AUDI, RISI THE BIG WINNERS AT LE MANS
photo by Regis Lefebure Risi Competizione and Audi Sport North America were the biggest winners from the American Le Mans Series at the 76th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans with Audi scoring its eighth overall victory in nine years at the world’s greatest race and third straight with the Audi R10 TDI.
Dindo Capello, Tom Kristensen and Allan McNish finished on the same lap as the Peugeot 908 of Nic Minassian, Marc Gene and Jacques Villeneueve, which had a late puncture and made the deficit to the Audi much larger than it appeared. The race was as fantastic and lived up to the billing with Audi winning the race on efficiency and pitwork. The winning R10 made two less pit stops, which in a race that covered 381 laps and 24 hours made all the difference.
Tom Kristensen won his eighth overall race at Le Mans to extend his historic record. Capello won for the third time and first since 2003. But the victory was sweetest to McNish, who scored his second career victory and first since 1998. McNish and Capello won the American Le Mans Series LMP1 championship the last two seasons.
All three drivers earned their first Le Mans victory.
The Risi trio alternated the class lead first with the Team Felbermayr-Proton Porsche and American Le Mans Series competitor Wolf Henzler before the race turned into an all-Ferrari battle in the second half with Virgo Motorsport. Risi had a lap in hand over Rob Bell in the Virgo entry before it blew an engine with less than three hours left.
Melo and Salo, last year’s GT2 champions in the US with nine victories, have had a rotten opening half of 2008 with two retirements and a best finish of ninth in class at St. Petersburg.
The other Risi Ferrari retired very early when Tracy Krohn crashed the car on his out lap and damaged the rear of the car in the first hour.
Flying Lizard Motorsports, the pre-race favorite and championship leader in the American Le Mans Series, saw its race effectively end at the two-hour mark when Seth Neiman and the IMSA Performance Porsche of American factory driver Patrick Long made contact and sent both cars into the gravel. The Lizard entry suffered significant damage including severe bodywork damage on all sides, a broken rear wheel (and the other three badly damaged), two broken radiators and right rear suspension damage.
It took 80 minutes to get the car repaired. Jörg Bergmeister rejoined the race before the car pitted again in the seventh hour with frame alignment issues. The team drove back to a fifth-place finish in class.
Aston Martin Racing won in GT1 for the second straight season with Patrón Highcroft Racing’s David Brabham crossing the finish line in the No. 009 Aston Martin DBR9. Brabham, Darren Turner and Antonio Garcia beat the factory Corvette Racing Corvette C6.R of Ron Fellows, Jan Magnussen and Johnny O’Connell by a lap.
The finishing order was the same as last year with the gap the same as well from 2007. The other works Corvette of Oliver Gavin, Olivier Beretta and Max Papis finished third in class, two laps behind their teammates.
In LMP2, Penske Racing’s Sascha Maassen finished second with Team Essex in a Porsche RS Spyder with Casper Elgaard and John Nielsen, seven laps behind the winning Porsche from Van Merksteijn Motorsport.
Share this Article:
del.icio.us | Digg | Google | Ma.gnolia | Reddit | Stumble Upon | Technorati
View Printer Friendly Version
Email Article to Friend