IMSA's championships down to the wire

Titles in all three of IMSA’s WeatherTech SportsCar Championship classes are up for grabs Saturday night at Petit Le Mans.

The prized Drivers’, Manufacturers’, and Teams’ championships in Prototype, GT Le Mans, and GT Daytona championships will be settled, and the Tequila Patron North American Endurance Cup crowns are also waiting to be handed out at the conclusion of Road Atlanta’s 10-hour season finale.

With all the complexities of the TPNAEC and its multiple points payouts during the race in mind, we’ll focus on the primary titles.

Prototype

The long-held lead by Action Express Racing’s Felipe Nasr and Eric Curran in the No. 31 Cadillac DPi-V.R has come under fire from CORE autosport’s Pro-Am ORECA 07-Gibson piloted by team owner Jon Bennett and co-driver Colin Braun.

Take the modest four-point advantage AXR holds over CORE (254-250), and the sizable gap to the third-place Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac team (235), and it means Petit will be a showdown between the Nos. 31 and 54 as all other drivers and teams have been ruled out of the title fight.

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If CORE intends to overtake AXR in the standings, a bit of separation will be required at the checkered flag. A win by CORE won’t be enough; AXR’s No. 31 would need to finish third (285-284) or worse for the independent squad to knock off the entire field of factory DPis for the Drivers’ and Teams’ championships. If CORE places second, it needs AXR to place no higher than fourth (282-282) to emerge victorious (with more wins, CORE takes the title on a tie).

Due to IMSA’s miserly point payout structure, after second place, a similar cadence develops where a third for CORE will only bring the titles if AXR is fifth (280-280). If CORE’s fourth, AXR must be no better than seventh (278-278) for Bennett and Braun to win, and so on.

Image by Levitt/LAT

In a very general sense, if AXR is going to retain its lead and become champions for the fourth time in five IMSA seasons, the No. 31 must finish in front of the No. 54 or stay within one or two positions if both cars are running toward the front of the Prototype field.

As the Drivers’ and Teams’ points are identical, both championships will go to AXR or CORE.

On the Manufacturers’ front, Cadillac will win the title by taking the start.

Image by Levitt/LAT

GT Le Mans

Following the Prototype theme with AXR and CORE, GTLM has come down to two entries vying for the Drivers’ and Teams’ title as the rest of the grid was ruled out after Monterey.

It’s the No. 3 Corvette Racing C7.R driven by Antonio Garcia and Jan Magnussen against the No. 67 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing GT with Ryan Briscoe and Richard Westbrook. Corvette vs. Ford…it’s as ‘Murrican as IMSA can muster.

GTLM is also the only class where a significant gap is held between first and second place (299-290), and while nine points might not look like much, it leaves the Ford gang with few options to overcome the Corvette camp. In a class with nine entries, all the No. 3 team needs to do is finish fourth or better and the No. 67 is powerless to overcome Garcia and Magnussen.

Briscoe and Westbrook have two very simple choices on Saturday if they want to head home as champions: win or finish second and hope the No. 3 has a bad day. For Ford to celebrate, it will need the No. 67 to place first and watch as the No. 3 rises no higher than fifth (325-325) to take the title on a tie-breaker due to having more wins.

If the Ford is second, Briscoe and Westbrook will need the Corvette to fall out early and place eighth (322-322) or ninth (322-321) in the nine-car class to celebrate. With the C7.R’s renowned reliability, the steady driver rotation, and the fast hands among its pit crew, it would take a shocking event for the No. 3 to fall out of contention and hand the No. 67 the title if the Ford does not win the race.

FCGR’s mindset must be win-or-bust owing to the long odds involved with placing second.

As the Drivers’ and Teams’ points are identical, both championships will go to Corvette or Ford.

On the Manufacturers’ front, Ford will win the title by taking the start.

Image by Levitt/LAT

GT Daytona

Between the four-point Prototype lead held by AXR and the nine-point advantage held by Corvette in GTLM, we have Paul Miller Racing and the six points it holds over Meyer Shank Racing (303-297) resting somewhere in the middle.

PMR’s Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow have been nothing but steady in their No. 48 Lamborghini Huracan GT3, and in one of the season’s great storylines, Katherine Legge -- only scheduled for the four TPNAEC rounds -- has held onto second with the No. 86 MSR Acura NSX GT3 after getting the full-time nod.

Thanks to a revolving cast of co-drivers, it’s Legge against Sellers and Snow, and with a six-point gap, she has a few more options to catch and pass the No. 48 crew. But it won’t be easy.

The PMR team will be IMSA’s new GTD champions if the No. 48 finishes first, second, or third. Period. The title can tilt in favor of Legge and MSR if the No. 86 wins and the No. 48 is no better than fourth (332-331). If both teams fail to win and end up tied on points, the championship would go to the No. 86 based on having more seconds (3-1).

Image by Levitt/LAT

If Legge is second, she’d win if the No. 48 is no higher than fifth (329-329). If she’s third and the PMR drivers are no better than seventh, she’d also win (327-327). With 14 cars entered in GTD, Legge’s odds improve if the Lamborghini team struggles, but it’s also worth noting the No. 48’s worst finish this year is a sixth.

There’s no guarantee the streak will continue, but history does indicate PMR tends to get to the checkered flag, and in a competitive manner. As much as MSR would welcome bad luck visiting its title rivals, it knows defeating PMR will likely have to take place over 300-plus hard-fought laps.

As the Drivers’ and Teams’ points are identical, both championships will go to PMR or MSR.

On the Manufacturers’ front, Lamborghini will win the title if a Huracan GT3 finishes seventh or better. Acura’s only shot will come by winning and having the top Lamborghini place eighth or worse.

A Few Parting Prototype Thoughts:

• CORE will have its monster lineup in position as Le Mans winner and ALMS champion Romain Dumas returns to partner with Bennett and Braun. At the Rolex 24 At Daytona, with Dumas and Braun doing most of the heavy lifting, the trio was a fighting third at the finish line. Bennett’s been fast, Braun’s been a miracle worker, and with Dumas inserted for the most important race of the year, AXR are in for a tussle.

• AXR will have IndyCar/IMSA veteran Gabby Chaves in the No. 31 to complement Nasr and Curran, who will step back from full-time driving after Petit. Chaves has experience with the team after subbing for the injured Joao Barbosa at Watkins Glen, and in the DeltaWing a few years ago at Petit, he was an absolute rocket. Just as AXR will have headaches with the CORE team, CORE can look forward to similar problems from the point leaders. Barring contact and misfortune, a proper duel for the Prototype championship awaits fans at Road Atlanta.

• Let’s also acknowledge the

  mindset that’s worked wonders for the CORE team. Nobody at CORE expected to be in this position, and as it has risen up the standings to displace all but one DPi entry, there’s been a palpable sense of joy and surprise. They will race extremely hard in pursuit of the title, but only one team -- AXR -- would leave Road Atlanta feeling depressed if the championship was lost. Being able to race freely could benefit Bennett, Braun, and Dumas.

• WTR and Mazda Team Joest are among the front-running teams with one chance left to earn their first win of the year.

• Along with Curran, Tequila Patron ESM’s Johannes van Overbeek will curtail his driving career after Road Atlanta. ESM is also preparing to bid farewell to Patron as its title sponsor Saturday night.

Image by Galstad/LAT

A Few Parting GTLM Thoughts:

• For the sake of posterity, if the No. 3 Corvette ends up winning the championship, it wouldn’t hurt if the team also won the race. Without a victory at Petit Le Mans, Garcia and Magnussen would be crowned as season-long champions without scoring win from Daytona through Road Atlanta.

• From the 10 GTLM rounds held so far, the No. 3 has been on the podium eight times. That’s why the Spanish-Danish duo are on the cusp of another title.

• By comparison, the No. 67 has only visited the podium four times from 10 chances, but three of those appearances involved spraying champagne from the top step. Using a point structure where consistency is rewarded over wins, Corvette’s winless streak has been rendered meaningless by its 80-percent finishing rate inside the top three. At 40 percent for the Ford, its three wins -- more than any other GTLM entry -- have been the big differentiator to keep its title ambitions alive.

• The chances are somewhat remote, but if the No. 67 has a spectacularly bad race, the sister No. 66 Ford and the No. 912 Porsche 911 RSR entries could leapfrog their way to second overall in the Drivers’ and Teams’ standings.

• Of the eight full-season GTLM entries, only the aforementioned No. 3 Corvette and the No. 24 BMW Team RLL teams enter Petit Le Mans without wins.

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  Image by Galstad/LAT

  Provided the private testing continues according to plan, Saturday could mark the final IMSA race for Corvette’s venerable front-engine C7.R as the mid-engine turbocharged C8.R is readied for competition.

• After Petit, Ford will have completed three of its four-year GTLM program with the GT.

A Few Parting GTD Thoughts:

• Corvette-like consistency has been the magic formula for PMR. Seven podiums, including a streak of five straight to open 2018, has been impressive in a class with so much diversity in talent and vehicle type.

• Heading into the final TPNAEC round of the year in need of a podium to guarantee the title, here’s a friendly PMR factoid to tuck away: from the three TPNAEC rounds held so far, the No. 48 is the only GTD entry with a 100-percent finishing rate on the podium.

• As far as two-horse races go, it’s been PMR and MSR all season. The Riley Motorsports Mercedes-AMG of Ben Keating and Jeroen Bleekemolen is a solid third, but with a whopping 21-point margin to Legge, there’s no chance to improve to second.

• If Legge wins the GTD title, she’ll become the third woman in succession to do so after Christina Nielsen scored back-to-back championships in 2016 and 2017.

• Whether it’s Legge or the combo of Sellers and Snow, the MSR driver or the PMR twosome will win their first major professional title once the GTD race is over.

And finally:

• In a growing list of farewells, Continental’s role as IMSA’s official tire supplier will meet its end after Petit Le Mans; Michelin will take over the position starting in 2019. FOX will also host its last IMSA race after decades of covering endurance events, including the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Grand-Am, and the ALMS. NBC/NBCSN grabs the baton in January.