A nearly 10 hour long battle, intertwined with a season long war, was on display as the ultra-competitive ALMS GT class drama played out at Road Atlanta.

Top GT teams from Porsche, BMW, Corvette, Ferrari and SRT Viper slugged it out to claim Petit Le Mans honors, but it was the Derrick Walker led #17 Porsche, driven by Nick Tandy, Wolf Henzler and Bryan Sellers that prevailed by 0.741 seconds.

The victory for Porsche means that all five car manufacturers competing in the GT class claimed at least one victory in 2013 ALMS competition

In a race of 1000 miles where attrition is expected, 10 of the 11 GT starters finished, and several overcame unscheduled stops, traffic, ompetition.
contact and changing weather conditions.

While Porsche celebrated the race win, it was Corvette Racing drivers Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia who claimed the season long prize as winners of the 2013 ALMS GT Driver championship with their sixth place finish.

Taking second place in both the race and the drivers’ championship was the #56 BMW Team RLL of Dirk Muller, accompanied by co-drivers Bill Auberlen and John Edwards.

Completing the GT race podium was the Risi Competizione Ferrari F458 Italia of Matteo Malucelli, Olivier Beretta and Robin Liddell.

Fourth place went to BMW Team RLL’s Maxime Martin, Jorg Mueller and Uwe Alzen, followed by the SRT GTS-R Viper of Jonathan Bomarito, Kuno Wittmer and Tommy Kendall.

Seventh place finisher Marc Goossens of SRT Viper, teamed with Ryan Dalziel and Dominik Farnbacher, claimed the fastest GT lap of the race. Their race effort was ultimately undone by time spent in the pit lane repairing bodywork damaged during racing incidents.

Finishing eighth was CORE Autosport Porsche of Patrick Long, Colin Braun and Michael Christensen, followed by the Team West AJR Ferrari of Bill Sweedler, Leh Keen and Johnny Mowlem.

Unable to overcome a costly early stop was the #4 Corvette of 2012 series champions Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner which finished tenth.