Petit Le Mans 2015 Results: Final Complete Leaderboard, Highlights and More

The 2015 Petit Le Mans descended on Road Atlanta Saturday afternoon, but driving rain forced the International Motor Sports Association to break out the checkered flag two hours early as Nick Tandy and Patrick Pilet took home a title for Porsche North America Racing. 

Porsche Racing's official Twitter account relayed video of the team's celebration: 

Tandy made his money during the eighth and final hour of what was scheduled to be a 10-hour race. He blazed past Eric Curran and proceeded to post absurd lap splits, as NBC Sports' Tony DiZinno reported:

A look at Saturday's top 10 finishers can be viewed below, with complete results available courtesy of IMSA: 

Position	Team	Car Type	Seconds Behind Leader
1	Tandy, Pilet, Lietz	Porsche 911 RSR	----
2	J. Edwards, Luhr, Klingmann	BMW Z4 GTE	5.475
3	Barbosa, Fittipaldi, Bourdais	Chevy Corvette DP	8.524
4	Hand, Pruett, Dixon	Ford EcoBoost Riley DP	8.773
5	Curran, Cameron, Papis	Chevy Corvette DP	9.908
6	Gavin, Milner, Briscoe	Chevy Corvette C7.R	11.764
7	R. Taylor, J. Taylor, Angelelli	Chevy Corvette DP	13.378
8	Auberlen, Werner, Farfus	BMW Z4 GTE	14.446
9	Kaffer, Fisichella, Vilander	Ferrari F458 Italia	20.840
10	Magnussen, Garcia, Briscoe	Chevy Corvette C7.R	1 Lap

While the rain-or-shine nature of the race can make it an exciting spectacle, storms did more harm than good Saturday. SportsCar365.com's John Dagys passed along sound bites from Corvette driver Oliver Gavin that really put things in perspective:   

Poor racing conditions overshadowed the day, as rain pelted Petit Le Mans hopefuls throughout the first five hours of the race. While officials strayed from suspending proceedings for quite some time, downpours with four hours and 38 minutes remaining ultimately forced things to get red-flagged. 

"We felt it appropriate to take a pause and let this cell get past us, which I’m confident it will," race director Beaux Barfield told International Motor Sports Association Radio, per SportsCar365.com, via FoxSports.com. "Once we get the track regained, we are prepared to wait it out and restart this race."

Dagys relayed a telling quote regarding visibility midway through the competition:

The red flag stayed out for roughly an hour, but as SportsCar365 displayed on Twitter, the track was still soaked when drivers returned to the course at Road Atlanta:

Speed's overview of the track reinforced just how murky the track was: 

Prior to the stoppage, sloppy conditions wreaked havoc on the hopes of Michael Shank Racing's team. Specifically, driver John Pew was involved in a big crash that forced him to drop out of the 10-hour marathon. He was also involved in a wreck Thursday. 

Shank confirmed his team's withdrawal from the race but maintained an optimistic tone in thanking his crew: 

"

Amazing group of people that continue to impress me with their never give up attitude ..

— Michael Shank (@MichaelShankRac) October 3, 2015"

Once the cars were back on the track, Anthony Lazaro joined Shank and Co. in the garage, per Michelin Alley: 

Richard Westbrook—who grabbed the pole position for the Prototype race—was among the early pace-setters. The pole-sitter led the entire first hour of the conquest, and he maintained that status throughout a solid portion of the race's second hour despite challenges from Christian Fittipaldi and Dane Cameron. 

Following his success in qualifying, Westbrook was bursting with confidence regarding his car's ability to compete on a wet and wild track, per USA Today's Jeff Olson:

"

We’ve got a better car in the wet, probably better than we’ve got in the dry. The weather forecast is making us smile at the moment, but it’s changing all the time, so we’ll see. It’s just such a long race. Petit Le Mans is brutal with all the traffic and everybody running for a championship. It’s going to be pretty mad out there.

"

However, Westbrook and his VisitFlorida.com Corvette weren't able to live up to expectations, as the drenched track proved to be too big of a beast to tame. Westbrook's squad finished in 12th, two laps behind Tandy. 

Porsche Racing was the star of the day, but the best news was that there weren't any catastrophic crashes. IMSA made the right call to cut the race short and did well to make the best of a bad situation as Road Atlanta was positively saturated.