The #17 Falken Tire Porsche 911 RSR, in the final race for the Falken program, endured a turbulent weekend with good pace through practice, a costly off in qualifying that necessitated an overnight re-build in order for the team to make the drop of the green flag, and then a race fraught with rain and standing water. When the mist cleared, Patrick Long, Bryan Sellers and Wolf Henzler finished in P7, having run as high as P2 during the race.
The deluge created tricky conditions for all the competitors, and when IMSA called time on the race due to the treacherous conditions at the 7:51:00 mark of a scheduled 10-hour race, the GTLM class #911 of Nick Tandy, Patrick Pilet and Richard Lietz made history by claiming the overall win. In so doing, Pilet won his first United SportsCar Championship driver’s title, and Porsche won both the GTLM manufacturer’s and team titles.
Up next for Patrick is the FIA WEC’s visit to Fuji, in Japan. Free Practice 1 will kick off at 11:15am local time on Friday, Oct. 9.
