ALMS - St Petersburg - Qualifying and Afternoon Practice

We’ll start this report with Prototype qualifying and work our way back to the practice session.

It took just two laps for Romain Dumas to snatch the overall pole position away from teammate Ryan Briscoe. Team Penske sent Briscoe out first to fight with the Audis and held Dumas until late in the session. Fortunately for Dumas, he was quick straight away because two laps is all he would get as the session was red flagged just after he crossed the timing line.

The pair of Audi R10s, Dyson’s Porsches and the Acuras of Fernandez and Highcroft took the track as soon as the green flag flew. All six were in the 1:04s quickly with McNish leading the pack. McNish separated himself from the rest in lap four when he turned in a 1:03.4. That time would be good enough for P1, with Werner just behind in P2, until Briscoe turned up to spoil the Audi party. The #6 RS Spyder split the Audi pair on its second lap and then grabbed the top spot with a 1:03.189 on its third circulation. Adrian Fernandez stayed after it and broke into the :03s on his eight lap, which was good enough for fourth overall. Right behind Fernandez was David Brabham who dipped into the :03s on his seventh lap.

The Dyson duo of Smith and Leitzinger did not improve substantially and had to settle for P8 and P9 respectively. Waiting patiently all this time in the pits was Herta in the Andretti-Green Acura and Dumas in the Penske Porsche. Herta was first out and turned a :04.8 on his first flying lap. He followed that with a :04.2 and then a :03.7. Romain Dumas was the last to take the track and on second and last flying lap set a blistering time of 1:03.039. Now the order was Dumas, Briscoe and then McNish. At this point McNish had already brought the #1 Audi to pit road. After getting pushed down to third McNish went back out trying to reclaim the top spot. McNish was on the charge immediately, maybe too quickly, because he locked the brakes coming into turn 9 and slid into the tire barriers bringing out a red flag that would ultimately end the session.

It was an unfortunate premature ending to the Qualifying as there were nine minutes left when the red flag came out. With McNish back out, and Herta and Dumas on a serious run, who knows what might have happened.

It must be noted that although McNish did not get the overall pole he was successful in P1 and recorded his eight ALMS class pole.

Bryan Herta, “Overall I’m pretty happy with the session. We are fighting with a little understeer but otherwise the car is really good to drive. I was making a pretty good run up through the order until the red flag cut us short. I think there was still a quicker lap in the car but probably not .7 seconds. We might t have outsmarted ourselves a little bit with waiting so late but we wanted to try for a clear lap. The race will come down to how myself and Marino deal with the traffic and fast pit stops. If we can win those battles we should have a good race.”

Ryan Briscoe, “The car felt great. Qualifying was the first real opportunity I had to push the car to its limits. I think we are in position here to challenge for the overall win.”

Marco Werner, “I like street races a lot, but not in this car. It’s too heavy and the wheelbase is too long for this track.”

Romain Dumas, “I only had less then ten laps in the car before the qualifying. When I heard Alan’s and Ryan’s lap times I thought it was going to be tough but we were going to go for it. We are always concentrating on P2, but if we can get up there and play with Alan and Audi, then we will.”

Alan McNish, “ÒCongratulations to Romain because that time was pretty impressive. I was pushing for the front row, but ran out of road.”Ó

GT qualifying was a little less eventful. For GT1 the #4 Corvette has been the quickest all day and again was during qualifying. So for now, Beretta leads the intrasquad battle over O’Connell at team Corvette. Each car only did three laps and then proceeded to practice pit stops until the session was over. We need some competition here.

The Ferrari again was the class of the GT2 class. This time though it was Tomas Enge in the P/WL 430 getting the better of Melo. Melo was on top first setting his quick time in his second lap. Two laps later, Enge went .2 seconds quicker to steal the GT2 pole. The Porsches of Tafel and Flying Lizards would fill the next four spots. Bergmeister held the P3 early but both Liddell and Farnbacher would eventually sneak by. Liddell being the quickest of the two, his time .7 seconds off the class pole. Pechnik in the #44 had a nice run and was only .2 seconds behind his teammate.

Ross Smith in the #22 Panoz would tag the wall on the last lap to end the session. Smith was trying to squeeze a little more speed out of the Esperante and appeared to get the car unsettled as he went over the curb going through the quick right hand turn 12. The car spun on the following straight and tagged the retaining wall.

The #61 Risi Ferrari and the #18 Rahal-Letterman Porsche both missed qualifying because of early crash damage.

Tomas Enge, “I’m very happy to get the pole. Jamie is very quick and he got me at Sebring so this is a little payback. The car was good and I was comfortable in it as well. The crew has done a fantastic job getting in prepared for this race in such a short time after Sebring. I raced at this track in 05 with IRL. I did a 1:05 then so I’m only seven seconds off of that in a very different type of race car. I think that’s pretty good.”

Precious track time during the second practice session was severely reduced because of two red flags. The first came out, right after the session started, for loose rumble strips in turn twelve. Apparently the front splitters were digging into the strip and knocking them loose. The second and most lengthy, was for a single car accident involving the #18 of Tom Milner Jr. Milner contacted the wall causing the front wheel to come off, damaging the nose.

Not surprisingly the lap times improved substantially from the first session in every class. Alan McNish in the #1 Audi might have made the biggest jump by putting the P1 in its rightful place at the top of the order. Alan McNish, “The car was better than expected really. The whole car just started to come together during that session. Getting a clear lap here certainly helps and we tried a different compound tire. The fight for a good qualifying car and a good race car are very different. I’m not sure what some of the others might being doing with that. I really like the circuit though. Oddly enough it drives more like a traditional road course than a street course. Only in the back section of the track, turns 4 through 9 do you have to really watch the walls.”

Timo Bernard was in street clothes for this session watching teammate Dumas do all the work. Bernard did the morning running and Dumas got the entire second session as he prepares the car for qualifying. The pair alternate qualifying duties at each race.

Timo Bernard, “This is the best street circuit I have ever raced on. The chicane (turns 11 & 12) and the kink are so fun. You are flat out through there and the Porsche is very good there. The Acuras are very quick also. I think the time Herta has on this track is an advantage.”

The Flying Lizards are still battling a car that tends to ‘roll’ through the corners. They have made significant setup changes from the morning and it has gotten a little better.

The Highcroft Acura spent some extra time in the pits with the rear suspension getting the mechanics attention. The team wouldn’t comment on the repair needed, but it back out and David Brabham was up to speed quickly.

The provisional grid is set with twenty four cars. Only the Rahal-Letterman Porsche did not set a time and will have to start at the back of the grid. The news from Risi is the tub of the #61 is damaged and will not return this weekend. The car will most likely be sent to their frame shop in Houston for repairs.

Russell Wittenberg