Flying Lizard Qualifies 8th and 13th at Laguna Seca

May 21, 2010 – Monterey, Calif. – Joerg Bergmeister qualified the No. 45 Flying Lizard Porsche eighth in GT – with a time of 1:23.484 – for today’s ALMS round three: the American Le Mans Series Monterey Presented by Tequila Patrón. In the No. 44, Seth Neiman qualified thirteenth at the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca circuit.

Joerg commented, “It was a disappointing result. On my first quick lap, I made a mistake, and then I hit traffic, and the bad luck seemed to cascade from there. But over the last two practice sessions we’ve made a lot of progress towards our race setup and I’m confident we’ll have a solid racecar tomorrow.”

No. 45 engineer Stefan Pfeiffer added, “We are very close with setup, but we still have some things we have to find and improve. We need to focus on making a strong car that will last the six hours: to put it in context, that’s more than half of a Petit Le Mans. It’s especially important at a small circuit like Laguna, where we have a lot of traffic and the cars can easily go off course and then rejoin, bringing dirt and debris with them. We should have good racing weather tomorrow. It will be cooler than today, which will help the drivers.”

Jaime Melo in the Risi Competizione No. 62 Ferrari took the GT pole today with a time of 1:22.752. In the No. 45, Joerg and Patrick Long are tied for the GT championship with Melo and Gianmaria Bruni in the No. 62. After a fourth place finish at the season opener at Sebring, the duo were able to close the points gap to the No. 62 with a win at Long Beach last month. In the No. 44 Flying Lizard Porsche, factory driver Timo Bernhard will join Seth Neiman and Darren Law.

Follow the Race
The race will get the green flag on Saturday, May 22 at 2:30 pm PT. The race will be broadcast live online at todocast.tv (sign up at www.americanlemans.com). It will be broadcast tape-delayed on CBS Sports at May 29, starting at 10:30 am PT/1:30 pm ET. Flying Lizard will broadcast their team radio live during the race: for more information, go to http://www.lizardms.com/. Team gear will be available onsite at the race in vendor village and online at www.lizardms.com/store.

About Flying Lizard Motorsports
Flying Lizard Motorsports competes in the American Le Mans Series GT class. The team has finished in the top three in the ALMS GT2 drivers’ and team championships every year since 2004, their first year of professional competition. In 2009, the team swept all ALMS GT2 titles: Joerg Bergmeister and Patrick Long won the drivers’ championship in the No. 45; Flying Lizard won the team championship; Porsche won the manufacturer championship; and the Flying Lizard No. 44 Porsche won the Michelin Green X Challenge championship (new for 2009). It is the team’s second consecutive triple championship: in 2008 Joerg Bergmeister and Wolf Henzler won the ALMS GT2 drivers’ title in the No. 45; Flying Lizard won the team championship; and Porsche won the manufacturers’ title.

Flying Lizard has also competed in the 24 Heures du Mans from 2005 through 2009, finishing third in 2005, fourth in 2006, and sixth in 2008. The privateer team is based in Sonoma, California.

Flying Lizard is sponsored by ShoreTel, a leading provider of enterprise IP telephony solutions; Openwave Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: OPWV), a global software innovator delivering context-aware mediation and messaging solutions that enable communication service providers to create and deliver smarter services; eSilicon, a semiconductor company; and RedlineCoffee.com, a premium coffee company dedicated to motorsport enthusiasts. Team partners include Porsche and Michelin.

Visit the team website at www.lizardms.com

© RIF | Flying Lizard Motorsports