ALMS - Mobil 1 Sebring 12 Hours – Hours 2 And 3
© Janos Wimpffen

The No. 20 Dyson Porsche’s problem was significant. They had collided with the Robertson Panoz. The LM P2 car required a new sidepod, some work to the floor and replacing some of the ducting. They returned to the race at just before the two-hour mark.. but 24 laps down.

Entering the second hour Capello (No. 1 Audi) leads teammate Biela by about 25 seconds. Bernhard’s Porsche is in 3rd overall and 1st in LM P2, some 15 seconds behind Biela. Franchitti is in 4th, a minute down. Wallace is a few seconds further down and just holding off Brabham (No. 9 Acura). These six are all on the lead lap.

Diaz was next with Ben Devlin (No. 8 Lola-Mazda) and Didier Theys all on the same lap. Johnny O’Connell now leads GT1 with Olivier Beretta (in for Gavin) 100 seconds behind him. Clint Field and Darren Turner (in for Garcia in the Aston Martin) are next. Melo has a 4 second lead in GT2 over van Overbeek with Farnbacher and Henzler next. Rui Aguas is now aboard the No. 32 Ferrari and having a good run. Colin Braun has taken over the No. 61 Risi Ferrari.

The incident (in the first hour) with the #22 Panoz and the #44 Lizards – Scott Maxwell hit the rear of the Darren Law, in the braking zone entering 17. Joey Hand was behind the action in the #21 Panoz, and said he thought that Darren had chopped Scott. Damage to the nose of the Panoz, but the Lizards Porsche appears to be OK. Darren had no comments over the radio.

The #31 Petersen White Lightning Ferrari has damage to the nose area of the car, possibly from contact with the #71 Tafel Porsche. They tried running the car with the damage, but it was no good. The splitter and nose required replacement, dropping the car to last place. The #8 Mazda pitted early due to a warning light. It was an error and was reset.

Big drama at the 90-minute mark as Biela’s left rear tire goes down at Turn 1. He has to make a long slow return to the pits with the rubber completely disintegrating. The stop to repair it is quick but the No. 2 Audi has lost two laps. Emanuele Pirro is now aboard. Enge (No. 31 Ferrari) has a coming together with the No. 73 Tafel Porsche, with Farnbacher the driver.

At the 95-minute mark Capello makes the leading Audi’s second routine stop. Tom Kristensen took over while Timo Bernhard managed to lead across the line and thus be credited with the first non-Audi lap in the top spot. Kristensen is not exactly setting the track alight working back towards the lead.

Some other recent driver changes:
15, Adrian Fernandez
26, Tony Kanaan (immediately closes in on Leitzinger)
27, Fredy Lienhard
3 (second routine stop), Jan Magnussen
4, Max Papis
21, Bill Auberlen (short stint, then Tom Kimber-Smith)
54, Marc Basseng
44, Seth Neiman
12, Bryan Willman
10, Philip Collin
22, Bryan Sellers
53, David Robertson
77, Bo McCormick
24, Ben Aucott
18, Tom Milner
20, Guy Smith
32, Jose Lopez
71, Robin Liddell
63, Liz Halliday
45, Marc Lieb (very quick second stop and driver change)
8, Jamie Bach
9, Stefan Johansson
31, Tim Bergmeister
62, Mika Salo (handover to him has put the No. 45 Porsche back into the GT2 lead)
10, Jarsolav Janis
85, Pierre Ehret
73, Jim Tafel
61, Tracy Krohn

At the 2:10 mark Bernhard comes in for the leading Porsche’s second routine stop. Romain Dumas takes over. Andy Wallace could have grabbed the lead but his Porsche comes in on the same lap and hands over to Butch Leitzinger. This allows Kristensen to gain the lead.

Aguas and Turner had a collision and the Aston Martin has made a stop for repairs. Other than the minor early problems with the Lowe’s entry, the Acura program seems to be going well. The Lola-Mazda has made another less than routine stop with attention being paid to most every crevice. There has been a plague of pit fueling violations, particularly among the middle and rearward runners. Many have forgotten to wear gloves while fueling. There’s been a general warning given to the team managers about this.

Pechnik is the tail of the Lizard duo, a few laps behind the class-leading Lizard tongue of Lieb. Pechnik does his part by holding up the Prancing Horse of Melo. Eventually the equine machine steps past the reptile.

Pirro made the No. 2 Audi’s next routine stop at about 2:25 mark. He was over the pit speed limit and will be called in for a stop-and-go. There continues to be a good battle in P2 between Letizinger and Kanaan. The Brazilian single-seater ace has been regularly chopping off slower cars as he laps them and is being warned accordingly.

Pirro comes in to serve his penalty and right behind him Kristensen has made a more routine stop. Meanwhile there has been contact between the No. 16 Porsche and the No. 1 Audi and Leitzinger’s car has had some damage behind the left front wheel. It makes a stop for repairs while Kristensen will be called in for a stop-go penalty. This allows Johansson past the Porsche with the No. 9 Acura. The Audi’s no-no puts Dumas into the overall lead. Meanwhile, Jon Field has had a rear puncture in No. 37 and has made a long haul back to the pits to have the wheel re-created.

As advertised, the GT2 battle is one of the best out there, as Salo is less than three seconds and closing behind Lieb as we near the three-hour mark. Two laps later Salo gets by for the class lead. Meanwhile, No. 8 has gone from zoom-zoom to stutter-creep out on the back straight. It makes it back to the pits—barely. Dumas stopped out of the lead and was given a quick battery change. Kristensen retook the overall top spot.

Hour 3 Positions
1 1 P1 1 Tom Kristensen Run 96 0.000 0.000 1:48.093 Audi R10/TDI
2 7 P2 1 Romain Dumas Run 95 1 Lap 1 Lap 1:48.151 Porsche RS Spyder
3 26 P2 2 Tony Kanaan Run 95 17.367 17.367 1:49.200 Acura ARX-01A
4 9 P2 3 Stefan Johansson Run 94 2 Laps 1 Lap 1:49.530 Acura ARX-01A
5 2 P1 2 Emanuele Pirro Run 94 24.714 24.714 1:47.212 Audi R10/TDI
6 16 P2 4 Butch Leitzinger Run 94 1:24.877 1:00.163 1:49.153 Porsche RS Spyder
7 15 P2 5 Adrian Fernandez Run 93 3 Laps 1 Lap 1:49.340 Lola B06/43 Acura
8 27 P2 6 Eric van de Poele Run 88 8 Laps 5 Laps 1:54.353 Lola B05/40 Judd
9 4 GT1 1 Oliver Gavin Run 88 1:03.212 1:03.212 1:57.156 Chevrolet C-6R
10 3 GT1 2 Ron Fellows Run 88 1:17.541 14.329 1:57.726 Chevrolet C-6R
11 62 GT2 1 Mika Salo Run 85 11 Laps 3 Laps 2:03.516 Ferrari F430 GT
12 45 GT2 2 Marc Lieb Run 85 3.705 3.705 2:03.601 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR
13 63 GT1 3 Antonio Garcia Run 84 12 Laps 1 Lap 1:58.670 Aston Martin DBR9
14 71 GT2 3 Robin Liddell Run 84 8.919 8.919 2:03.219 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR
15 32 GT2 4 Jose Maria Lopez Run 83 13 Laps 1 Lap 2:03.003 Ferrari F430 GT
16 21 GT2 5 Tom Kimber-Smith Run 83 51.971 51.971 2:05.184 Panoz Esperante GTLM
17 86 GT2 6 Jarek Janis Run 83 52.710 0.739 2:05.912 Spyker C8 Spyder
18 6 P2 7 Sascha Maassen Run 83 1:00.845 8.135 1:48.382 Porsche RS Spyder
19 73 GT2 7 Jim Tafel Run 83 1:04.666 3.821 2:04.449 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR
20 61 GT2 8 Tracy Krohn Run 83 1:25.819 21.153 2:05.105 Ferrari F430 GT
21 85 GT2 9 Pierre Ehret Run 83 1:30.714 4.895 2:05.537 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR
22 37 P1 3 Jon Field Run 82 14 Laps 1 Lap 1:53.212 Creation CA06/H001 Judd
23 54 GT2 10 Tim Pappas Run 81 15 Laps 1 Lap 2:06.975 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR
24 44 GT2 11 Lonnie Pechnik Run 81 12.515 12.515 2:05.124 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR
25 12 P1 4 Michael Lewis Run 81 21.852 9.337 1:54.287 Lola EX257 AER
26 8 P2 8 Jamie Bach Pit 79 17 Laps 2 Laps 1:52.361 Lola B07/40 Mazda
27 22 GT2 12 Bryan Sellers Run 79 6:54.778 6:54.778 2:05.334 Panoz Esperante GTLM
28 77 GT2 13 Bo McCormick Run 75 21 Laps 4 Laps 2:16.318 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR
29 24 GT2 14 Rob Wilson Run 75 16.894 16.894 2:06.352 Ferrari F430 GT
30 10 GT2 15 Antonio Hermann Run 74 22 Laps 1 Lap 2:10.526 Porsche 911 GT3 RS
31 18 GT2 16 Graham Rahal Run 72 24 Laps 2 Laps 2:04.416 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR
32 20 P2 9 Guy Smith Run 71 25 Laps 1 Lap 1:49.349 Porsche RS Spyder
33 53 GT2 17 Andrea Robertson Pit 64 32 Laps 7 Laps 2:09.477 Panoz Esperante GTLM
34 31 GT2 18 Tomas Enge Pit 62 34 Laps 2 Laps 2:02.950 Ferrari F430 GT

Johannes van Overbeek: “It’s a real handful at the beginning of the stint. It starts off with lots of understeer but that lessens as the fuel burns off. The end of the stint it was starting to feel pretty good. I had a run on the (Risi) Ferrari early but I got botched up in traffic and lost a ton of time. I was able to make that back up and close the gap at the end.”

Ron Fellows: “I had a good opening stint. The car was solid, no problems. The track is pretty slick, must be from all the rain. With the cooler weather we would like to use a softer compound but we don’t have enough of those tires to do that now.”

Clint Field: “The car feels really good, no residual problems from the crash damage. It’s hard to describe but the car has got a beefy feel, durable, it’s good. Our times are three to four seconds off where they could be but this is all that the tires can handle. If you push them any harder they just lose their grip. We’ll keep at it and see if we can get a good finish.”

Jim Bell, Team Trans Sport: “We’re motoring along best we can. We have some new car teething issues to sort out. Porsche just got us the endurance electronics package a few days ago, so we are working through that and having a few issues. The Yokohama tire is little more conservative than what I would have liked, especially for the cooler temperatures. I’m sure they were planning on the usual warm temperatures for here. So it’s just a lot of little things we need to work through.”

Chris Dyson: “The Panoz was sort of dithering around; I couldn’t tell which way they were going to go. So I went wide around the outside of them. I don’t know if they just got in too hot or overcooked the brakes, but they crashed into my side with the front of their car, damaging our sidepod and radiator. It’s just a shame because I really believe we had a good car and the right strategy to do well here. Our past experience here has taught us that you have to get back out and try to get as many points as possible. So we’ll just push as hard as we can.”

Liz Halliday: “The car is very hard to drive. It’s pretty loose in the rear. That was my first race stint in the car so I was just trying get used to everything and be careful. All in all in went pretty well. The pit limiter malfunctioned on Antonio and he got penalized for speeding.”

Tim Bergmeister: “The front undertray and splitter keep working themselves loose. They fix it but it comes loose again. You can feel it vibrating and then the car becomes very difficult to drive; lots of understeer. It will not turn into the corner.”

Duncan Dayton: “Well it’s going exactly per plan. That probably means something is about to go wrong. Really though, the car is running perfectly with no problems at all.”

Ralf Kelleners: “On the first lap in was bunched up going through turns 3,4 & 5. As you exit turn five you accelerate hard coming on to the long straight down to the hairpin. At the exit of five, I think the #85 Porsche spun in front of the Panoz that was in front of me. I’m not sure if the Panoz got into the back of the Porsche or if he just spun on his own. Regardless the Panoz got on the brakes really hard right as I was going for the accelerator. I got into the back of the Panoz and the other Panoz, which was behind me, stacked up into the back of me. It damaged the cooler and we lost several laps to repairs. I would like to talk to the Panoz driver to find out what happened in front of him.”