American Le Mans 2009 – Mosport

MOBIL 1 PRESENTS THE GRAND PRIX OF MOSPORT | August 30, 2009

 

ALMS: Mosport Post-Race Notebook

Risi’s Turnaround Race

What a difference a day can make. Just 24 hours before the start of Sunday’s Mobil 1 presents the Grand Prix of Mosport, Risi Competizione’s race and title hopes had almost evaporated. Jamie Melo stuffed the No. 62 Ferrari in the Turn 1 barriers, sustaining extensive damage to the F430 GT. The Brazilian was unhurt, but his pride was broken.

The Houston-based crew, led by team manager Dave “Beaky” Sims, worked until 1 a.m. Sunday morning making repairs to the car, primarily on the left side and rear-end. The damage was so severe that bodywork panels and a b-pillar had to be taken off the team’s prized two-time Le Mans-winning (spare) chassis and used for the rebuild.

It didn’t take long for the team’s hard work to pay off, as Melo charged from 9th on the grid to 5th in the opening ten laps, and reeled in the GT2 leaders before the car’s first stop an hour into the race. Pierre Kaffer took over the reigns and jumped into the lead, thanks to quick pit work under the full-course caution.

Kaffer battled both Corvettes during his two stints, setting the race’s fastest GT2 lap along the way. In the end, the German lost the lead to the No. 3 Corvette of Jan Magnussen but kept the pressure on the Dane all the way to the checkered flag, coming a mere 0.331 seconds from the win.

“In the end it was a great battle with Jan,” Kaffer said after the race. “It was fair and it was hard. Jamie did a great first stint to put me in this position. The fight to the end was one of the best races I’ve ever run because it was so fast, so hard and so close together, and we made no mistakes.

“I think the whole crew deserved this result. They cut up our nice Le Mans-winning car to put this car [on the track]. You can see how professional of a job they did with it. I have to say [well done] to the entire Risi Competizione team, and also Ferrari. It’s nice to be back up front after two hard races for us.”

Melo found redemption in the race thanks to his storming first stint. The team’s second place finish also kept their championship hopes alive, making an eight-point gain over Flying Lizard Motorsports’ Jorg Bergmeister and Patrick Long.

“After a big disappointment yesterday, the team put everything together,” Melo said. “The car was good and consistent and easy to drive. We tried our best. We’re still missing some speed in a straight line, otherwise we could have gotten the Corvettes. But we showed what we can do and that’s our best. Let’s work for Petit Le Mans.”

First Race For Revised Wave-By Procedure

IMSA had come under recent scrutiny for its wave-by procedures, which split up the GT2 battles in the last two rounds at Mid-Ohio and Road America. Determined to take action, the officiating team, led by race director Beaux Barfield, enforced a new procedure this weekend, one that appears to have solved the persisting issue.

Under the old rules, the pace car would pick up the overall race leader under a full course caution. If that leader pitted, then all the cars ahead of the new overall leader in the queue would be given a ‘wave around’ the pace car, effectively gaining a lap over the cars behind the overall leader. This occasionally killed a class battle, if one or two of the class leaders got the wave-by and other contenders prior to the yellow did not.

The new procedure, dubbed a ‘work in progress’, still has the safety car pick up the overall leader, but the first class-leading car is now at the head of the pack after the round of yellow flag pit stops. By picking up the first class leader, fewer cars get the wave-by, and thus keeps class-leading cars on the same lap.

It was put to the test Sunday during the race’s only full course caution, where the race-leading Patron Highcroft Acura pitted and the second-placed, but lap behind, de Ferran Motorsports Acura stayed out. The de Ferran machine, along with the No. 44 Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche, got the wave-by, and the pace car picked up the LMP2 class-leading Lowe’s Fernandez Acura following the pit stops.

Adrian Fernandez restarted from the lead position, with overall race leader David Brabham in the middle of the pack, and the de Ferran car further back on the tail end of the lead lap. As shown by the de Ferran Acura, the wave-by allows cars to effectively gain a lap, but not lose a lap to the class leader.

“It’s odd that the [overall] leader is in the middle of the pack [at restarts], but if it keeps the battles going, then that’s what it’s all about,” said race winner Scott Sharp. “The ALMS is all about on-track battles all the time. Just look at the GT battle at the end of the day; that was pretty ferocious. Something like that could be disrupted if somebody had a lap lead, and that wouldn’t have made for a finish like what we had.

“It was a great first step. Obviously it would be nice if they could pick up the overall leader of the race and still accomplish all that, but that may not be mathematically possible.”

IMSA’s VP of operations, Scot Elkins, was pleased with the results of the new procedure, but will not be making any permanent rule changes until extensive reviews of all data collected and consultations with teams. Elkins reiterated to me after the race that the procedure is still a “work in progress” and could possibly change again for the Petit Le Mans, especially with the influx of European teams used to running by the ACO rulebook.

Corvette Breaks Through

Corvette Racing walked away with GT2 class honors for the very first time on Sunday, in only its third race in the highly competitive category. It came as no surprise the Pratt & Miller squad would be contenders right out of the box, but not a lot of people expected a win this early in the program, especially considering the competition they were up against.

“I didn’t think it was going to be possible during qualifying or the beginning of the race because the Ferrari was very, very strong,” said race winner Jan Magnussen, who steered the No. 3 Compuware Corvette C6.R to a narrow 0.331-second victory over the Risi Competizone Ferrari.

“We haven’t really had the outright pace to be able to fight with the BMWs or Ferrari and even the Porsches. We’ve had good racing with good strategy and pit stops which have really done it for us. In many ways, the cars have been fantastic since the very first shakedown. We haven’t done any testing since we debuted the car at Mid-Ohio.”

The shape of the race changed drastically when the BMW Rahal Letterman Racing BMWs, which again qualified 1-2, dropped out of the hunt early on. The No. 90 car of Bill Auberlen and Joey Hand lost considerable time after getting rear-ended by the No. 45 Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche, while the Dirk Muller and Tommy Milner-driven No. 92 Bimmer retired with mechanical issues.

This narrowed the GT2 battle down to a three-horse race, between the two Corvettes and the Risi Ferrari, with the No. 3 team of Johnny O’Connell and Magnussen prevailing. However, both admitted the Corvette’s reliability won them the race, instead of its pure speed.

“I think we still want to work on our pace,” O’Connell said. “If you look at the way these races have gone, I think others may have self-destructed a little bit to allow us the opportunity to pounce on them. If you look at the races we’ve competed in, we’ve been mostly mistake-free with both cars.

“Right now, everyone is concerned about the pace of the BMW team, but the strength in Corvette Racing is it’s ability to go mistake-free for the majority of the time. That’s how we really won today. I think anyone can argue that the Ferrari was faster, but we had one bad-ass from Denmark in the car, and that made all the difference.”

Tough Day For GT2 Championship Leaders

Flying Lizard Motorsports’ Jorg Bergmeister and Patrick Long came home fifth in GT2, their worst finish of the season after fighting an ill-handling Porsche from an early race accident.

Long slammed into the rear of Bill Auberlen’s BMW 20 minutes into the race, after the Bimmer checked up for the slow Autocon Lola-AER in Turn 5. Auberlen’s car sustained heavy rear-end damage, but the No. 45 Porsche only suffered moderate front-end damage, enough though to affect the car’s handling for the remainder of the race.

“I had a run on him between Turns 5A and 5B and was just about to pull out, and then [I saw] the brake lights and obviously couldn’t see the prototype,” Long explained. “I was flat out on the floor and didn’t have a chance to lift. I feel bad for those guys. I thought our race was over as well, but certainly it wasn’t anything remotely controllable.”

Long continued but pitted early at the 47-minute mark because of low visibility due to an oil-covered windshield, and went a lap down when the full-course caution came out just minutes later. The remaining leaders used the yellow to make pit stops and put the No. 45 car out of contention for the win again.

“We were unlucky with the timing of the yellow and losing a lap, but for the remainder of the race, it was pretty much just fighting for position with the lead cars,” Bergmeister said. “It was very enjoyable really – even though we couldn’t gain any more positions and finished fifth, it was some very exciting racing.”

Without the damage and unlucky break with the caution, Bergmeister thinks they could have challenged for fourth place, which went to the No. 87 Farnbacher Loles Porsche of Wolf Henzler and Dirk Werner.

Nonetheless, Bergmeister and Long retain their championship lead, but is now 31 points ahead of Risi Competizione’s Jamie Melo and Pierre Kaffer, who finished second on Sunday.

With 55 available points in the remaining two rounds, and 30 up for grabs at Petit Le Mans alone, the Flying Lizard duo could lock up the title in the 1,000-mile marathon next month.

News and Notes

•The No. 19 van der Steur Racing Radical SR9 AER has been excluded from Sunday’s results after it failed the post-race stall test. Gunnar van der Steur and Adam Pecorari had initially finished 10th overall and 3rd in LMP2.

•Dyson Racing had a race to forget, with both of its Mazda-powered Lola Coupes failing to finish. Chris Dyson crashed out at the one-hour mark, while Butch Leitzinger suffered a turbo failure while leading P2 in the closing minutes.

•Sunday’s event marked the final two-hour and 45-minute race of the season, with the 1,000-mile/10-hour Petit Le Mans on tap next, followed by the four-hour season finale at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.

 

© RIF/ALMS