Chip Ganassi Racing And Cadillac Celebrate 24 Hours Of LeMans Return With A Third Place Finish

Chip Ganassi Racing with Cadillac Racing scored a podium finish on their return to the 24 Hours of LeMans on Sunday, where in the No.2 V-Series.R, driven by Earl Bamber, Alex Lunn, and Richard Westbrook, scored a third-place finish overall while six-time NTT INDYCAR SERIES champion Scott Dixon, Sebastien Bourdais, and Renger van de Zande finished the race in fourth place.

Earl Bamber commented saying:

We showed our strength at Daytona with the cars finishing in third and fourth place. Coming here, we never really know what to expect. A proud milestone for the whole project and for Cadillac Racing to lead some laps at Le Mans. That’s a cool box to tick. Then we found ourselves in a solid third position. We all learned a lot as a group and the car is very reliable. I think we can take away a couple of good lessons to tune it up and come back and achieve our ultimate goal.”

Alex Lynn:

“We knew coming in that we had to run our race. We had to run clean because Ferrari and Toyota would be super fast and we had to be the car that doesn’t make a mistake and is always there. That is the theme of our season. We always dig in and grind out a result. That’s why I’m so proud of this team and this Cadillac racecar. It never misses a beat, and now we can say on the biggest stage it didn’t even in the first year of the program. It’s only going to get better.”

Richard Westbrook:

“I’ve finished third five times now. It’s not a record I’m proud of. But this one honestly I’m proud. We were the best of the rest. In those conditions where it was so bad at certain times of the night, and we saw so many cars go out. On merit I think we deserved third. We were fast in certain conditions but came up a little short. Still, the gap to the leader wasn’t huge. It gives us plenty to work on and come back next year that much stronger.”

Mike O’Gara (Director of Operations):

“Great effort. We all had our share of issues to overcome. The 3 had some punctures, got run into during a yellow flag and everybody just kept going and going. That’s what we do. You never come into this race feeling like you’re prepared. It proves that we were. We kept recovering and fighting. A couple small tweaks and we’ll be right there next year.”

Stephen Mitas (Team Manager):

“Super effort. Everyone contributed above and beyond, that’s for sure. There’s a lot of hard work, a lot of long hours, and I think everyone here is super pleased with the result.”

Sebastien Bourdais:

“Super solid effort by the whole team. Big thanks to GM, Cadillac and everybody at Chip Ganassi Racing. There was a lot of adversity leading up to and throughout the race. I think we can all be proud of the effort we put out on the track, it was very competitive, we just ran out of luck at a couple of points during the race. Ultimately, third and fourth for the team. I’m really happy for everyone involved. I think we would have probably signed up for this result if anybody had told us we’d be fighting for those positions at the end out of 16 cars. We’re going to learn a lot, fix everything that didn’t work, improve everything that did and come back stronger.”

Renger van der Zande:

“What a hell of a ride it’s been developing this car with everyone involved – mechanics, engineers, GM, Cadillac and Dallara. I’m just super proud that we ran P3 and P4. It’s a testament to how reliable the car is. I’m happy with the effort from everyone. It’s pretty incredible to be part of it.”

Scott Dixon:

“It was a lot of fun. The conditions were demanding, it was a tough race, and the competition was fierce. I’m a little bummed for the No. 3 car though. We had two incidents where we just got hit, no fault of ours, and then we got a penalty. Without those I think we would have been fighting for a podium spot. It was great to see the No. 2 car finish on the podium. I just know how hard everyone at Cadillac, GM and Chip Ganassi Racing has worked. It’s pretty special for them to come back and achieve what they have after being away and going up against the world’s top manufacturers.”

Chip Ganassi Racing team owner Chip Ganassi tweeted: