ALMS, Petit Le Mans - Late-Race Quotes

Jorg Bergmeister, #45 Flying Lizard - “We’re pretty at the end of the stint.  I think we were the fastest car at the end of my first stint. We just can’t match the power of the Ferrari. We can hang on to them, but they can get through the traffic better. Hopefully we can hang on and we’ll just see how it goes as the race goes on.”

Scott Sharp, #01 ESM - “We’re just motoring right along. It’s running good, we just have to keep it clean.  I think our car drafts really well, but the ‘vettes are strong and they can seem to turn on when they need it.”

Bryan Sellers, #17 Falken - “We’re giving it a shot. We just need to keep it going; keep it going. We were not so good in night practice so it will be interesting to see how the car does as it starts to get dark and cool off. The tires are hanging on.  They are consistent through the stint and are able go the distance. We are off the leaders pace a bit, but we’ll keep pushing.”

Martin Plowman, #37 Conquest Endurance - “The car has been fast all day. I don’t know what happened on that last yellow. We were in the lead and for some reason they gave the Level 5 car the wave-bye which put them ahead of us, and us a lap down.  We argued our case with race control so they gave us a wave-bye to get our lap back but now we are just behind them.  Otherwise the race has been a lot of fun.  We’ve had perfect pit stops and no issues at all. I crashed the car out on the 3rd lap of night practice so we don’t know how good it will be in the dark.  I guess we are going to find out.”

Marino Franchitti, #055 Level 5 - “The car is only okay.  We secured the championship for Scott and Christophe and that was job #1. The #055 car has had a balance problem all day.  Something in the chassis is just not right. We can still do the times, but it’s really hard work. But that is what we got, and I’m just going to drive it as hard as I can all the way to the finish.”

Bertrand Baguette, #35 Oak Racing - “That stint went pretty well.  It was a very long safety car period, I don’t know what took so long.  I was right behind Heinemeier Hansson, who was in the class lead, so I tried my best to cover him right from the restart. I was able to do some good lap times, but ended up having to pit early because of a punctured right front tire. We had a reoccurring starter motor problem that cost us way too much time in the pits.  So we lost this race in the pits, not on the track. But this is a great event and a fabulous race track. I really love it. There are no tracks like this in Europe anymore.  It’s got a good mixture of fast sections and long straights.  There is a lot of traffic, but that keeps you on your toes. I hope to be back again next year.”

Warren Hughes, #118 Murphy Prototypes - “Just as they released us to go green, I felt something strange going into the Turn 12.  I thought it just may be pick-up or something, but it didn’t improve down the front straight.  So luckily I backed off a little bit going into Turn 1 or it could’ve been much worse.  During my first stint I had a spin in the chicane, courtesy of tap from Dario Franchitti.  I thought I left him enough room, but I guess he needed just a little more.”

Kyle Marcelli, #8 Merchant Services - “We’ve been fighting like crazy trying to make up some laps.  Both Downs and Ducote had a spin that cost us some laps.  The car is rocking though; I think we have fastest lap.  If we can get it a little closer I’ll go back in at the end.”