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Oreca Peugeot, BMW Motorsport win top classes at Sebring

Historic victory for de Chaunac led team in 2011 opener

ORECA Sebring 2011-03-20Hugues de Chaunac 090917-1Peugeot won again at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring presented by Fresh from Florida on Saturday, this time the Team ORECA Matmut taking victory in America’s greatest sports car race and the opening round of the 2011 American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patrón.

Loic Duval took the checkered flag by 31.868 seconds in his Peugeot 908 HDi FAP over Highcroft Racing’s Simon Pagenaud in a classic fight that saw the top three cars finish on the lead lap. Duval, who won with Nicolas Lapierre and Olivier Panis, took a late splash of fuel to ensure he could make it to the end of the race and the first race of the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup.

“It was strategy to make the splash,” Duval said. “After that, the car was perfect

and I was able to keep the gap between us. I think we didn’t expect to be in this position. We were building and building and at the end the car was perfect.”

Team owner and ORECA founder Hughes de Chaunac was in tears during the final lap – ones of joy. This was the first time he brought his team to Sebring since sweeping the GTS podium in 2000 with the factory Dodge Viper program. Saturday’s victory was especially popular given the ‘I Love U.S. Racing’ stickers on the car.

“It’s a historic result for us,” de Chaunac said It’s a race that we built step by step. We finished just in front of the manufacturers. We avoided any mistakes. It was a perfect job from the team and these three drivers. It was not easy because I asked them to be quick and patient. We won because we did not make any mistakes.

Pagenaud, David Brabham and Marino Franchitti drove Highcroft’s HPD ARX-01e for the first time this week and appeared on the verge of its first Sebring victory. But Pagenaud finished second, and held off the highest-finishing Peugeot 908 factory entry of Franck Montagny, Stephane Sarrazin and Pedro Lamy.

The other factory Peugeot was involved in an early-race crash with the No. 2 Audi R15 Plus prototype at Turn 17 that effectively ended both cars’ chance at winning. The No. 1 Audi lost two left-rear tires on consecutive laps earlier.

“It was a great race. Everything went very well,” Lapierre said. “The plan was to stay on the same lap until three or four hours into the race. Then we started to push. We were quite fortunate that the pace car didn’t come out anymore after we decided to push.”

BMW Motorsport won a hard-fought GT battle for the manufacturer’s first win at Sebring since 1999 when it took an overall victory. Joey Hand, Dirk Mueller and Andy Priaulx led a 1-2 finish in class for the German marque, which won the GT team and manufacturer championships in 2010.

The winning car came back from an early tap and spin with one of the JaguarRSR entries and a left-front flat tire. Given some of the other attrition that went on in the class and the fact that the top six cars in class ran on the same lap deep in to the race, getting both cars to the finish – never mind a 1-2 finish – was an accomplishment in and of itself.

Five cars led the class at one point, a preview of what’s to come the rest for the 2011 season.

The car of Augusto Farfus, Dirk Werner and Bill Auberlen placed second but was leading until a tire puncture in the final third of the race pushed it back into third place. Werner passed Corvette Racing’s Tommy Milner with 35 minutes remaining to make it a 1-2 for the M3 GTs.

“The car was really good,” said Hand, who set the class’ fastest race lap. “When I got in the car Monday, I thought, “This is a great race car, we are in the sweet spot, we are in the window.’ When it is comfy, I can go quick and do it for a long time. BMW Team RLL worked really well together in the office season and built two brand new race cars. They make everything better and that is what they did. The Dunlop tires were strong out of every stint and I had some great teammates to get along with too.”

Milner placed third in the Corvette C6.R that he drove with Olivier Beretta and Antonio Garcia.

Level 5 Motorsports won its LMP2 debut with a victory for the entry of team owner Scott Tucker, Luis Diaz and Ryan Hunter-Reay. The team won at Sebring in LMP Challenge last year and moved up to P2 after taking the LMPC championship in 2010.

“We just got our cars last Saturday. This whole week was a big test session,” said Tucker, who won the LMPC driver’s championship last year. “I’ve got to hand it to Luis and Ryan. We had a small issue and went down a bunch of laps, but these guys pounded it out. It really worked out for us today.”

Hunter-Reay crossed the finish line ahead of the class pole-sitting Signatech Nissan ORECA-Nissan. Both cars had their share of trouble but a trip back to the paddock and penalties in the pitlane doomed the Signatech entry. Class pole-sitter Soheil Ayari, Franck Mailleux and Lucas Ordonez came home second in class.

Oak Racing’s Pescarolo-Judd of Andrea Barlesi, Frederic Da Rocha and Patrice Lafargue were third in class.

It was the first ALMS victory for Hunter-Reay, and second each for Tucker and Diaz; the latter won in P2 for Lowe’s Fernandez Racing and Acura in 2009.

“It’s amazing how hard these guys worked. I was watching the guys put the cars together on Saturday. From then until now, the car did a 12-hour race,” said Hunter-Reay. “For me growing up in Florida, winning Sebring is dream come true,” he added. “This place is very special to me. This is a big deal for me and the car was a lot of fun to drive. It’s a great win for Level 5 and starts the season off right.”

“It was a huge effort from Level 5 today,” Diaz added. “We worked very hard during the week to setup the car. We didn’t have the speed on the straights, but the engineers gave us a great car in the corners and the Honda was very reliable as always. Ryan drove great at the end with some amazing laps. I’m very thankful to have these great teammates and I’m looking forward to the rest of the season.”

Krohn Racing won handily in GTE-Am with its Ferrari F430 GT. Tracy Krohn crossed the checkered flag well ahead of the Proton Competition Porsche 911 GT3 RSR. It marked the team’s first victory in the American Le Mans Series and first for drivers Krohn, Nic Jonsson and Michele Rugolo.

“In the last 36 hours, we haven’t had a single mechanical issue with the car,” Krohn said. “That’s a tribute to our drivers and team prep. That car doesn’t have a scratch on it. I don’t think anybody put two wheels off the whole day.”

The class battle went back and forth between the Krohn Ferrari and the Proton Porsche all day as the two cars were the only ones to lead. The Ferrari took advantage for good with a little more than two hours to go when the Porsche ran into problems and went back to the paddock for repairs.

That gave Krohn the victory and class championship lead in the GTE-Am class of the ILMC.

“It’s a dream come true,” Jonsson said. “The guys did a fantastic job over the winter when we decided to go ILMC with the Ferrari. We have a fantastic engineering staff. The crew has been flawless. The Proton Porsche have good drivers, so they’ll be stiff competition on the European tracks.”

Genoa Racing won in LMP Challenge from the pole position as Dane Cameron won by 44.314 seconds in his ORECA FLM09 over CORE autosport’s Ryan Dalziel.

Genoa won for the first time in the class after running the full season in 2010. Cameron drove with Jens Petersen and Michael Guasch.

“The car was fantastic. For me it was great because this was the first time I had ever driven the car (at Sebring),” Guasch said. “I knew if I could run with these guys we would have a fantastic package. We came in and had a good shot at it but you never want to be that confident. We were up in the top-10 overall, so it was not bad.”

The winning Genoa car led the race in big chunks – 143 laps in the middle of the race, and Cameron led the final 70 laps. He ended where the car started: out front.

“I would say qualifying is more of an ego boost; it is such a long race, where you start is irrelevant,” he said. “We had the fastest car in the field going into the race. I don’t think we had any penalties, mistakes, no contact, none of that stuff. The team prepared such a solid car for us and we just went about our day.”

In GT Challenge, Black Swan Racing opened the defense of its 2010 class championship with its first victory at Sebring. Damien Faulkner beat TRG’s Spencer Pumpelly across the finish line by 68 seconds to win with Tim Pappas and Sebastiaan Bleekemolen in the team’s Porsche 911 GT3 Cup entry.

The battle in class was one between any of four cars – Black Swan, TRG, Magnus Racing and NGT Motorsport.

“The team was fantastic all week and we have kept our heads up and they haven’t had much sleep,” Faulkner said. “We had fantastic pit stops, and were faster then our rivals at that point.”

The Black Swan Porsche didn’t lead until just shy of the eight-hour mark. But it only fell out of the lead for four laps over the next four hours.

“The guys did such a good job,” Pappas said. “We just got our car 10 days ago from Germany, so it has been a big push to get it ready. “But here we are it is fantastic.”

Pumpelly, Alain Li and Duncan Ende wound up second, a position it held for a great majority of the final four hours. NGT Motorsport’s Porsche of Henrique Cisneros, Carlos Kauffmann and Sean Edwards placed third in class.

“I am happy with the win. It is pretty hard out there in the dark and it was warm during the day,” Bleekemolen said. “We had a problem with the brakes; it was hard to go straight. But it is great to be out here of course.”

The American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patrón heads west for its next round – the Tequila Patrón American Le Mans Series at Long Beach on Saturday, April 16. The race will be shown live and in its entirety on ESPN3.com in the United States and internationally on americanlemans.com starting at 7:15 p.m. ET. ESPN2 will provide television coverage from 5 to 7 p.m. ET on Sunday, April 17. Visit the American Le Mans Series’ schedule page for information on tickets and area accommodations.

You can follow the Series on Twitter (almsnotes) and on our Facebook page and the official YouTube channel.

Saturday’s race results

Pos	No	Class	Finishing Driver	Car	Laps
1	10	LMP1	Loic Duval	Peugeot 908 HDI FAP	332
2	1	LMP1	Simon Pagenaud	HPD ARX-01e	332
3	8	LMP1	Franck Montagny	Peugeot 908	332
4	2	LMP1	Allan McNish	Audi R15+ TDI	327
5	1	LMP1	Romain Dumas	Audi R15+ TDI	326
6	16	LMP1	Guy Smith	Lola B09 86/Mazda	324
7	12	LMP1	Neel Jani	Lola B10/60 Coupe	320
8	7	LMP1	Alexander Wurz	Peugeot 908	315
9	36	LMPC	Dane Cameron	Oreca FLM09	312
10	56	GT	Joey Hand	BMW M3 GT	312
11	5	LMPC	Ryan Dalziel	Oreca FLM09	312
12	55	GT	Dirk Werner	BMW M3 GT	312
13	3	GT	Tommy Milner	Chevrolet Corvette C6 ZR	312
14	4	GT	Jan Magnussen	Chevrolet Corvette C6 ZR	311
15	51	GT	Pierre Kaffer	Ferrari F430	311
16	45	GT	Patrick Long	Porsche 911 GT3 RSR	310
17	44	GT	Darren Law	Porsche 911 GT3 RSR	306
18	6	LMPC	Gunnar Jeannette	Oreca FLM09	305
19	57	GTE-AM	Tracy Krohn	Ferrari F430 GT	302
20	55	LMP2	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Lola Honda	300
21	54	GTC	Damien Faulkner	Porsche 911 GT3 Cup	299
22	66	GTC	Spencer Pumpelly	Porsche 911 GT3 Cup	299
23	30	GTC	Sean Edwards	Porsche 911 GT3 Cup	296
24	11	GTC	Nick Ham	Porsche 911 GT3 Cup	295
25	68	GTC	Dion von Moltke	Porsche 911 GT3 Cup	295
26	40	GT	David Robertson	Doran Ford GT/Elan	294
27	63	LMPC	Eric Lux	Oreca FLM09	294
28	59	GT	Frederic Makowieck	Ferrari F458 Italia	292
29	34	GTC	Bob Faieta	Porsche 911 GT3 Cup	291
30	26	LMP2	Franck Mailleux	Oreca 03 Nissan	290
31	35	LMP2	Andrea Barlesi	Oak Pescarolo Judd	287
32	77	GTC	Craig Stanton	Porsche 911 GT3 Cup	282
33	33	LMP2	Joao Barbosa	Lola Honda	280
34	23	GTC	Bill Sweedler	Porsche 911 GT3 Cup	279
35	2	GT	Guy Cosmo	Ferrari F458 Italia	268
36	62	GT	Jaime Melo	Ferrari F458 Italia	266
37	4	GT	Colin Braun	Doran Ford GT	261
38	98	GT	Kenny Wilden	Jaguar XKR	256
39	63	GTE-AM	Richard Lietz	Porsche 911 GT3 RSR	252
40	18	LMPC	Jarrett Boon	Oreca FLM09	246
41	48	GT	Rene Rast	Porsche 911 GT3 RSR	231
42	62	GTE-AM	Roger Wills	Ferrari F430	226
43	15	LMP1	Mattieu Lahaye	Oak Pescarolo Judd	222
44	17	GT	Bryan Sellers	Porsche 911 GT3 RSR	220
45	38	LMPC	Johnny Mowlem	Oreca FLM09	203
46	52	LMPC	Ryan Lewis	Oreca FLM09	185
47	6	LMP1	Greg Pickett	AMR/ Lola Coupe B08 62	151
48	24	LMP1	Jean-Francois Yvon	Oak Pescarolo Judd	111
49	32	GTC	Jan Seyffarth	Porsche 911 GT3 Cup	87
50	89	LMPC	Tomy Drissi	Oreca FLM09	86
51	1	GT	Johannes van Overb	Ferrari F458 Italia	49
52	50	GTE-AM	Gabriele Gardel	Chevrolet Corvette ZR1	37
53	99	GT	Oriol Servia	Jaguar XKR	35
54	50	GT	Ian James	Panoz Abruzzi	19
55	8	GT	Nicky Pastorelli	Lamborghini Gallardo LP5	10
56	60	GTE-AM	Fabien Giroix	Aston Martin Vantage	5

Source | American Le Mans Series

INDYCAR Barber Test Day 1 Combined Times

INDYCAR is in Alabama at Barber Motorsports Park this week for an open test in preparation for 2011.   And while it is early in the week, and only a test, two things are clear:  Will Power is wicked fast, and James Hinchcliffe has earned his stripes.

Imagine this, after the Indy Car-Champ Car “merger”, Will Power didn’t have a full time gig, and only got a shot to drive for Penske as a super-sub for Helio who was forced to sit out and face tax charges in court.   Two years later, Power is now full time at Penske, and is the de facto favorite at all road courses to win. Impressive.

I’m enjoying seeing James Hinchcliffe at the top of the charts.  Hinch has waited patiently for a good drive in Indy Car after paying his dues in various ladder series, and the dedication has paid off.  Hinch was P5 on the day at his first full Indy Car test.  Impressive; most impressive.

Iceman, Scott Dixon was second fastest, followed by Justin Wilson and Helio.

The field is tight as usual with the top 18 times all within 1 second of Will Power’s best time.

Link: PDF -Monday combined test times from INDYCAR.com

IMAGE: 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0) // Michele Ursino

Upon further review, Firestone will remain the INDYCAR tire supplier

After much hand-wringing and worry, it turns out that “everything’s gonna be alright”. Firestone is staying with INDYCAR through 2013. 

Firestone seems to have successful in their negotiating tactic to get more actually dollars for the sale of their race tires to race teams.

From VERSUS.com:

“Bernard said he and team owners came to a conclusion on a new supply agreement. It’s believed that the new deal will allow Firestone to charge more for its tires, which had been a point of contention in previous years.”

Another win for Randy Bernard, at least it appears that way.  Who knows what could of happened if the door for other tire manufacturers had been opened.  However, aiming for stability in the series is probably the best move at this juncture, especially with everything else changing for the teams in 2012.

LINK: http://www.versus.com/blogs/indycar/firestone-returns-to-indycar/

INDYCAR is calling on you to vote on the “lucky dog” rule

Yesterday INDYCAR announced several rule changes for the 2011:  Side by side restarts at all tracks, later green flag starts, and a “lucky dog” rule.  The fan reaction to the last one, the luck dog, was tepid at best.

I actually am in support of these rules, but a lot of INDYCAR fans think this is dumbing the racing down by matching the rules that NASCAR uses.   I say, why not?  Sure, it does pollute the “purity” of the racing, but I think it is going to make for more entertaining racing.

Besides, INDYCAR’s “purity of racing” claim is already a bit shakey.   It has been a spec series for five years, and isn’t exactly at the level F1 or the Le Mans Series when it comes to racing purity.

INDYCAR.com has a poll on the lucky dog rule, which makes me wonder if they might retract their decision. Look on their home page in the lower right hand corner.

Mark Martin scoops up Vegas Nationwide Series win, Danica scores first top 5

Today’s Nationwide series race started out with a snore but ended in a bang as Mark Martin won one for the old guys, stealing a win on the last lap of the race. Martin took advantage of the misfortune of Brad Keselowski who had a lock on the win until he blew a tire and hit the wall on the white flag lap. Instead of a win, Keselowski limped home to a heartbreaking fourth place finish.

In the early laps, however, the race was shaping up to be a Kyle Bush blowout. At one point in the race, he had lapped what seemed like all but the top 10.

But fast-forward to lap 123. Donnie Nuenberger spun in turn 4 to bring out the yellow, and a new round of pit stops. Crew Chief Jason Ratcliff called for a four-tire change on the 18 car putting Busch in the 10th spot on the restart.

What happened next is what I’m calling the “XBox Driving Moment of the Week”. This tribute is only given to drivers that demonstrate a driving style that should only be attempted in the world of video games.

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Indy Car Headlines: Ana Beatriz to Dreyer and Reinbold, VERSUS live Indy Lights package, Testing news from Texas and Barber

In today’s Indy Car “rock block” of stories, the top headline is news that Ana Beatriz has signed with Dreyer and Reinbolt for 2011. And if this is a trade for Milka Dunno to keep three ladies in Indy Car, this is a big trade up. Beatriz is the real deal with three Lights wins and a third place finish in the FIL points.

I have mixed feelings about this, because I think it is fantastic that she has landed a decent ride, and congrats to her. At the same time, neither Tony Kanaan and Paul Tracy have yet to find a chair to sit in, and nobody is sure if the music has stopped or not. Hopefully not.

Link: SPEED: Ana Beatriz Set To Join Wilson At DRR

–

Indy Car announced this morning that VERSUS is going to carry eight Indy Lights races live. In their release it says:

Eight Firestone Indy Lights races will be broadcast live this season by VERSUS. Additionally, the inaugural event in Quebec will be taped for broadcast at a later date.

The IZOD IndyCar Series window on VERSUS will expand to include the live broadcasts of Firestone Indy Lights events at Barber Motorsports Park, Streets of Long Beach, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Iowa Speedway, Streets of Toronto, Edmonton City Centre Airport, Streets of Baltimore and Kentucky Speedway. The Firestone Indy Lights standalone event – the Streets of Trois Rivieres in Quebec– will be taped for broadcast at a later date.

This isn’t exactly huge news, but nice to know that VERSUS is stepping up and giving the support series some air.

Link: IndyCar.com Firestone Indy Lights races live on VERSUS

–

In testing news, Pippa Mann drove in a test with Conquest Racing at Texas Motor Speedway, and the report from RACER magazine is that it “went well”. No reports of lap times were released, but Eric Bachelart praised the young Brit:

“Pippa quickly got up to speed and was setting competitive lap times early on – and that isn’t always the case for someone turning their first laps in an Indy car. She did a really great job and provided really good feedback to the team, which helped us to make some changes and make the car even better balanced and faster.”

Meanwhile across the Gulf, PKV, Penske, and AJ Foyt Racing were joined by Charlie Kimball in his new Ganassi-2 car. Again, no test times were released, and nobody demolished a Dallara.

Come March 14-15, it’s an all-skate at Barber when Indy Car holds a series-wide open test leading up to the season opener in St. Pete.

Links: Racer.com has more on the Barber and Texas tests.

Pirelli gives thumbs-up to Bernie’s world of sprinklers

Just a couple of days after Bernie Ecclestone floated the idea of creating artificial wet races with sprinkler systems at F1 tracks, Pirelli honcho Paul Hembery has come out in support of the idea. He expressed his opinion to Autosport.com saying:

“I thought Bernie Ecclestone’s comments were quite interesting. Straight after our recent successful [wet-weather] Abu Dhabi test I saw him and said, ‘why don’t we do an artificial wet race?’ The technology is such that you can wet a circuit with a sprinkler system, so the idea is not as daft as it sounds.”

I find it interesting that Hembery basically says that this is this fake-rain idea is actually his idea. If that’s the case, Bernie seems to have taken a shine to the idea and is floating it to the press.

Hembery made it clear that artificial rain isn’t “fake” like a pace car to bunch of the field. He said:

“I would agree that something fake like throwing in safety cars frequently to close the field up if they got too spread out would be going too far, but in terms of throwing something of a new challenge, like an artificial wet race, at drivers, tacticians and engineers, it would be great.”

Of course artificial rain isn’t “something fake”. And the Emporer is wearing clothes, too.

Link: Autosport.com - Pirelli backs artificial wet races

Bernie says “fake rain” would make F1 more exciting

I’ll say this at the top so there is no confusion. This isn’t a story from The Onion, this is a real story from ESPNF1.com. Whatever Bernie has been smoking, I want some, because it must be *really* good.

Bernie has come out and said that he would like to see sprinklers installed at F1 tracks so that race officials can artificially create wet conditions during a race.

From ESPNF1:

“Look at the races we have now,” Ecclestone told Formula1.com. “Overtaking is almost impossible because in the dry there is only one line good for maximum speed because of the rubber on the track. You have a completely different picture when it is wet. We always had the most exciting races in the wet so let’s think of making rain…

“There are race tracks that you can make artificially wet and it would be easy to have such systems at a number of tracks. Why not let it ‘rain’ in the middle of a race? For 20 minutes or the last ten laps? Maybe with a two-minute warning ahead of it. Suspense would be guaranteed and it would be the same for all.”

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Re-Load: Risi seeks to build on Utah win in ALMS GT battle at Lime Rock

Houston, Texas - Tuesday, July 20 - Hot on the heels of its dominant GT victory in the Utah Grand Prix, Risi Competizione now heads to Lime Rock Park in Lakeville, Connecticut, for the second round of the five-race ALMS summer odyssey.

Its central aims will be to not only secure a back-to-back ‘sprint’ victory, but also to consolidate its position in the championship points’ battles. Melo and Bruni currently lead the Drivers’ Championship by two points over Bergmeister/Long, and Risi/Ferrari are one point away from leading the Teams/Manufacturers’ chase.

With a view to breaking the stranglehold that the Flying Lizard Porsches have had on class victories over the last three years, the Houston-based Ferrari team has drafted in a second F430 GTC to be driven by Finland’s Mika Salo and Germany’s Pierre Kaffer, racing alongside Miller Motorsport Park winners, Jaime Melo and Gianmaria Bruni.
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Justin Wilson putting up big numbers in Indy Car Toronto practice

The IZOD Indy Car Series heads north of the border this weekend for the Honda Indy Toronto, a tight and super-fast street course that separates the men from the boys. And this weekend, Justin Wilson has been “the man”, posting either the first or second fastest time in all three practices conducted on Friday and Saturday. And in the latest session today, Wilson was almost three-tenths faster than EJ Viso and looks to be the favorite to grab the pole during the Firestone Fast Six session.
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