BRASELTON, Ga. — “We’re back where we should be: on top.”
Scotsman Allan McNish left no doubt Saturday as to how he felt about the victory he and his partner, Rinaldo Capello had scored here at Road Atlanta in the 1,000-mile American Le Mans Series Petit Le Mans event in their Audi Sport North America R10 turbocharged diesel.
It had been eight-straight races since Audi’s last overall ALMS triumph, a stretch going back to late last March at St. Petersburg, and during that time the frustrated and vocal McNish had to endure the sight of an on-going Penske Porsche RS Spyder sweep.
Now, on this Saturday’s humid October evening that had all changed. Yet it hadn’t changed by much. Indeed, the margin between Capello and the DHL-sponsored Penske LMP2 division Porsche of Romain Dumas, Timo Bernhard and Patrick Long was just .923 of a second after 394 laps.
In fact, Capello, during a post race interview, said that he was having difficultly with the handling of his car that showed signs of excessive understeer during the closing stages, and that it was only the torque and power of his boosted diesel powerplant that kept him ahead of charging Dumas in the factory-backed RS Spyder.
Capello had gotten the lead from the Frenchman about 40 minutes before the end following the final restart from one of the numerous full-course cautions that plagued the affair almost from the beginning, and which had eliminated several top cars from either the race itself or from contention. Included in that number was the second Audi R10 of Marco Werner and Lucas Luhr, which lost some 40 laps repairing damage from a gravel trap visit (Luhr himself replacing regular driver Emanuele Pirro on Saturday morning after Pirro suffered dizziness from an earlier practice crash in the Audi), as well as the Corvette of Ron Fellows, Jan Magnussen and local favorite Johnny O’Connell that tangled with the Andretti-Green LMP2 contending ARX -01a of Bryan Herta, Tony Kanaan and Vitor Meira, which also retired as a result.
Even though there might have been some disappointment in the Penske camp at not beating the supposedly better performing Audis for a ninth-straight time, the team’s real objective of having Dumas and Bernhard garner the LMP2 year-end drivers title was achieved, this adding to the already won LMP2 manufacturers and team crowns for Porsche and Penske that were sealed following Detroit’s Belle Isle event.
Third overall and second in LMP2 Saturday was the Dyson Racing RS Spyder of Chris Dyson and Guy Smith, which had had its own adventuresome run, while the Danny Watts-Stefan Mucke LMP2 Zytek took third in class and fourth in the outright standings. Rounding out the top five was the Creation Judd of Jamie Campbell-Walter, Harold Primat and Christophe Tinseau which was second in LMP1.
Claiming ninth in the overall finishing order, and claiming the season points honors for themselves and Corvette, were Olivier Gavin and Olivier Beretta, assisted Saturday by Max Papis, in the sole surviving GT1 division entry C6 GM two-seater. With the Audi camp having already garnered the championship in LMP1, all that was left to be decided was the GT2 production car battle between Porsche and Ferrari, a contest that throughout 2007 has been weighted in favor of the Italians.
On Saturday, most expected the war to end in favor of Jaime Melo and Mika Salo in their Risi 439GT. However, electrical issues pushed Melo, Salo and Johnny Mowlem out of the picture, leaving the day to the Flying Lizard Porsche 911 GT3RSR of Johannes van Overbeek, Jorg Bergmeister and Marc Lieb, which, in a problem-free run, finished well ahead of the similar Tafel Racing 911 of Wolf Hinzler and Dominick Farnbacher, that was second in GT2 and even further ahead of the Rahal-Letterman Porsche of Graham Rahal, Ralf Kelleners and Tom Milner, Jr., that took third in the class.