The 2025 IMSA SportsCar Championship will reach its dramatic conclusion this Saturday at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta with Petit Le Mans, the now-traditional season closer for the US-based premier sportscar championship.
Petit Le Mans was formerly an American Le Mans Series (ALMS) event, created in 1998 as a precursor to the first full ALMS season the following year. It's held at Road Atlanta, a 2.5 miles / 4 kilometre circuit in Georgia, United States.
Last year the #01 Chip Ganassi-run factory Cadillac won, driven by Sebastien Bourdais, Renger van der Zande, and Scott Dixon. Porsche finished second and third.
Phil Oakley
A championship showdown across four classes
The final weekend of the season brings with it a staggering number of titles still up for grabs. In all, more than 20 championships, spanning drivers, teams, and manufacturers, remain undecided across the GTP, LMP2, GTD PRO, and GTD classes. The Michelin-sponsored Endurance Cup, which rewards success across the series’ five longest races, is also on the line.
The only class with breathing room is GTD, where the #57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 trio of Philip Ellis, Russell Ward, and company essentially need only to start the race to secure their respective driver, team, and manufacturer titles. Everywhere else, the fight remains wide open.
There’s also the matter of IMSA’s coveted Bob Akin award, which comes with an invitation to next year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans. This is awarded to the highest-finishing bronze-rated GTD driver in the championshop at the end of the year.
Brendan Iribe and Orey Fidani once again find themselves neck and neck for the award in GTD, having traded the honour back and forth the past two seasons. After Iribe’s victory at Indianapolis tied the standings, the award—and the Le Mans ticket—will be settled by whoever finishes higher on Saturday night.
Meanwhile, in LMP2, PJ Hyett leads Daniel Goldburg by a thin 85-point margin for the Jim Trueman Award, which does the same as the Bob Akin Award, but in LMP2. With such little separation, the LMP2 finale promises to be just as tense.
10 hours, one chance
Few races in the world match the intensity and unpredictability of Petit Le Mans. From the midday start at 12pm local time to 10p.m for the chequered flag, the event demands equal parts speed, stamina, and strategy. As darkness falls over Road Atlanta, so too does the true test begin.
'The night at Petit is incredibly important,' said Corvette Racing driver Alexander Sims. 'It’s sometimes the case that, depending on the car … you have to make a compromise and put up with a difficult car in the day so that it’s there for you at night.
'And that sometimes is a pretty bold call to make, honestly, to have to endure five or six hours of racing where you don’t have the pace, to trust that it’s going to come good in the end. And obviously sometimes it would and sometimes it wouldn’t.'
That endurance element is echoed by Albert Costa, who will drive the #81 DragonSpeed Ferrari 296 GT3.
'You survive the first, I don’t know, four hours in the sun, and then you prepare all weekend for the night, and this is going to be the most important thing. But you also need to keep the car alive . . . so I think the word I would use to describe it is “survive,” just survive.'
With 53 entries filling the track, roughly 21 cars per mile, survival is indeed half the battle.
A cleaner fight, but no less fierce
Following a midseason stretch of penalty-heavy weekends, IMSA race control has worked to raise driving standards without stifling competition. Drivers like Ollie Millroy of Inception Racing have noticed a shift.
'All that they’re saying is race each other, guys; go side-by-side a whole lap if you like, just race like adults,' he said. 'I really don’t think that they’re being unreasonable. The rules are pretty clear. We all know what they’re expecting.'
That attitude has resonated with others on the grid, including Sims.
'Honestly, I’m quite happy with it. I think the rules are there to be respected . . . Everybody can make mistakes. That happens. But there has certainly been a lot of racing in the past that was not mistakes.
'It was people knowingly driving other people off the track and, yeah, going beyond what I think the spirit of the racing should be. I think we can all probably agree that Road America was too out of hand. And so I think the right reaction has happened.'
Still, when championships are on the line, civility often goes out the window. Expect elbows out and nerves stretched thin in the closing hours.
The stage is set
Ten hours, four classes, 53 cars, and more than 20 titles on the line. The 2025 Motul Petit Le Mans has all the ingredients for a classic. What started at Daytona will end at Road Atlanta, where champions will rise, heartbreak will strike, and endurance will once again prove to be the ultimate measure of greatness.
Feature image: Michelin Racing
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