The Peugeot played catch-up for most of the early stages of the race, but when the race stopped due to rain were in first place.

BRASELTON, Ga — In the end the only real winner of the 12th annual Petite Le Mans at Road Atlanta was the weather, which forced officials to cancel the event after a little more than four hours of racing due to unsafe racing conditions, leaving the Peugeot No. 8 LMP1 car with Stephane Sarazin and Franck Montagny doing the driving honors with the victory and fans of endurance racing wondering whether the newly minted Audi R15 TDI had made progress towards being competitive with their French rivals.

The two Peugeots qualified one-two at Road Atlanta, with the two Audis following in third and forth. However, at the start of the race, with the track not quite dry, Allan McNish bolted from the pack and set a blistering pace, showing that at least on wet track the Audi was still the car to beat. A little over an hour into the race with track drying McNish turned the fastest lap of the day at 1:08.063, faster than his qualifying time.

But under a yellow flag and heavy weather, McNish spun the Audi and went from first to third place and the race was red-flagged shortly afterwards, with neither the Peugeot Team nor the Audis having a chance to duke it out to the finish. The race was finally called around 8 pm with both teams feeling as if they had kissed their sister.

Audi lead early and turned the fastest lap of the race, but did not lead when it counted.

Sarazin and Montagny were happy to have the win, but both they and McNish and Dindo Capello, the two Audi drivers would have been happier to have a shootout to settle who would take home the winner’s trophy.

In the LMP2 Class it was the Lola Mazda team getting its second class victory of the year with Marino Franchitti, Butch Leitzinger, and Ben Devlin piloting the winner. Second place went to the Lowes Fernandez Acura, which finished a number of laps back due to mechanical issues. The Lowes Fernandez team had wrapped of the team championship at the previous event. The Muscle Milk Porsche RS Spyder was third in the LMP2 class.

The Rizi Competizione Ferrari was the winner again, giving the team wins at the major events of the year: Sebring, Le Mans, and Road Atlanta.

Getting the overall win in the highly competitive LMGT2 class was the Rizi Competizione Ferrari 430 GT with Jaime Mello, Pierre Kaffer, and Mika Salo doing the driving honors. With the victory at Road Atlanta, the Ferrari Team completed the sweep of the three major endurance events of the ALMS — Sebring, Le Mans, and the Road Atlanta event.

Second place in GT2 went to the Rahal Letterman BMW driven by Tommy Milner, Dirk Muller, and Jorg Muller. Third place went to Wolf Henzler,amd Dirk Werner in a Porsche 911 GT3RSR.