The No. 5 Mustang Sampling Cadillac DPi-V.R team is now four-time champions of the Tequila Patrón North American Endurance Cup.

The team of Christian Fittipaldi, Joao Barbosa and Filipe Albuquerque was running second at the four-hour mark of the Motul Petit Le Mans, and that result coupled with the early retirement of the No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi-V.R of Jordan and Ricky Taylor and Ryan Hunter-Reay brought the team its fourth straight Patrón Endurance Cup. By starting the 10-hour race at Road Atlanta, the No. 10 team clinched the 2017 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Prototype title.

“Four times in a row,” Fittipaldi said. “It is a huge accomplishment and it came from a massive effort from the whole team. For the drivers to make sure they keep it on the black stuff, and obviously for the team and all the preparation—it boils down to Action Express doing an awesome job. If the car doesn’t finish, we don’t get points so we would never be in this position. We had the focus to have fast and consistent cars with the Corvette and then with the Cadillac. 

“We are happy to win this Tequila Patrón North American Endurance Cup this year and hats off to the 10 car guys on their overall IMSA championship as well. They did a great job, particularly at the first half of the season.  We will regroup and learn from our mistakes, emphasize what we did well and then come back to be even stronger in 2018.”

Cadillac also clinched the Patrón Endurance Cup manufacturer title, leading Nissan by nine points, 48-39, with a maximum of six points that can be gained. The No. 22 Tequila Patrón ESM Nissan DPi of Johannes van Overbeek, Pipo Derani and Bruno Senna led the Motul Petit Le Mans at the four-hour mark.

The No. 5 team, drivers and Cadillac join No. 38 Performance Tech Motorsports ORECA FLM09 and its trio of co-drivers, James French, Patricio O’Ward and Kyle Masson as 2017 Patrón Endurance Cup champions.

The No. 38 teammates clinched the Prototype Challenge (PC) title at the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen in July. By leading at the four-hour mark in the Motul Petit Le Mans, the No. 38 team now has earned the maximum five points for every Patrón Endurance Cup segment this season.

While the Prototype titles have already been wrapped up, it’s still wide open in the chase for the Patrón Endurance Cup in both GT classes.

In GT Le Mans (GTLM), No. 911 Porsche GT Team Porsche 911 RSR co-drivers Dirk Werner and Patrick Pilet doubled their lead in the standings, but only from two points to four, 36-32, over No. 66 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GT co-drivers Dirk Mueller and Joey Hand. The No. 911 was second at the four-hour mark in GTLM, while the No. 66 was sixth.

The No. 25 BMW Team RLL BMW trio of Bill Auberlen, Alexander Sims and Kuno Wittmer were third. In the manufacturer race for the Patrón Endurance Cup in GTLM, Ford leads Porsche by a single point, 38-37.

In GT Daytona, there was a tie at the top of the Patrón Endurance Cup standings at the four-hour mark in the Motul Petit Le Mans between the No. 33 Riley Motorsports-Team AMG Mercedes-AMG GT3 trio of Ben Keating, Jeroen Bleekemolen and Mario Farnbacher and the No. 63 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 488 GT3 of Matteo Cressoni and full-season co-drivers Alessandro Balzan and Christina Nielsen, who clinched their second straight WeatherTech Championship GTD title by starting the race.

Both cars had 32 points, with the No. 33 running third in class at four hours and the No. 63 one lap down in 14th. The No. 96 Michael Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian Acura NSX GT3 shared by Andy Lally, Katherine Legge and Mark Wilkins led at the four-hour mark, which has them just four points out of the class lead in the Patrón Endurance Cup standings.

Mercedes-AMG has a one-point lead, 36-25, over Acura in the GTD manufacturer standings for the Patrón Endurance Cup.

The race currently is airing live on FOX Sports GO and live television coverage will resume on FS2 at 5 p.m. ET. IMSA Radio also offers live coverage on IMSA.com, RadioLeMans.com and SiriusXM Radio.

View full results via Al Kamel Systems at Results.IMSA.com.

NOTEBOOK

• Engine issues in the third hour of the Motul Petit Le Mans ended a Prototype championship-winning season early for the No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi-V.R team. Nevertheless, co-drivers Jordan and Ricky Taylor wrapped up the championship once they started the race in their father’s Wayne Taylor Racing machine.      

“We’re really happy that we clinched the driver and team and manufacturer championship this weekend, but obviously we race to win every single race and we were in a really good spot,” said Wayne Taylor. “We led for a long time and had a good strategy call.

“I’m not really sure what happened. We had some sort of technical issue in the engine, I don’t know if a plug wire fell off or what happened but we had to park the car and withdraw from the race.”

• The No. 3 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C7.R and drivers Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia clinched the WeatherTech Championship GTLM title once they started the race. It was the second consecutive title for Corvette Racing, which won last year with its No. 4 team and co-drivers Tommy Milner and Oliver Gavin and was the second championship for Magnussen and Garcia, who won the American Le Mans Series GT championship in 2013.

“I’m super happy for the whole team to be in this position to take the green flag,” Magnussen said. “It has been a hard season where we have had to make the most of sometimes bad positions, and I think that is what made the difference. We overachieved on the tough weekends and got the absolute most out of things when we needed. We also won the races we could. This is an absolutely fantastic feeling and a fantastic program to be in. Now on to the manufacturer’s championship.”

Chevrolet came into the race leading the GTLM manufacturer battle by four points, 316-312, over Ford.

• After starting the race from the pole position, Helio Castroneves fell two laps down in the first hour when his No. 6 Team Penske ORECA LM P2 car spun after tangling with Matteo Cressoni in the No. 63 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari. However, the No. 6 team – which includes Juan Pablo Montoya and Simon Pagenaud – returned to the lead lap by the fourth hour.
• The No. 50 WeatherTech Racing Porsche GT3 R team of Cooper MacNeil, Gunnar Jeannette and Patrick Long fell out of the race in the first hour due to gearbox problems. MacNeil and Jeannette won earlier this year in the BUBBA burger Sports Car Grand Prix at Long Beach.