Houston, Tx \u2013 April 11, 2011.\u00a0 The Long Beach street course near Los Angeles in California is host to the second round of the 2011 American Le Mans Series, and it is a venue that everyone enjoys visiting.\u00a0 After the impressive debut at the Twelve Hours of Sebring of Risi Competizione\u2019s Ferrari 458 Italia GT, the Houston-based team now looks forward to a completely different, and equally challenging, track.<\/p>\n
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With its picture postcard setting of sun, sea and palms, it is one of the top motorsport events in the USA, similar in many ways to the equally historic Formula One Grand Prix in Monaco.\u00a0 The 1.968 mile, 11-turn temporary street circuit is as demanding as any other, but its situation and atmosphere make it a favorite for competitors, visitors from nearby Hollywood, and the many fans able to see, hear and experience the most competitive and entertaining sports car racing in the world.<\/p>\n
Former ALMS GT2 and FIA GT Champion, Jaime Melo of Brazil, now residing in Milan, Italy, has had a busy testing and racing period in the month since Sebring, as has his Finnish team mate, Toni Vilander \u2013 himself a double FIA GT Champion.\u00a0 Melo is a former winner on the Californian street course, in 2007, while Vilander will be making his debut at Long Beach.\u00a0 The drivers will be re-united with former Risi race engineer, Mark Schomann, who re-joins the team for the remainder of the 2011 season.<\/p>\n
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Jaime Melo:\u00a0 \u201cQualifying is, of course, extremely important for a street track as it\u2019s so difficult to overtake during the race; it\u2019s more narrow and there\u2019s no margin for error because of the barriers around the track.\u00a0 If you make a mistake, that\u2019s it.\u00a0 There are less prototypes than in the past, which makes it easier in one way, but in another it makes no difference because the level of GT racing is so competitive.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t start from near the front of the GT grid, you can spend a lot of time trying to find the right opportunity to pass and the race is only two hours long.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the F458 will be competitive on this type of track, just as we were at Sebring before a part failed, but it will be tough.\u00a0 There are less cars than at Sebring, but it will be just as busy for us in the car \u2013 you can\u2019t afford to have less than 100% concentration from start to finish.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Toni Vilander:\u00a0 \u201cI like street tracks and have some experience of them from racing in Bucharest in the FIA GT World Championship. We always did well there so, based on that, I am really looking forward to the weekend.\u00a0 It will be the first time we put a Ferrari 458 on a street circuit so hopefully we will go well.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been studying onboard footage to help me learn the track layout, and I hope we find a good level of grip in the corners \u2013 we are working all the time with Michelin to improve everything \u2013 because the Ferrari is very reactive in this way and it will help us at Long Beach.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Risi Competizione\u2019s Team Manager, Dave Sims, predicts that caution periods could well be a determining factor in the outcome of the race. \u201cThe event is 120 minutes long, a bit longer than the last couple of years, and there\u2019s always the possibility of numerous incidents which bring out the yellow flags.\u00a0 The race could well be won or lost in the pits so we\u2019ll all have to be at the top of our game.\u00a0 Our pit work at Sebring was spot on though, so we\u2019re confident about that area, but we could use some luck at this event.\u00a0 It\u2019s been too long since we last won here.\u201d<\/p>\n
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About Risi Competizione<\/p>\n
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Risi Competizione is a Houston-based Ferrari racing team lead by Managing Director Giuseppe Risi. Official team sponsors include Pennzoil, Motorola, Boardwalk Auto Group, Ferrari Fort Lauderdale, Ferrari Financial Services and Ferrari of Houston.<\/p>\n
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The next round of the American Le Mans Series will be the Tequila Patr\u00f3n American Le Mans Series on the Long Beach street circuit, Long Beach, California on Saturday, April 16, 2011 beginning at 4:30 pm PT.\u00a0 The race will be shown on ESPN 2 (5pm ET Sunday, April 17) and ESPN3.com or can be followed on www.americanlemans.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a9 RIF | Miller Communications<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Houston, Tx \u2013 April 11, 2011.\u00a0 The Long Beach street course near Los Angeles in California is host to the second round of the 2011 American Le Mans Series, and it is a venue that everyone enjoys visiting.\u00a0 After the impressive debut at the Twelve Hours of Sebring of Risi Competizione\u2019s Ferrari 458 Italia GT, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[9],"tags":[5264,5334,93,103,186,5281,1750],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11872"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11872"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11874,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11872\/revisions\/11874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}