ALMS – Road America – Generac 500 - Friday Morning Report
As You Were
© Russell Wittenberg

The results from practice #1 were very similar to yesterday’s test session - the Audi pair followed by both Penske cars and then the duo of Dyson Porsches. Times from each team were within tenths of yesterday’s. Better times were expected this morning as the track temperature was cooler and it should have been sticker with the rubber laid down yesterday.

The B-K Motorsports Mazda had limited running yesterday because of trouble with a new AER/Mazda engine. The brand new motor was noticeably stronger in just the few laps it ran, but problems required it to be replaced with the engine that ran at Mid-Ohio. The Mazda powered Lola lost more time this morning with a turbo/waste gate issue. Ben Devlin on yesterday’s running: “The car should be pretty good here. The Lola likes the smoother tracks and this new engine seems to have lots of power. We had an ECU issue and a few other things, but hopefully they can sort them out. We are running a little bit wider tire (Kuhmo) on the fronts in effort to get a little more front grip. The trap speeds had us as quick as anybody else out there. We have all the right bits in place we just need it all to come together for us.”

Timo Bernhard and Romain Dumas: “The Audis will be quicker here, they are much faster on the straights, so much that we cannot make up the time in the corners. But we need to concentrate on P2 because we are in contention for the championship. It should be a very tight in P2, the Acuras were very quick at Mid-Ohio. Everybody is getting quicker but that is good for the show. This is a nice track to come to, especially after Lime Rock. It’s a good schedule this year with a nice variety of tracks.”

Concerning the Acuras, I might have misled you on their testing at Road America earlier this season. All the Acura teams did test here but only Andretti-Green tested here during the Le Mans break.

Fernandez did test here but it was last October. Although their best time today was actually 0.5 seconds slower than yesterday, they believe they selected the wrong gears for this track on Thursday and made a change last night.

The quicker of the Acura powered teams this morning was the Highcroft entry. Both they and the Andretti-Green cars seem to be stuck in the mid 1:52s, two seconds behind the quickest Porsche Spyder.

David Brabham; “We’re slow right now. The car is not balanced well. This is really the first time running this chassis in a low downforce set up. We tested here over the winter but that was with the Courage chassis. Running a car with a lot of downforce can mask over some issues. So this is a good learning experience for us. The chassis has very nice aero, we just need to get a handle on the set up. Right now we seem to have enough downforce on the front but not on the rear. Although we are still understeering so something else is going on too. We have some ideas.”

Marino Franchitti: “The crew made some changes to the car overnight and I am happier with it. I think we are headed in the right direction. We had a good set up from our test here, but it’s always different. This track is so much fun to drive. I was on old tires so that was a pretty good time.”

The Petersen-White Lightning Ferrari again paced the GT2 field and improved their time by 0.5 seconds over Thursday. Peter Dumbreck set the time for P/WL. Also getting quicker was the #45 Flying Lizard. They leapfrogged the Risi Ferraris and the Panoz in the morning session to post the second quickest time so far.

Johannes van Overbeek: “Well we can always be better, but we are the quickest Porsche. The Panoz is quick on the straights. He passed me like I was tied to a fence post. We made some changes this morning and I think we will be a little better today.”

Jim Tafel: “Nathan is doing a great job. I don’t think he will have any problems adapting to this car. My stint was nothing special, I was bedding in new pads and rotors. Even the team owner has to do the grunt work once in a while.”

Guy Smith: “It’s going well. We can’t keep pace with the Audi but P2 should be good. The toughest thing for us is dealing with the traffic. The GT1s are as quick, or quicker, than us on the straight, which makes it very tough to get past and stay ahead. On the tighter tracks the GT2s are a real problem to get by. You choices are to dive-bomb them going into the corner or try to go around the outside through the corner, and neither is desirable. With our lack of power it really forces reckless driving on tracks like Lime Rock and Mid-Ohio.”