After 1000 miles and 394 laps, it came down to just 0.923secs to decide the outcome of the tenth Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta, with Rinaldo Capello and Allan McNish putting Audi back at the top of the American Le Mans podium for the first time in a long while.
Capello passed Penske Racing's Romain Dumas at the nine-hour mark and used the torque and power of the Audi R10 TDI to remain ahead of the Frenchman and ensure that Audi remained unbeaten at Petit Le Mans with diesel power. Incredibly, it was the first overall victory for Audi since St Petersburg in March and completed another Audi clean sweep of the premier endurance events at Sebring, Le Mans and Petit Le Mans.
Capello's drive also confirmed the LMP1 title for himself and McNish, while the Audi Sport North America team racked up its 21st consecutive race win in a largely uncontested class.
The margin of victory was the closest in the race's ten-year history, but that came as little consolation for Dumas and co-drivers Timo Bernhard and Patrick Long as they narrowly missed adding another landmark win in Porsche's impressive season to success in LMP2. The RS Spyder had triumphed overall in the past eight races, and the second place effort at Road Atlanta was enough to confirm Dumas and Bernhard as class champions, after the Frenchman drove the last hour on a single set of tyres and tank of fuel.
That wasn't enough to keep Capello at bay, however, and the Italian made the winning move shortly after a restart with half an hour remaining. The battle wasn't settled until the closing minutes, however, as both Capello and Dumas diced as the wove their way through four classes of cars in the darkness.
Dumas finished eight laps up on the third-placed Dyson Racing Porsche of Chris Dyson and Guy Smith, who recorded their best finish of the season, while third in class - and fourth overall - went to the factory Zytek and its last-minute combination of Jan Charouz, Stefan Mucke and Danny Watts.
![Allan McNish and Rinaldo Capello celebrate 2007 Petit Le Mans success [pic credit: ALMS]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/385653.jpg)
