"To be honest, today’s eleventh place was the best of my life."
There was no shortage of storylines to follow in the Petit Le Mans final round of the IMSA SportsCar Championship on Saturday.
A farewell victory for the Cadillac-Chip Ganassi Racing partnership before the GM manufacturer throws its lot in with Wayne Taylor Racing by Andretti next year was a feel-good conclusion following heartbreak for the WTR/Andretti crew, when an unsighted Ricky Taylor clouted a stranded Mustang in the middle of the road to end his and Filipe Albuquerque's title hopes. Then, there was a day of celebrations for Porsche.
To cap a dream day for the Weissach manufacturer, as Dane Cameron and Felipe Nasr clinched the IMSA SportsCar Championship GTP title with third place at Petit Le Mans in their Porsche Penske Motorsport 963, AO Racing also delivered the GTD Pro title with Laurin Heinrich.
The result hailed by AO team principal Gunnar Jeanette followed a run that was far from straightforward for the #77 911 GT3 R affectionately known as 'Rexy', in which 23-year-old former Porsche junior Heinrich was joined by Julien Andlauder and Michael Christensen.
Five laps in arrears, it meant a title that was Heinrich's to lose went uncomfortably close to the wire.
The German, who shared the car with Seb Priaulx for the first six rounds of the season, had enjoyed a 99-point margin over Heart of Racing Aston Martin driver Ross Gunn heading into the weekend and extended it further by snaring pole while Gunn managed third.
But that 104-point advantage was slashed to just four after 10 hours of racing at Road Atlanta.
Had Gunn managed to overcome the Risi Competizione Ferrari of Daniel Serra for second, in the car he shared with Alex Riberas and Roman De Angelis, he would have completed a remarkable turnaround. Ultimately, the Briton came up just 1.845s short.
The problem for Heinrich was a freak one: a faulty cable connection on the steering wheel that caused several unscheduled pitstops. Jeanette explained: “Everything was running perfectly initially but then we suffered a steering wheel problem. Our drivers had their work cut out for them because the car only shifted up every third or fourth attempt.”
Door-stepped for his thoughts during the race, Heinrich gave an honest assessment.
“We couldn't upshift anymore and then obviously being stuck in second, third or fourth gear around the lap, you break the rest of the car and you lose a lot of time,” he said, before adding: “It's a nightmare, it's the worst [thing] what could happen. We just needed to finish somewhere in the front and just not retire. I still hope I wake up from this nightmare, but I doubt it will happen.”
For Gunn and HofR, the team that will take Aston Martin into IMSA's GTP class and the World Endurance Championship's Hypercar division next year, Heinrich's setback amounted to a gift.
“We got a nice present early on in the race,” reflected Gunn after a day he described as “an emotional rollercoaster”.
“We knew that we needed some luck on our side to win the championship, and we definitely got that early on.”
AO's mechanics did their work in identifying and solving the problem, but the #77 Porsche was effectively powerless to affect the outcome. The ball lay in HofR's court, but AO's cause was helped by the presence of two interlopers that were not contesting the full season.
Like the Risi Ferrari 296 of Serra, Davide Rigon and Alessandro Pier Guidi, the leading Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracan driven by Jordan Pepper, Franck Perera and Mirko Bortolotti was a Michelin Endurance Cup entrant focused on the longer-distance rounds. But both would take crucial points away from Gunn's bid to deny Heinrich.
“The race remained a nail-biter to the very end,” said Jeanette. But ultimately, for HofR, it wasn't to be, despite Gunn setting the fastest GTD Pro lap of the race during what Riberas called “one of the best stints I've ever seen”.
“We threw everything at it,” said a disappointed Gunn.
But for Heinrich, he was left to reflect on the 1m17.881s lap that had given him that crucial pole position as the difference-maker that helped to give him the greatest success of his young career.
