The GT Daytona class honours at the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season finale at Road Atlanta went the way of the #29 Montaplast by Land-Motorsport Audi R8 LMS trio of Connor de Phillippi, Christopher Mies and Sheldon van der Linde, with each driver taking their first victory in the championship.
The team only made three appearances all season long, taking part in the two endurance events at the beginning of the season at Daytona and Sebring, before coming to the Motul Petit Le Mans finale.
The team were embroiled in a close race throughout the ten-hour event, but eventually came through for the victory by 15.518 seconds from the #28 Alegra Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R of Michael Christensen, Michael de Quesada and Daniel Morad.
For Mies, it was a good response to come back into the championship and makes amends for their Daytona result, which saw them come close to victory but ultimately settle for second.
“Having been so close to winning at Daytona makes this an even more unbelievable feeling,” said Mies. “I’m very proud of the entire team. The racing was really tough, but the team gave us a perfect strategy.”
De Phillippi also admitted that the failure to win in Daytona left a sour taste in their mouths, so it was good to put it all together to win at Road Atlanta and end the season on a high.
“We almost got our first win at Daytona,” said De Phillippi on autoweek.com. “We left there with a very sour taste in our mouth because we knew it was right in front of us.
“We recovered, we did some homework. We improved in some areas we knew we needed to after the first two rounds and we came here and gave it all we had.”