A Petit Le Mans for the ages

Peugeot and Audi clash plus maddening championship possibilities

Peugeot Sport Total claimed victory at the 14th annual Petit Le Mans, the final round of the 2011 American Le Mans Series. The No. 8 Peugeot of Franck Montagny, Stephane Sarrazin and Alexander Wurz had an intense battle with the No. 1 Audi Sport Team Joest Audi R18 that ended with three hours to go when the two touched, sending the Audi into wall at turn eight. From there it was clear sailing to the checkered flag for Peugeot. The No. 10 Team Oreca Matmut Peugeot 908 Hdi-FAP driven by Nicolas Lapierre, Nicolas Minassian and Marc Gené was second, followed by the No. 007 Aston Martin Racing AMR Lola Coupe B09 60 of Adrian Fernandez, Stefan Mücke and Harold Primat.

BMW Motorsports took the GTE-Pro lead from polesitter AF Corse early in the 1,000 mile race, but a flat tire for the No. 55 BMW M3 GT handed the lead back to AF Corse and the No. 51 Ferrari F458 Italia driven by Giancarlo Fisichella, Gianmaria Bruni and Pierre Kaffer. A quick pit stop for BMW allowed Joey Hand to briefly take the class lead, but Bruni retook the spot on a restart moments later and held on for the GTE-Pro win. Jörg Bergmeister just nipped Dirk Werner at the line to take second in the No. 045 Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 RSR he shares with Patrick Long and Patrick Pilet. Werner was third in the No. 55 BMW M3 GT he co-drives with Bill Auberlen and Augusto Fargus.

After the No. 26 Signatech Oreca 03 Nissan was forced to go behind the wall for repairs, LMP2 was dominated by Level 5 Motorsports. The No. 33 HPD ARX-01G driven by Scott Tucker, Christophe Bouchut and João Barbosa won by eight laps over the No. 22 United Autosports Oak Pescarolo driven by Zak Brown, Stefan Johansson and Mark Patterson. Signatech was third with drivers Franck Mailleux, Jean-Karl Vernay and Lucas Ordoñez.

In GTE-Am, Krohn Racing won its home race with drivers Tracy Krohn, Niclas Jönsson and Michele Rugolo in the No. 57 Ferrari F430. The No. 50 Larbre Competition Corvette C6-ZR1 shared by Patrick Bornhauser, Julien Canal and Gabriele Gardel was second, followed by the No. 60 Gulf AMR Middle East Aston Martin Vantage of Fabien Giroix and Michael Wainwright.

Even though the battle for the LMPC win between PR1 Mathiassen Motorsports and Intersport Racing was a nail biter, the focus kept going back to the championship implications for CORE autosport and Genoa Racing.

Ryan Lewis, Ken Dobson and Henri Richard claimed the class win for PR1 in the No. 52 Oreca FLM09 over Intersport’s Kyle Marcelli, Tomy Drissi and Chapman Ducote in the No.89 Oreca FLM09, but it was the third and fourth place finish positions of CORE and Genoa, respectively, that affected the championship. As a result, Eric Lux, Gunnar Jeannette and Ricardo Gonzalez ended the season in a three-way tie for the LMPC driver’s championship, while CORE narrowly edged Genoa for the team championship.

The battle for the GTC championship played out in pit lane. Black Swan Racing was able to usurp the lead from TRG with a quick pit stop near the 6:30 hour mark, but then Alex Job Racing played the same game to take the lead in the final round of pit stops. Driving the No. 54 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup he shares with Tim Pappas and Sebastiaan Bleekemolen, Jeroen Bleekemolen was able to take the lead from Leh Keen in the No. 23 Alex Job Racing Porsche 911 GT3 Cup in the closing minutes of the race to take the win. TRG finished third in the No. 66 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup with drivers Spencer Pumpelly, Duncan Ende and Peter Ludwig. The win gave Black Swan Racing the GTC team championship and Tim Pappas the driver’s championship.

(c) ALMS PR