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ALMS,
Mosport - Race Report As a DSC subscriber and regular visitor to the site, I know only too well how disappointing and frustrating it is to keep looking for a race report and not find it. There are a myriad of excuses that I could use for not being able to get this written on Sunday night but probably the best one would be...where to start? It was a weekend and a half for many at Mosport [not least your correspondent], with incidents and accidents a far too frequent occurrence. But more of that later. The dramatic circumstances which brought about the 50-minute red flag halt to proceedings, and the subsequent chequered flag after just 2 hours and 16 minutes of running instead of the scheduled 2 hours 45, shouldn’t detract from Klaus Graf’s third ALMS victory in the Team CytoSport Porsche RS Spyder.
The amiable German, who had the year’s endurance champion supreme, Romain Dumas, alongside him in Canada, topped off a perfect weekend by winning the penultimate round of the ALMS. The duo topped every practice and qualifying session, led every lap in the race and nearly lapped the entire field. Graf was understandably thrilled with the outcome, the second time the team has won overall this year. "Fantastic! I think we really deserved this win. We had a great package all weekend and Romain and I worked very well together and I think that was a big advantage.
"I was just talking to Greg (Pickett) and we never thought that when we bought this car, we would get this much out of it. I think it's a combination of the car, the Michelin tires and the team. We've been getting better and better and it's a good feeling. I'm proud to be able to run with the best drivers out there. I couldn't be happier, especially after last week where we came so close to another one. It's been a good two weeks!” Pickett, of course, was Graf’s 2010 team mate until sidelined by a back injury after a big accident at Mid Ohio. Romain Dumas was also a happy man, and had thoroughly enjoyed his return to the Spyder’s cockpit. “It was the first time for me and the team in the ALMS that we led every session; that was very special. In the race we were very confident, we made no mistakes and everything was going very well. We talked a lot about strategy before the race and they made the right calls; they really wanted to win. In the end, I'm very happy to have been back in the Porsche RS Spyder for one race, it was a big present for me. And I always want to win and to win with this team is just great." Second place in the LMP class – combined for the last time this season as it reverts to separate LMP1 and LMP2 for Petit Le Mans – went to the Highcroft Racing HPD ARX-01c of Simon Pagenaud and David Brabham. That was enough to keep the ALMS centenarian and his young team mate in the lead of the championship points’ battle until the season finale; they now need only to finish 6th or better in the LMP2 class at Road Atlanta to clinch back-to-back championships.
In a well-deserved third place overall was the Autocon Motorsports Lola of Johnny Mowlem and local driver, Tony Burgess. It was the second LMP podium finish for the team in three races and the best-ever result for the Mike Lewis-led organisation and especially rewarding after having lost so much track time earlier in the weekend after the fuel cell leak.
The other three prototypes in the race didn’t enjoy quite so much good fortune. Paul Drayson and Jonny Cocker were fortunate to finish fourth in class and sixth overall after an incident filled race. The good Lord got onto the marbles and slid off the track within the first hour, not causing any damage but necessitating a longish stop to clean the radiators and intake filters, and Cocker was other party involved in big accident which caused the race to be shortened.
Having been in trouble with Flying Lizards for incorrectly apportioning blame at Road America, for which many apologies to all concerned, I hesitate to say it was Jonny’s fault. However, having examined the TV footage several times and got the views of various drivers and experts, the flag has fallen down on the side of the prototype. Luke Hines had nowhere to go in his GTC Porsche other than off. He was already at the edge of the track to give faster cars as much room as possible to pass, but as Cocker was cutting through traffic contact was made and the Drayson Racing car was subsequently penalised 90 seconds for avoidable contact. Dyson Racing’s Mazda powered Lola also had a bit of an eventful race but came through to finish fifth in class. Chris Dyson started theNo.16 entry from the back of the twenty-nine car grid after discovering two punctures after qualifying and rose through to as high as second before contact with a Corvette – nor for the first time this weekend – brought them into the pits for repairs. They eventually finished five laps down on the Muscle Milk car.
The Intersport Lola’s woes continued only this time it was gearbox issues rather than engine that saw them stop after just 43 laps. Gunnar Jeannette and Elton Julian were convincing LMP Challenge winners for the fourth time this year for Green Earth Team Gunnar with their ORECA FLM09. The victory moved Jeannette and Julian into a tie with Level 5 Motorsports’ Scott Tucker for the class championship; Tucker drove to a runner-up finish with Christophe Bouchut.
“We had a lot of targets for the day,” Julian said. “I either had to follow somebody all day long, or pass them and open the gap. I got the lead and put almost 30 seconds on against the PR1/Mathiasen car of Diaz and Gonzalez which says a lot because that team has been so quick and so strong. And we didn't have a car that was quick right as we got off the truck. Our team worked all weekend getting us more and more speed.”
Frankie Montecalvo and Christian Zugel finished third in class for Genoa Racing. But for the third time in four races, the day belonged to GETG. Jeannette posted the fastest lap of the race, pretty impressive for a car still on the same engine that was in the car when the team took delivery of it in the winter. “We are up to 83.5 hours on the engine at the completion of this race,” Jeannette commented. “I was happy we didn't have to do another 29 minutes on it!” As LMPC belonged to GETG, so GT belonged to the Flying Lizard Porsche of Pat Long and Jörg Bergmeister. The superbly reliable and consistent pair took their fourth victory of the season and extended their lead in the Drivers’ championship to 22 points over Gimmi Bruni. Long had a bit of a scare in the early stages of the race when he ran over an umbrella which had made its way onto the track, but Tomas Blam’s strategy and the team’s slick pit work once again proved to be superior to many. The fuel-fill system that the Porsche has also proved to be crucial as the No. 45 was able to exit the pits just a whisper ahead of the Risi Ferrari, despite taking on four Michelin tyres as opposed to the red car’s two.
“The start was wild,” said the ever-quotable Long. “There was oil dry on the front straight down into turns 1 and 2 which made visibility really tough.” [In truth, there was far too much oil-dry (concrete dust to the more traditional of you!) and it should have been cleaned up more before the start]. “It was really tense when it came down to the yellows, it made it more about strategy instead of running flat out.” Bergmeister enjoyed a great dice with the F430 in the final hour. “There were several times that Bruni had a good run on me in the long straights and got next to me on the outside, but I was able to stay ahead and once I had clean air, I was able to pull away a bit and stay ahead."
Risi were more than happy with second after a very dramatic weekend, although there was frustration about the lack of the final 30 minutes of racing as Bruni was convinced a win was within his grasp. Pierre Kaffer’s huge accident in practice was one of an eventual four, high speed, high impact crashes over the weekend. A popular face in the paddock, Kaffer was fortunate to walk away from the car without serious injury and it was good to see him back at the track after his release from hospital on Saturday afternoon. With the second Risi out, and Jaime Melo struck down by a stomach virus which put him out of action for the weekend, Bruni couldn’t have had a better substitute than Toni Vilander. The Finn drove a superbly judged stint from the back of the grid (due to the driver change) instead of the GT pole position that Bruni had claimed, passing more than a dozen cars. What’s more there wasn’t a mark on the Ferrari.
Making it three different manufacturers in 1-2-3 was Bill Auberlen and Tommy Milner’s BMW M3. The podium helped to make up for the big accident that Auberlen had at Road America – which left him racing with a broken rib in Canada – but the BMW mechanics will be wondering what they’ve done to deserve such a heavy workload. Dirk Muller clashed heavily with Andrea Robertson’s Ford GT just after the hour mark following a “two into one doesn’t go” incident at Turn 9. Corvette Racing must be wondering just what more they have to do to turn their fortunes around. Having made a somewhat unsettling driver switch on Friday, things calmed down by race day and the cars both looked fast. Olly Gavin challenged Pat Long for the first 45 laps of the race but both Corvettes encountered accidents and misfortune in the early going. Just as they had both made their final pit stops and taken on four fresh Michelin tires for the sprint to the finish, the red flags came out. More frustration.
Velox Racing won its first American Le Mans Series race as Shane Lewis and Lawson Aschenbach drove their Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car to a hard-earned victory. The duo was running second to long-time class leader, Hines, when the ORBIT/Paul Miller Racing entry crashed. It turned out to be an expensive day for ORBIT as not only did Hines’ car come back in a lot of small bits, but one of their race transporters got wedged on the circuit’s gates as it was leaving the track and did quite a lot of damage to the tractor unit’s bodywork. The Velox pairing drove back from a pitstop penalty during the race’s first full-course caution, while Lewis and Aschenbach ran second to the ORBIT car the entire way. “Shane was driving so well; we stayed with the No. 48 the whole time and the two of us had almost lapped the field,” Aschenbach said. “The team was working hard all weekend and we knew we could make it (the penalty) up on the track. We knew it was a big wreck, we didn't know it was going to take so long.”
Class championship leaders Tim Pappas and Jeroen Bleekemolen finished second for Black Swan Racing while Alex Job Racing’s Bill Sweedler and Mitch Pagerey came home third. “I knew my job was just to stay on the No. 48’s bumper for the solid hour and just keep pushing and pushing,” Lewis said. “I knew we didn't have to take any risks and just wait for him to make a mistake, and he never did. But it made for a great afternoon. I don't tap too many products or talk about them, but we are all in Porsches in the GTC and look at this car. There were two bad accidents this weekend and both drivers walked away fine. Plus this motor has 58 hours on it without a rebuild and, now to have a win on that motor, that says a lot.” And back to the incidents and accidents. With Romeo Kapudija and Pierre Kaffer’s accidents in practice, Muller and Hines’ in the race, the tally of serious crashes was – in the view of many in the paddock – far too high. It’s a testament to the manufacturers and teams that none of the drivers sustained serious injury. Once Hines’ car was removed from the Mario Andretti Straight, the officials started to inspect the damage done to the aged barriers which was substantial. Realising it wouldn’t be the work of a moment (in fact, three hours was the length of time mentioned) to make repairs, the red flag was shown to give the track workers and marshals more time to assess the situation and the cars filed into pit lane to park up. “We delayed enough for the possibility that we may have been able to get back going,” explained IMSA Race Director Beaux Barfield. “But we were also still under a time window for the live television coverage. There was a very small window we had to try and get that kind of repair done in and get back going. When we realized it wasn’t going to happen, just for the sake of the show, we put everyone around behind the Safety Car to take a real chequered flag, finish up and do the podium ceremonies.” That was judged to have been only fair for the fans. It’s only the second time in ALMS history the red flag has been thrown, less than a year since the rain-shortened Petit Le Mans. The official race time was 2 hours 19 minutes and 1 second. And so on to Road Atlanta for one of the jewels in the ALMS crown, Petit Le Mans, shining all the more brightly this year thanks to its status as a round of the ACO’s new Intercontinental Le Mans Cup. At least 45 cars are expected and the series must be delighted that the various championship titles have all gone down to the wire. Providing it doesn’t rain like last year, it promises to be a classic. Can’t wait! Finally, a very warm word of thanks to the ALMS’s Ryan Smith for all his invaluable help over the last three races. Couldn’t do it without you Ryan. Fiona Miller |
