Vasser Sullivan came to Road Atlanta with enough pace to win Petit Le Mans. The fuel tank had other plans.
The No. 14 Lexus RC F GT3 of Jack Hawksworth, Ben Barnicoat, and Kyle Kirkwood led 126 laps around the 12-turn, 2.54-mile Georgia road course on Saturday, ran inside the top five late in the 10-hour IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season finale, then pitted for fuel in the closing laps and fell to 10th in GTD PRO. Next door in the GTD class, the No. 12 entry of Aaron Telitz, Frankie Montecalvo, and Benjamin Pedersen absorbed contact from an LMP2 competitor during Montecalvo’s stint, went 12 laps down after an extended pit repair, and worked back to 11th by the checkered flag.
The No. 14’s afternoon was the more operationally interesting one. Hawksworth started 12th. Barnicoat ran at the front early, and the team’s strategy work moved the car into contention across multiple driver rotations. Kirkwood held position through traffic and kept the car in the points during his stints. The cool-suit system for all three drivers failed two hours in, which meant six-plus remaining hours of cockpit heat on top of Georgia’s October humidity. The car was still running in the top five with the end in sight when the fuel calculation forced a final pit stop. Barnicoat put it plainly: “We were right on the edge of putting everything on number 14 at the casino. We were so close, but we lost it at the end.”
The No. 12’s race was more straightforwardly painful. Telitz started third, ran in the top five during his opening stint, and the car looked like a podium contender before Montecalvo took over and an LMP2 car made contact. The resulting damage to the toe link sent the No. 12 to pit lane for repairs that dropped it to 16th and 12 laps back. What followed was a methodical recovery: Telitz, Montecalvo, and Pedersen picked up four positions across the remainder of the race, finishing 11th. Telitz noted it was the 10th year the RC F GT3 has raced with Vasser Sullivan, which gives the frustration some additional texture. “I think we easily had a shot of being up on the podium,” he said, “and if things fell our way, a win.”
The contact story has been a recurring one in 2026. Both cars were running podium positions in Detroit before late-race incidents dropped them to sixth and tenth, and a Porsche contact incident at VIR cost the No. 14 car time in a race where both entries still salvaged top-10 results. At Road Atlanta today, the No. 12 absorbed the damage and the No. 14 ran out of margin to gamble.
The wins, when they came, were convincing. Hawksworth and Barnicoat led 78 laps at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park for the 20th IMSA win in Lexus RC F GT3 history, their second consecutive GTD PRO victory at that event. The final season tally, three wins, four podiums, and three pole positions, reflects a car and team that were competitive for most of the year, even if the results sheet has more tenth-place finishes than the pace warranted.
Pedersen framed the Petit Le Mans result honestly: “We had a lot of pace. The start was looking really good running in the top three and unfortunately we had some contact that resulted in a pretty lengthy repair.” Kirkwood was similarly direct about the No. 14: “We put ourselves in many positions to win the race and unfortunately none of those ended up panning out for us.”
Vasser Sullivan has not shared plans for the 2027 IMSA season. Hawksworth’s reference to “some exciting things next year” is the only hint the team offered publicly today.
Tenth place at Petit Le Mans after leading 126 laps is exactly the kind of result that makes winter a long wait.
