LEXINGTON, Ohio — It wasn’t supposed to be this way, but this season the American Le Mans Series has become a playground for the Penske team DHL factory LMP2 Porsche RS Spyders.
On Saturday, that trend continued, as the two yellow-and-red prototypes took their fifth-overall victory of 2007 and their second-consecutive 1-2 sweep in the Acura Sports Car Challenge at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
The Penske team played the pit stops perfectly, short filling the pole-sitting Romain Dumas entry, while giving its stablemate, with Ryan Briscoe aboard, a full load during its final refueling halt. In the end, while Briscoe pulled up onto Dumas’s tailpipes, it was Dumas and his partner, Timo Bernhard, crossing the line just over a second ahead of Briscoe and Sascha Maassen.
Such has been the overwhelming performance of the Penske squad that they haven’t lost a race since the opening Sebring round in March, and they haven’t been out of the outright winner’s circle since St. Petersburg later that month.
Yet, the statistics are somewhat misleading, for even while the vaunted, supposedly faster factory LMP1 category Audi R10 turbo diesels have not been able to conquer their Porsche rivals, they have come close, which is exactly what happened Saturday.
At the start, Emanuele Pirro quickly pushed his way past the Porsches to take over the top position. And while the LMP2 contenders would take it back as the race wound down, it was Pirro’s partner, Marco Werner, who appeared to have the upper hand  — at least as far as the outright honors were concerned. However, a longer-than-normal pit stop combined with the quick work of the Penske team put Werner back to third. And while he was able to close the gap, he was still more than 15 seconds back at the checkered flag.
Fourth for Acura were Luis Diaz, one of many drivers doing double duty over the weekend at the Rolex tour’s Barber round outside of Birmingham, Ala., and Adrian Fernandez, whose Lowe’s-sponsored Lola came home fourth overall and third in class, this after Fernandez had put the car into the overall lead just before the final round of pit stops.
Completing the top five was the second Audi R10, which tangled with Stefan Johansson’s Highcroft Racing LMP2 ARX-01a on the first lap, putting Rinaldo Capello a lap down. However, good work by him and his hard-charging partner, Allan McNish, enabled the Scotsman to unlap himself in the closing stages and take fifth.
Indeed, while the Penske team and the Acuras have been grabbing the headlines this year, few have noticed that the Audis have completely dominated in LMP1, winning not only Sebring and St. Petersburg outright but claiming every LMP1 race trophy in the process.
Meanwhile, Butch Leitzinger and Andy Wallace gave Rob Dyson something to cheer about, taking sixth overall and fourth in class with their RS Spyder, just ahead of Chris Dyson and Guy Smith in the second Dyson Porsche.
As for Johansson and David Brabham, they came back to take eighth in the outright standings, while Greg Pickett and Klaus Graf were ninth overall in their Lola-Judd, garnering third in LMP1 as well. Finishing out the top 10 were Marino Franchitti and Bryan Herta in their Andretti Green Acura AXR-01a, which had several issues, including the loss of a right-rear tire during the late going.
Olivier Beretta and Oliver Gavin won the fratricidal GT1 Corvette contest over Johnny O’Connell and  Jan Magnussen, the latter pair being forced to start from the back after their car failed a post-qualifying technical inspection.
Over in GT2, the Flying Lizard Porsche duo of Johannes van Overbeek and  Jorg Bergmeister took their second-straight victory with their Porsche 911 GT3RSR, increasing their championship point lead as a consequence.
As was the case earlier this month at Lime Rock, the two benefited from the war between the Ferrari 430GTs of Mika Salo and Tomas Enge, which, as was the case earlier in Connecticut, got together here, causing Enge, who was on probation, to serve a five-minute penalty and Salo a two-minute enforced rest period courtesy of race officials.
Despite this, Salo and Jaime Melo were able to bring their Risi Ferrari home second, their teammates, Eric Helary and Gianmaria Bruni, earning third in the smaller production class.