ALMS – Petit Le Mans - Hour 1
Fragmented Start
© Janos Wimpffen The race starts nice and clean from the front, with Lucas Luhr making the expected cut through the field from the back—not bad for his first stint in the car. He’s among the top 10 Prototype cars by lap 2. At the other end of the scale, Seith Neiman has made a very poor start and the No. 44 Porsche has slithered hundreds of yards behind the second-to-last Panoz. David Murry is starting that car, substituting for an ill Arie Luyendyk, Jr. Dindo Capello jumped past the neo-pole sitting Porsche of Timo Bernhard. The Audi took a long lead, followed by the two P2 class Spyders. There is a long, long gap then to a following gaggle of Prototypes that includes all the Acuras. The visiting Prototypes, i.e., the two Zyteks and the No. 88 Creation, continue to lag, although the latter car is doing well considering that Jamie Campbell-Walter had to start from the back after a pre-race tire change. As noted yesterday, the Maserati pole spot in GT1 was something of a false dawn as the Corvettes ran much slower than their practice times while the MC 12 was much too quick. That class situation quickly reverts to a more normal arrangement as both Corvettes sweep past, and indeed the blue Doran entry is slowing. GT2 has the best race going with Jaime Melo (No. 62 Risi Ferrari) and Dirk Müller (No. 31 Petersen-White Ferrari) within inches of each other. The white and red No. 31 has gotten the better of the red one, at least for the moment. The biggest star of the race thus far has been Jon Field. He has moved the Intersport team’s Lola up to fourth overall by lap 5 (passing Leitzinger and Brabham). Capello continues to open up a strong, strong lead, followed by the Porsches, Jon Field, and David Brabham in the Highcroft Acura. This pattern continues until about the 20-minute mark when we have significant incident at the Turn 4 esses. It appears that the No. 26 Acura of Bryan Herta cut off the No. 3 Corvette. Jan Magnussen slews the yellow car into the tire wall, nearly shoving the barrier off a cliff. The Dane hops out unharmed while Herta was later called in for a looong penalty. The course goes yellow—a long one for the track repairs. Earlier, Butch Leitzinger had pulled the No. 16 Porsche in with a bad misfire (plug wires and coil). The team lost 11 laps behind the wall, which would have been worse but for the caution period. The Audis and Porsches pit, leaving Field in the overall lead. Brabham was second, and leader of the contingent that had stopped. The restart came at the 55-minute mark, but not for long as Nathan Swartzbaugh goes into the barriers at a right angle, retiring the No. 73 Tafel Porsche, and bringing out another caution. Field and Dyson led by virtue of not stopping: everyone else in P1 and P2 did stop. Just after the hour, with Field and Dyson pitting in the second caution, the leader was – Lucas Luhr. Order At 69 Minutes
1 2 P1 1 Lucas Luhr 36 0.000 1:10.802 1
2 1 P1 2 Dindo Capello 36 1.949 1:09.798 1
3 6 P2 1 Sascha Maassen 36 3.827 1:10.910 1
4 7 P2 2 Timo Bernhard 36 4.948 1:10.603 1
5 9 P2 3 David Brabham 36 6.239 1:12.087 1
6 10 P1 3 Darren Manning 36 7.585 1:12.459 1
7 15 P2 4 Adrian Fernandez 36 7.977 1:11.994 1
8 5 P2 5 Stefan Mucke 36 9.412 1:12.162 1
9 06 P1 4 Klaus Graf 36 10.681 1:11.781 1
10 88 P1 5 Jamie Campbell-Walter 36 11.997 1:12.380 1
11 8 P2 6 Jamie Bach 36 29.301 1:13.363 2
12 37 P1 6 Jon Field 36 31.112 1:12.010 1
13 20 P2 7 Chris Dyson 36 32.807 1:12.805 1
14 26 P2 8 Bryan Herta 36 58.069 1:11.845 4
15 12 P1 7 Chris McMurry 35 1 Lap 1:16.688 1
16 4 GT1 1 Olivier Beretta 35 14.578 1:17.241 1
17 54 GT2 1 Terry Borcheller 34 2 Laps 1:23.579 1
18 45 GT2 2 Jörg Bergmeister 34 1.148 1:22.542 1
19 62 GT2 3 Jaime Melo 34 1.655 1:22.264 1
20 71 GT2 4 Wolf Henzler 34 2.821 1:22.208 1
21 27 GT1 2 Fredy Lienhard 34 6.307 1:19.267 1
22 21 GT2 5 Joey Hand 34 7.930 1:22.819 1
23 61 GT2 6 Nic Jonsson 34 10.239 1:23.303 2
24 18 GT2 7 Ralf Kelleners 34 11.755 1:22.564 1
25 44 GT2 8 Darren Law 34 12.790 1:23.901 1
26 31 GT2 9 Dirk Mueller 34 13.491 1:22.224 1
27 53 GT2 10 David Murry 34 14.706 1:25.507 2
28 73 GT2 11 Nathan Swartzbaugh 28 8 Laps 1:22.843 1
29 16 P2 9 Butch Leitzinger 25 11 Laps 1:11.695 1
30 3 GT1 3 Jan Magnussen 15 21 Laps 1:17.351 0 | 
