Petit Le Mans

Petit Le Mans (French for Little Le Mans) is a sports car endurance race held annually at Road Atlanta in Braselton, Georgia, United States. The race has been held for a duration of 10 hours since 2014, having previously been held for either 1,000 miles (1,600 km) or 10 hours, whichever came first.^[1][2] In addition to the overall race, teams compete for class victories in different categories, divided into prototypes and grand tourers.

The race was founded by Road Atlanta owner Don Panoz to bring the rules and spirit of the 24 Hours of Le Mans to North America. The success of the inaugural event in 1998, held as part of the IMSA season with a special one-off format, led to the creation of the American Le Mans Series in 1999 with a similar formula. Petit Le Mans was a flagship event for the ALMS, which became the most prominent top-class sports car racing series during the 2000s. The 2010 and 2011 editions were also part of the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup, the precursor of the World Endurance Championship. Since 2014 the race has been one of the crown jewel events of the IMSA SportsCar Championship. Class winners of the event originally received an automatic invitation to the following year's 24 Hours of Le Mans, however this was removed in 2012.

The race is considered one of the most important endurance races in the world and is one of the largest such events in North America, along with the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring.^{[3][4][5][6][7]} Rinaldo Capello holds the record of most race wins, having won in 2000, 2002, 2006, 2007 and 2008.

Following the demise of the World Sportscar Championship in 1992, sports car racing was left without a major worldwide series in which to compete. The 24 Hours of Le Mans remained a remnant, still competed by a large number of sports cars, but mostly on a single race basis. Various sports car leagues had sprung up since the WSC's demise without major success, including the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA)'s replacement for their GTP series, the Professional SportsCar Racing series. In Europe, two series were also developed, the FIA Sportscar Championship and the FIA GT Championship, although they were not combined like IMSA's series.

Don Panoz, owner of the Road Atlanta racing course, collaborated with the organizers of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO), to form a new sports car endurance race at the track for 1998, called Petit Le Mans (French for little Le Mans). The event would adopt the ACO's rules, and in addition to agreeing to lend the Le Mans name out to Panoz, the ACO offered class winners automatic invitations to the following year's 24 Hours of Le Mans. The race would be similar to the 12 Hours of Sebring, in that it did not run a full 24 hours like Le Mans. Instead, the race would be 10 hours or 1,000 miles (1,600 km), whichever came first. IMSA agreed to let the race be the season finale of their series with a special one-off format, featuring competitors from Le Mans. However, IMSA and Le Mans ran slightly different formulas for their competitors, thus forcing the organizers to create seven different classes: LMP1, LMGT1, and LMGT2 for the ACO-compliant cars, and WSC, GT1, GT2, and GT3 for IMSA's competitors. Even though both organizers used the GT1 and GT2 names the classes were not actually the same, which is why the ACO classes are preceded by LM.

If Petit Le Mans proved to be successful, the ACO would look into developing a series around the same formula. The inaugural event in 1998 attracted 31 entries, including that year's 24 Hours of Le Mans-winning Porsche factory team. A satisfactory number of spectators attended the event, while overall honors for the race were contested between the factory Porsche 911 GT1-98 and LMP1-98 cars as well as multiple Ferrari 333 SPs and Panoz Esperante GTR-1s. Before the race had finished, an agreement was made for Panoz to establish the American Le Mans Series in 1999 with the support of the ACO, replacing the IMSA GT Championship.^{[8][9][10][11]}

The 2009 and 2015 races were shortened due to heavy rains making the track impassable. The 2015 race featured the first time a GT car won overall against the faster prototypes. Rain created a flooded track the entire race causing multiple cautions and a red flag, allowing GTLM cars to leap-frog the prototypes that were struggling for grip in the conditions.^[12] Nick Tandy, winner of the 2015 24 Hours of Le Mans, and co-driver Patrick Pilet took the checkered flag when officials called the race with a little over two hours remaining.

• Grand Prix of Atlanta

• Petit Le Mans
• IMSA SportsCar Championship official site