It’s IMSA’s own championship Saturday, with the traditional season finale in Atlanta set to serve up a stormer over the next 10 hours of action as we say farewell to Lamborghini’s SC63, set to be retired after this race.

The third hour began under FCY conditions and remained there for roughly 10 minutes, as Tom Blomqvist held the lead he’d had all race from Jack Aitken who had been his main pursuer thus far.

Eventually through good use of traffic Jack Aitken got the move for the lead done at turn one, after nearly two hours and 20 minutes of chasing the #60 Acura.

Another advertising hoarding was destroyed soon after, as the #04 Crowdstrike LMP2 hit one along the back straight heading towards turn 10 and pitted for both a refuel and also to fix the damage sustained to the front right bodywork.

To make matters worse the crew would then sustain a drive through penalty for firing up the car while it was still on the jacks in its pit box.

LMP2 then had its second pit cycle of the race with just under 7:30 on the clock, during which time the #2 of United Autosports found itself in the barriers with Juan Manuel Correa leaving the track at turn 7 after running wide on his outlap. The damage was significant, with the team having to change the entire front nose before it could fire up again.

Lamborghini, in their last race, became the first GTP to have a drive through penalty against their name, again for blocking as the pit cycle went round again for GTP.

LMP2 was seeing the majority of the attrition, and the next car to hit trouble would be the #8 Tower Motorsports machine of Sebastian Alvarez suffered massive damage to the chassis as the #21 AF Corse GTD Ferrari was also in the wall. A lengthy full course yellow was called out as the #8 was smoking all over.

After another round of GTP pitstops Mathieu Jaminet led for Porsche in the #6 ahead of Colin Braun, who had been installed in the #60 in place of Blomqvist as Kevin Magnussen’s #24 BMW and the #40 of Louis Deletraz gave chase. LMP2 was now in the hands of Paul Di Resta in the #22 United Autosports car as former race leaders #43 were handed a drive through penalty. AO Racing’s #77 Rexy still led GTD Pro and the #21 AF Corse Ferrari was now leading GTD with Alessandro Pier Guidi behind the wheel.

Meanwhile GTD Pro was hotting up, as the two title rivals, the #81 of Dragonspeed and Corvette’s #3 were fighting tooth and nail for every position and both running in the top five. It was essentially a dogfight, the winner going to whichever car finished higher if both finished in the top five. As things stood they ran fourth and fifth.

The next LMP2 to find trouble was the #99 of AO Racing, Spike the Dragon, with rear bodywork damage from contact with the #88 AF Corse LMP2 that left it dragging down the back straight and forcing it to pit. The #88 was subsequently handed a drive through penalty.

With four hours gone then, the GTP order remains unchanged with Mathieu Jaminet leading the way in his #6 Porsche ahead of Colin Braun’s #60 and Kevin Magnussen’s #24. LMP2 too is unaltered with Paul Di Resta heading the field in his #22 ahead of Michel Jensen’s TDS Racing #11 and Tom Dillmann’s former race leading #43. GTD Pro is currently led by the #48 BMW of Connor Di Phillippi though as of now it’s the #81 of Dragonspeed that leads the championship with Davide Rigon in the cockpit. Alessandro Pier Guidi continues to lead GTD in his #21 AF Corse Ferrari.

thumbnail credit – Osajus Photography from Oconee, SC, United States, CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons