough to make the top 10 shootout. Payne entered the shootout with provisional pole-position, but contact with the wall as he exited Forrest Elbow meant he was unable to consolidate his advantage, finishing the lap with a time good enough for just P7. Heimgartner also couldn’t capitalize on his qualifying promise, running wide in Hell Corner and ruining any chance of a good shootout result.
The race was a similar story of disappointment for the Kiwis, with Payne suffering a DNF after hitting the wall at The Cutting on the 132nd lap, putting an end to his charge through the field. At the end of the resulting safety car period, Ryan Wood ran off the road at Hell Corner and was unable to reclaim the positions he lost, finishing the race in P15. Heimgartner dropped back early in the race but fought up the field to finish in P16.
Payne's DNF dropped him to P6 in the championship, but he still sits as the highest placed Kiwi.
NASCAR
It was a weekend of 'what could have been' for Shane van Gisbergen.
The Supercars-champion took pole position in both the NASCAR Xfinity Series and Cup Series qualifyings at the Charlotte Roval Road Course.
SVG could easily have won the Xfinity series race, but a risky call to not come in for new tires in the latter stage of the race didn't pay off, with SVG dropping back to third place at the finish line. Unfortunately this result wasn’t enough to save the Kiwi from Playoffs elimination.
Van Gisbergen’s fortunes weren’t much better in the Cup Series race. Starting from pole, SVG ran at the front for much of the race until he was spun by another driver at the beginning of the final stage, falling out of the top 20. SVG managed a strong recovery drive to P7 in a race that should have been his to win.
Porsche Carrera Cup Australia
It was a weekend of improvement at Bathurst for Marco Giltrap as Porsche Carrera Cup supported the Bathurst 1000.
Being first outing in a 992 generation Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car on Mount Panorama, the young Kiwi’s confidence grew as the weekend progressed.
By the time the first race came around, Giltrap was fast enough to cross the line P12, just five seconds off the lead in what was an incredibly tight field. The rest of the weekend was consistent with race one, with Giltrap finishing race two and three close to the leader on pace, but due to the incredibly tight field, unable to crack the top 10.