FIRST STATESIDE VICTORY FOR IRON LYNX WITH PETIT LE MANS TRIUMPH

Iron Lynx took its first victory in the United States by winning the IMSA Sportscar Championship season-ending Petit Le Mans in the GTD Pro class with Jordan Pepper, Mirko Bortolotti and Franck Perera behind the wheel of the #19 Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2.

The relentless, twisty four-kilometre Road Atlanta hosted its annual 10-hour season finale, with a grid packed full of 53 cars across GTP, LMP2, GTD Pro and GTD. Traffic management, strategy and not being caught out by cautions as ever was key. The trio of drivers, all with schedule clashes last time out at Indianapolis, were all ready to race into the night.

Free Practice was a mixed bag for the team – a strong start was followed by modest sessions in the night and through into Friday. Franck took the wheel for the short Qualifying session to determine the grid and put the car seventh on the grid in class.

Each of the opening stints from the trio of drivers were stellar. Franck worked his way up into fourth through a pair of early cautions, while Jordan worked into the lead and pulled away from the #23 Aston Martin, before Mirko consolidated this into a lead of around half a minute during a clear run of action.

The action was brought back under caution after four hours, at which point the team was leading and clinched maximum points for the IMSA Endurance Cup for that section of the race. The team went slightly off strategy from there, having an advantage in fuel over their nearest competitors but at the cost of track position.

Franck was back behind the wheel in fourth place. He held that position, before handing back to Mirko who was able to work his way back into the podium places during one of the pitstop cycles. The racing was clean throughout the middle portion of the race, so the time had to be made up on the track. Jordan was back behind the wheel, and notably closed the gap to the #62 Ferrari in front, which was off sequence.

Jordan was right on the back of the #62 with three hours to go and pitted slightly earlier during his next stop to head more towards the same strategy of the #62 and #23. This was a move which paid off, as Jordan swept into second on the road with 2h40 remaining. The car ahead was now the #3 Corvette, which had to make an extra, shorter stop.

By leading at the 8-hour mark, the team once again clinched the points for the Endurance Cup. During the penultimate stops, all of the leading cars went onto a similar strategy which put the #19 back in the lead with Franck in the car with a small lead over the #62.

As the final couple of hours ticked off, the battle for the win was between the #19 and the #62, separated by just a few seconds throughout. There was a caution with just under an hour to go, but thankfully the #19 pitted just before the pits closed, leaving the team at the front for the restart to the line with Jordan back behind the wheel with 35 minutes left.

Jordan opened up a four-second lead in the first few laps after the restart as the #62 and #23 did battle and controlled the gap at the front to the chequered flag to come home and secure a historic victory for Iron Lynx in one of the modern-day endurance classics.

We are super happy, but sometimes when everything goes right, it almost looks easy. We started well, we led most of the race and everything went smoothly. The drivers, the team, everyone did a perfect job So this goes out to the whole team, because everyone has put in so much effort in what we’ve done until now and it’s been so hard to get to this win. So it is very special to win a race like Petit Le Mans, especially after a long and difficult journey to get here.

Andrea Piccini, Iron Lynx Team Principal & CEO: