ALMS – Petit Le Mans - Hours 7-8-9 And The Finish
923 Thousandths
© Janos Wimpffen

The No. 9 returned to what has been a very in-Acura race—starter problems there. The Arena Zytek of Tom Chilton has had a very lurid venture into the gravel and grass.

Trailing Porsche (No.6) has had a long stop. There was some body work done and also oil was added. Then the front cover is removed and work is being done to the steering rack. It’s a legacy of the earlier tag at the top of the hill, with #44. The Penske perturbations have allowed Guy Smith up into third overall, excellent work in the Dyson camp.

Lonnie Pechnik and Stefan Mücke have enjoyed a roll in the sand together. The No. 21’s problems are related to wheels, hubs, and other round things. The No. 2 diesel has barfed out two turbos this afternoon. The No. 6 Porsche made yet another stopping dealing with its steering issues and also suffered a penalty for a pit violation.

All this allowed Allan McNish to move a lap up on the second place Porsche of Timo Bernhard – at 6 hr 49 mins. The Scot had 40+ seconds, which he extended to a lap, blasting past on the back straight. In GT2 the Bergmeister / van Overbeek / Lieb Porsche continues to lead and is now a lap clear of Tom Milner, who has made an unscheduled stop with a puncture on the No. 18 Rahal-Letterman Porsche. The surviving Tafel Porsche (Wolf Henzler up) is next and has regained its lost lap on second place. The Krohn entry is now the lead Ferrari.

Seven Hours
1 1 P1 1 Allan McNish 290 0.000 1:09.391
2 7 P2 1 Timo Bernhard 289 1 Lap 1:10.408
3 5 P2 2 Danny Watts 286 4 Laps 1:11.524
4 20 P2 3 Guy Smith 285 5 Laps 1:11.286
5 8 P2 4 Ben Devlin 282 8 Laps 1:12.584
6 88 P1 2 Harold Primat 282 30.063 1:09.729
7 16 P2 5 Butch Leitzinger 276 14 Laps 1:11.879
8 10 P1 3 Tom Chilton 272 18 Laps 1:10.893
9 4 GT1 1 Oliver Gavin 269 21 Laps 1:17.478
10 6 P2 6 Sascha Maassen 266 24 Laps 1:10.274
11 9 P2 7 Robbie Kerr 263 27 Laps 1:11.621
12 27 GT1 2 Didier Theys 261 29 Laps 1:18.123
13 45 GT2 1 Marc Lieb 261 17.264 1:21.677
14 18 GT2 2 Tom Milner 260 30 Laps 1:22.066
15 71 GT2 3 Wolf Henzler 259 31 Laps 1:21.788
16 54 GT2 4 Tim Pappas 252 38 Laps 1:23.633
17 44 GT2 5 Lonnie Pechnik 249 41 Laps 1:22.787
18 06 P1 4 Klaus Graf 244 46 Laps 1:11.610
19 61 GT2 6 Nic Jonsson 244 2.463 1:23.875
20 62 GT2 7 Mika Salo 238 52 Laps 1:21.879
21 2 P1 5 Marco Werner 226 64 Laps 1:09.378
22 12 P1 6 Chris McMurry 218 72 Laps 1:16.026
23 21 GT2 8 Joey Hand 217 73 Laps 1:22.076

The No. 5 P2 class Zytek has made a long stop for a loose alternator cable and has dropped behind the Mazda of Ben Devlin. Lap times are quick as the sun has nearly reached the hilltops.

We have our hourly Krohn Ferrari spin and full-course caution. This time Nic Jonsson buries the 430 in the gravel. Just before the interruption Danny Watts moved past Devlin for fourth overall, third in LM P2. About the same time the No. 10 Zytek stalls on course. Both need a push or tow. It was easy for Jonsson and he was able to get the Greenarari back to the pits. It made a long paddock visit, but continued. The Arena entry was dead in the water (the second fuel pump failed).

The timing of the yellow greatly aided the chasing Penske Porsche. The leading Audi (Capello now driving) had made a routine stop just before the caution flag flew. This allowed the No. 7 car (now with Dumas) to regain the lost lap and then make a fairly leisurely stop on their own.

As the track goes green there are problems for Wolf Henzler as a wheel is stuck on the No. 71 Porsche. Gary reports that it is truly stuck, meaning that they have gone back out but once that rubber wears out, then what?

The No. 8 Mazda has its left turn indicator stuck on. I was once stuck on the freeway behind a Mazda with that problem. The No. 88 Creation made a routine stop but then had trouble restarting. Christophe Tinseau finally got the P1 entry going with the car now 2 laps clear of the next competitor, the P2 class Porsche of Butch Leitzinger.

Just past sunset and there are problems with the No. 18 Porsche (flat front right tire) and the No. 16 Dyson Porsche back from behind the wall after another misfire issue. It was cured with some frantic arm-waving and arguing. The GT2 situation changes with No. 71 up to second in class.

Eight Hours
1 1 P1 1 Dindo Capello 336 0.000 1:09.195
2 7 P2 1 Romain Dumas 336 20.827 1:10.401
3 20 P2 2 Chris Dyson 329 7 Laps 1:11.286
4 5 P2 3 Danny Watts 328 8 Laps 1:11.286
5 8 P2 4 Ben Devlin 327 9 Laps 1:11.828
6 88 P1 2 Christophe Tinseau 323 13 Laps 1:09.729
7 16 P2 5 Butch Leitzinger 322 14 Laps 1:10.930
8 6 P2 6 Ryan Briscoe 312 24 Laps 1:10.274
9 4 GT1 1 Olivier Beretta 311 25 Laps 1:17.478
10 9 P2 7 David Brabham 307 29 Laps 1:11.621
11 45 GT2 1 Jörg Bergmeister 302 34 Laps 1:21.677
12 27 GT1 2 Andrea Bertolini 301 35 Laps 1:18.123
13 18 GT2 2 Tom Milner 300 36 Laps 1:22.066
14 71 GT2 3 Wolf Henzler 299 37 Laps 1:21.788
15 54 GT2 4 Terry Borcheller 291 45 Laps 1:23.633
16 06 P1 3 Klaus Graf 290 46 Laps 1:11.610
17 44 GT2 5 Darren Law 290 6.695 1:22.265
18 10 P1 4 Tom Chilton 288 48 Laps 1:10.893
19 62 GT2 6 Mika Salo 279 57 Laps 1:21.879
20 2 P1 5 Marco Werner 272 64 Laps 1:09.378
21 61 GT2 7 Darren Turner 268 68 Laps 1:22.725
22 12 P1 6 Bryan Willman 255 81 Laps 1:15.821
23 21 GT2 8 Tom Kimber-Smith 255 0.201 1:22.076

The Maserati has gone behind the wall with a water leak—it returned to the race about 15 minutes later. The overall lead changes at about the 8:13-mark (19:28) as Capello stops and double stints. Dumas takes over the top spot and stops a few laps later. The French driver stops for tires and fuel but also no driver change. It comes with just over 40 laps / 45 minutes to go. The lead goes back to the Audi but has the Penske team won the strategy battle? Can they go all the way while R10 needs another halt?

The Audi team tries to one up on the coaching. Capello is called in just a few minutes later. Fill it to the finish and send him back out—that’s their ploy. Capello starts this final stint from 30 seconds down and lapping.

Meanwhile, van Overbeek makes the last stop for the GT2 class leader. Dominik Farnbacher also stops but once again the Tafel team is unable to change the wheel. The wheel is stuck as is their position as second in class. Indeed, when Farnbacher gets going again he finds that Milner is closing on him.

The No. 8 Mazda meets an unfortunate end after such a fine day. Raphael Matos crawls to a stop at Turn 9, stuck in gear. The car is stopped in a safe spot and the driver escapes through a keyhole in the fence. It doesn’t require a full-course caution but again we have an incident that most certainly does.

Andrea Bertolini comes down the hill to Turn 12 and gets out of shape. It appears that the wing has come loose. He plows into the wall directly under the starter’s stand and comes to a halt a few yards later. Bertolini seems ok but the car is shrouded in darkness and there is considerable debris on the track.

So it seems that we will have a sprint at the end. The gap between Dumas and Capello is now academic. Chris Dyson was among the first to stop during the caution, but his third place overall is not in doubt as there are seven laps ahead of him to second and three laps to fourth place.

The Krohn Ferrari has retired with cooling system problems—rather a coup de grace for their troubled day.

There are seven or eight cars between the leader and the second place car in the on-track queue. All but one of those are GT cars.

As the track goes green (lap 372 of 394), Capello sweeps past the production based cars with ease and is less than 4 seconds behind the leading Porsche of Dumas. Meanwhile, behind them Milner has passed Farnbacher for second in GT2.

For two more laps the gap, and the lap times, remain nearly identical between the two cars—cars ostensibly from two different classes—yeah, sure.

Next lap, 378 of 394, and both have to thread past a backmarker Prototype. Once past the gap drops to 2 seconds. Next lap and Capello takes the lead down the back straight. The gap stretches by about one second as Dumas has a slow lap. The next lap (380) and they record nearly identical times.

On lap 381 they both hit traffic and Dumas gains a tad. Meanwhile, in GT2 Farnbacher is not going away—hanging onto the second place Porsche of Milner.

Lap 382 and Capello is held up enough that Dumas catches back up—then the diesel torque kicks in and the Audi is away again. For the next two laps the Audi laps about a half second quicker and the gap spreads just a bit. The battle for second in GT2 continues as fierce as ever with Farnbacher, disabled wheel and all, very nearly pipping Milner at Turn 1.

There is another heartbreak as Christophe Tinseau brings the No. 88 Creation in with a puncture. His fifth place spot is in a bit of threat to the No. 16 Dyson Porsche.

For the lead, first the Cytosport Lola slows both cars and the No. 20 car of Chris Dyson has his turn. In the latter case Capello got by fine but it was the fellow Porsche of Dumas that lost maybe a second before the No. 20 car let him by.

The other Audi, now largely forgotten, makes a late stop. It was a sneaky one as Lucas Luhr goes back out in between the two front running cars. That pretty much sealed the deal for Capello.

In the GT2 war, Farnbacher is not dropping back at all but is likewise unable to make a move on No. 18. The field gets the one lap finger (yes, finger not flag) and the two GT2 cars head toward Turn 1. Milner spins! – It was all on his own and Farnbacher’s great, great drive is rewarded with second place, worn out tire and all.

Who’d have thunk it? A thrilling Audi victory. A great P1-P2 race. Marvellous result for Dyson and Zytek - and Creation, with a very fast fast lap by JC-W. Great GT2 race, especially for second. And not a Ferrari in sight. It was a different kind of Petit Le Mans. But then, aren’t they all? A classic in 1998, a classic in 2007.