ALMS – Road America - Generac 500 – Race Report
Dash To The Flag
© Russell Wittenberg

The weather turned this four-hour race into a 1-1/4 hour mad dash to the finish, all the endurance strategies getting washed away with the rain. Audi’s hopes of hammering out quicker laps to make up the time they give back to the P2s in fuel capacity and tire wear were struck down by the lightning. A massive thunderstorm engulfed the Road America circuit about 1:15 into the race, causing two back to back caution periods that cut a 1:30 swath right out of the middle of this race – and in the end handing the advantage to Porsche, Dumas and Bernhard pipping the pair of R10s to the flag.

The first hour, in great weather, was typical of what we thought the race was going to look like. The two Audi R10s, with McNish at the point, were able to pull a gap on the field. Meanwhile the Penske Porsches were doing the same in P2. And van Overbeek and Melo were haggling over the lead in GT2.

A couple cars were off in the first corner at the start but this time the trouble didn’t come from the front of the pack but from the rear. Luis Diaz had the starter button stick and was not in his qualified position on the pace lap, but at the rear of the field. He didn’t want to stay there and dive bombed Borcheller going into the first turn. The contact sent Borcheller sliding into Farnbacher and both Porsches spun into the gravel trap. Diaz would get a stop and go penalty for his maneuver. The caution came out to get Farnbacher unstuck and bunched the field for restart.

Jon Field in the Intersport Creation was looking extremely racy at the beginning of this one. He gained several positions at the initial green flag and on this restart the Judd V-10 launched him past both Penske cars and into third behind the Audis. It wouldn’t take the yellow Spyders long to retake third and fourth overall but Field mixed it up with the rest of the prototype class for the first hour. Gearbox trouble would eventually end their day.

van Overbeek got a great start in GT2 and used the power from the new motor to grab the early lead for Flying Lizards. Salo quickly regained his composure after a self-described “bad start” and latched onto the bumper of the Lizard Porsche. Mueller in the #31 Ferrari joined in to make it a three way fight. Over the radio Salo said “I’m quicker but I just can’t get by him.” Similar to Mid-Ohio, lapped traffic would break the rhythm and Salo dived in alongside. The two banged fenders and the red Ferrari slid by. A few corners later the same thing would happen as Salo had to check up to avoid traffic. The #45 Porsche went to the inside of the Ferrari, again banging fenders. Both would spin and allow Mueller to take the class lead. “The second contact with the No. 62 wasn't intentional. I had nowhere to go,” said van Overbeek. “It was either rear end him or take the apex of the corner. When he moved down to the apex, we made contact. It was a shame because we had a great car, fast drivers, and a great crew. Fifth place didn't represent how good the car was this weekend." The unscheduled stop to replaced the wheel damaged from the contact, and subsequent penalty, would drop the championship points leaders out of contention for this race.

McNish suffered a punctured left rear tire at 46 minutes, and had to pit from the lead. At the one hour mark the order on the lead lap was; Werner, Briscoe, Dumas, Franchitti, Smith, Field, Brabham, Devlin, McNish and Wallace.

Franchitti was the quickest, behind the Audis and Penskes, of the second group of prototypes. After a slow start, the Scot worked his back up to as high as fourth. A scrape with a GT2 during Marino’s stint would make their Acura “push like a dump truck” as described by Herta. “We had a fairly good start and the first restart was very good for us,” added Franchitti. “We made up a couple of places in the laps after that and then, as I was coming through traffic, I had some contact with the GT car. It was very light contact, though, but it broke the steering out a fair bit.”

The rain started to come down fairly heavily then and lightning was also prevalent so IMSA decided it was time for the safety car. Lined up behind the safety at the 1:30 mark the field was as follows; Dumas, McNish, Werner, Briscoe, (one lap down) Franchitti, Smith, Diaz and Devlin. In GT1 the safety car came out between the two Corvettes and put the #3 car a lap down. Theys was another lap behind in the Maserati. The GT2 order was; Kelleners, Melo, Dumbreck, Helary and Bergmeister.

The #18 Rahal Porsche inherited the lead through pit stop strategy. Milner started the race and stopped under the first caution for fuel and tires. This enabled them to stay out until the rain came for their second stop in which they “killed two birds with one stone”. The lead pack of GT2s had to stop as scheduled at about one-hour and then again for rain tires. The Rahal car took the lead during the first round of ‘scheduled’ stops and held it through the rain delay.

The rain and lightning would get worse before it got better and it turned into a very long caution period. “It was absolutely the 100% right decision to throw the yellow when they did. It was becoming way too dangerous out there,” commented McNish. This would throw out of the window any previous pit strategy that the teams might have been working on. All plans would be put on hold until they saw how much time was left once the green flag came out again.

With the weather clearing, teams began to position themselves for the restart.

With the one lap to go signal being given to the field from the flag stand, Melo pitted from the lead to top off with fuel, leaving Kelleners alone at the front of GT2. Risi obviously wanted to be sure they could finish this race with only one more pit stop.

That put Kelleners back in front, making up for their brief pit stop early in the caution period to repair a sticking throttle.

Finally after an extremely long caution period for weather the green flag came back out with just 1:30 remaining in the event.

The rain had stopped but the track was still pretty wet. The field was pushing hard even with the less than ideal conditions. The pace was just a little too quick for the Mazda of Devlin as he slid it into a gravel trap. The safety car was called back out to slow the field so the tow truck get the Mazda back on the race track - an unfortunate event for the B-K Motorsports team, which was having its best run of the season. The Mazda-AER/Lola had the race pace today to hang with the Dyson Porsches and Acuras, a far cry from where they were just a few months ago. If AER can get the kinks worked out of their latest edition Mazda power plant (that the team sampled on Thursday) these guys will be contenders for the remainder of the season.

Several cars used this yellow to make their driver changes, (3-hour maximum) but there was still too much time left for anyone to be thinking this could be the last stop.

Back to green flag racing and Johansson spins his Acura trying to get inside of one of the Penske cars: the spin dropped him down to ninth.

As usual there was a great battle going on back in GT2, Bergmeister and Henzler swapping positions, albeit a lap behind the class leaders. Meanwhile in front Kelleners was holding off Melo by the narrowest margin. Bergmeister abandoned the current battle with Henzler and was the first of the GT2s into the pits for slicks.

At the front of the field the two Audis and Dumas were nose to tail for the lead. Like Bergmeister, McNish ducks out of the fight and onto pit lane, and finally gets out of the car just nine minutes away from the three hour mark. Fuel, and slicks get put on for Dindo Capello: just 1:07 to go when Capello left pit lane. Can the V-12 diesel stretch it to the finish from here? No, Capello later has to give up a fifty second lead for one last pit stop to take on tires and fuel.

A few minutes earlier Bernhard pitted for just fuel and no new tires, a call that would prove to be critical to the outcome. According to Audi it was never an option to ‘double stint’ their tires at the end of the race. They had suffered two tire failures already this weekend and would not take the chance. The Audi runs a higher downforce package than one might expect at a track like this. That along with the weight and torque of the diesel engine uses the tires up quickly.

Melo is in the pits next - for his last pit stop? There is 1:04 left on the clock. During pre-race Risi predicted the maximum fuel stint for the 430GT would be 1:00.

The Audis have been quicker all weekend but now they must do it from behind. With just 30 minutes to go, Bernhard is in front of Maassen by seven seconds, then ten more seconds back to Pirro and two more behind is Capello, on fresh tires.

Risi’s Dave Sims says they are “marginal” on fuel and Melo has backed off to lap times in the 2:11 range, Just quick enough to keep about a ten second cushion between him and Kelleners. Mueller pushes on, closing the gap between his third position and Kelleners in second. But Mueller cannot make it to the end and will have to stop for fuel, opening the door for Henzler and Bergmeister to move up a spot.

Pirro & Capello catch Maassen with 15 minutes remaining: they make the passes for second and third places, setting their sights on Bernhard. Maassen then pits for fuel, the #7 car had been running a different pit strategy than the #6 all race.

It’s quite an ominous sight in the dark evening as the two Audis run nose to tail with lights on, chasing down the lone Penske Porsche. Bernhard had to feel the pressure of these two bearing down on him. With ten minutes to go the gap is down to under six seconds. Working together, Pirro and Capello are making up chunks of time on the Spyder. Then almost unbelievably friends turn into foes, the battle becomes between the two silver R10s as Capello moves alongside Pirro, nearly touching, to take the position. This intra-squad tussle has cost them a second or more on the gap to Bernhard. Was Pirro holding up Capello or did Dindo just get a good run on Pirro? They continue to battle taking to either side of a slower car. “It was difficult to judge, in some corners our car was faster, but in two their car was better,” said Capello. “With three or four laps to go we were six seconds behind and I was optimistic that we could have done it.”

While they fought amongst themselves Bernhard maintains his gap. Audi brass must be furious at this point: when the two Audis were running in order they were making up substantial time on the lead Spyder. They get back in line for a moment and close the gap to two seconds with just two laps to go. The Audis have trouble getting by a slower P1 and drop back to four seconds behind Bernhard as they begin the last lap. Pirro and Capello amazingly renew their battle for second position, swapping the spot back and forth on the last lap. Bernhard gets held up a little by Brabham, but not enough for the Audi and the #7 Penske Porsche takes the unlikely overall victory at Road America.

Slight drama in GT1 as Beretta spins the Corvette while in the lead, but he quickly rights it and maintains the position, a full lap ahead of Magnussen. “I braked a little late and went in the gravel," said Beretta. "But the overall result was good, and it's always nice to bring a win home. Ollie did a good job working on the setup on the car this week, and after we found the setup, the crew did fantastic pit stops."

After a very cautious middle stint during the wet by Fredy Lienhard, Theys regained several positions overall to complete a solid first race for the Doran/Lista Maserati, good enough for Lienhard to confirm their entry of this car at the Petit Le Mans.

Marginal turns out to be just enough (fuel) to put the Risi Ferrari back on top of the GT2 podium. Melo was instructed to conserve fuel and went from lean fuel map, to extra lean map, and finally ran the last lap on the pace car mapping - it was that close on fuel. The team commented that fortunately Melo got passed by the race leaders on the last lap or he would have had to make another circulation, which they did not have enough fuel left to do. Luckily for Melo, Kelleners was running tight on fuel also. Regardless it was a great result for the Rahal-led team.

Mueller had to make a late stop for fuel and finished a distant third. Henzler followed in fourth and then Bergmeister in fifth. “We tried many things on the car here, but we never really got it right,” Henzler said. “We never got rid of the understeer. Then in the race, it was still the same. But we had good pit stops. We made good decisions on tires when it started to rain. Mika Salo and Ralf Kelleners got a lap on us when the safety car came out. Then we got on slicks early, which was a good decision. After the restart it was very hard. I had to be careful not to spin off the track, but then the track was drying off and we stopped under yellow for slicks, and that got us fourth place. That was a really good call.”

It was a disappointing result for Bergmeister and van Overbeek who had looked so strong early in the race. The fifth place finish knocked them out of the championship points lead giving Melo and Salo a four point lead.

For many years now in ALMS competition they were basically untouchable, but in the Penske Porsches, Audi Sport has finally met their match.

”I was surprised that I could keep up with the Audis, and, when Ryan (Briscoe) had some handling problems, I got past him into second place, and surprised the leading Audi to take the lead just before the rain came,” said Dumas, “After the restart, the Audis went by us again, and we were back to our class win focus, but the Penske team made some smart decision on fuel and tires, and Timo brought the car home for both the class and overall win.”

”I came in for fuel with 30 minutes to go and the leading Audi also came into the pits. I left the pits and did not see the Audi, so I assumed they were ahead of me,” commented Bernhard. “The first clue that I was in the lead was when I saw the two cars battling for position behind me on the straight; and then, with two laps to go, the team told me on the radio I was in front, but I was losing time. I had to push, and traffic was hard, but the car was great and I was positioned to win.”

Allan McNish: “I said yesterday that I thought the Porsches would be there at the end. I didn’t expect the weather to play such a role.”

PS. Petersen Motorsports/White Lightning Racing had been declared the third-place finisher at the conclusion of this one, but a post-race technical inspection determined that the brake lights were not working properly for the closing stages of the event. As a result, the finishing-order changed moving the No. 31 Ferrari F430 GT to the end of the lead lap, fourth in class, 18th overall.