Acura Endures, Wins 1-2 at St. Pete

The GT2-winning #45 Flying Lizard Porsche leads one of the Dyson Lola-Mazdas. (Jeff Yeh/The Epoch Times)

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla—While a slick track and shredding tires thinned the opposition, the Patrón Hightower and Lowes-Fernandez Acuras ran flawlessly to a 1-2 finish in the St. Pete ALMS race.

After an early spin, the Scott Sharp-David Braham Patrón Hightower P1 Acura ran without a mishap, despite needing to tiptoe around turn One, which David Brabham and Scott Sharp agreed was “worse than in the wet.”

The Highcroft Patrón team set up the car to start loose and to understeer increasingly as the track heated up. This kept the Acura ARX-02a controllable when other cars were skating through the slippery corners.

The polesitting P1 Acura of Gil deFerran and Simon Pagenaud Gained a twenty second lead in the early laps, but the heat of the day and the hot laps ruined the tires, forcing De Ferran to pit early.

When Pagenoud brought the car back out, the electric system started cutting on and off. Eventually Pagenoud was forced to park the car, though the team did complete enough laps to be counted as finishers.

(In American Le Mans Series racing any car that completes 70% of the class leader’s lap total is counted as finishing, even if the car is not running. If the car fails to complete 705 of the class leader’s total, the carry is disqualified, even if it is running at the finish.)

Perrenial prototype campaigners Interscope Racing earned a second in P1, bringing their Lola-AER home in sixth place.

Interscope is a private team, the only team to field a prototype in each of the eleven years ALMS has been running. Second in class is a fitting reward for these persistent Davids on a trackful of factory-backed Goliaths.

The Lowes-Fernandez P2 Acura of Adrian Fernandez and Luis Diaz finished second over all and first in class, the team’s second class victory in as many races.

After two years of running fast and breaking often, the team seems to have finally found luck to equal their talent. The car ran perfectly from flag ot flag, with no mishaps nor mechanical problems.

““All this is due to the team,” said Luis Diaz “They are working very hard. It is showing that the Lowe’s Fernandez team is the one to beat for the championship.”

Sliding in the Corners, Falling by the Wayside

Meanwhile mechanical problems and tire failures plagued the rest of the field. Most teams failed to anticipate how hot the day would get (the past few days had been cool and cloudy) and most teams chose too-soft tires.

Wolf Henzler in the class-leading GT2 Farnbacher Loles Porsche had chunks of disintegrated tire wedge in the rear suspension, rupturing a brake line and causing a lengthy pit stop which temporarily cost him the class lead. Gil deFerran’s choice of soft tires cost him the early lead, and the Riley Corvette lost its battle for the GT2 lead when its tires went away earlier than expected.

Butch Leitzinger in the #20-P2 Lola B09 86 Mazda had a tire disintegrate but he managed to get the car back to the pits for a replacement.

One hour into the race, Joel Feinberg lost control of the GT2 Primetime Dodge Viper, hitting the wall hard, ending his race and bringing out the day’s only full-course caution.

Meanwhile, mechanical woes claimed the Risis Competizione Ferrari, the #22 Panoz, and the #90 BMW E92 M3 (and eventually, the deFerran Acura..) Thus, out of a field of seventeen, five cars failed to finish, an attrition rate of approximately 30 percent.

GT2: the Race Within a Race to Watch

The GT2 battle was one of the highlights of race. Sebring winners Risi Competizione came out roaring, with Pierre Kaffer at the wheel of the Ferrari 430. However, twelve minutes into the race Wolf Henzler pushed his Porche past going into turn Four. Meanwhile Patrick Long in the Flying lizard Porsche and Tom Milner in the BBMW began rushing to the front of the field.

With 31 laps completed, the Risi Competizione Ferrari 430 withdrew with a damaged front suspension. After surviving twelve hours at Sebring and bringing home the class win, the Ferrari managed just a bit more than half an hour at St. Pete.

“It’s a shame for the team and the mechanics it was a great job for Ferrari because we were in a good spot for the race and the championship,” said Pierre Kaffer. “No contact, nothing, no contact with the wall or other people. I felt after 2 or 3 laps something was wrong with the car, it felt like a slow puncture.”

 “We have a front suspension problem. It can’t be repaired in time so we have to withdraw,” explained team manager David Sims. “This is not good for the championship...not at all.”

With the favorite Ferrari out of the way, the rest of the GT2 pack began jousting for the class lead. When Henzler got stuck in the pits with a broken brake line, the Riley Corvette surged into the lead. Right behind him was, of all things, the Panoz Esperante of Dominik Farnbacher Dirk Mueller in the BWM E92 M3 just inches behind. Finally Farnbacher made an amazing pass on the inside at turn seven, not a place where a driver would be expecting a pass attempt.

The Panoz held on to finish eighth overall and third in class, it’s second podium finish this year. The Panoz, a five-year-old car, is finally coming into it’s own, apparently.

Ultimately, no one could match the relaibility of the Flying Lizard Porsche team or the experience of its drivers, Patrick Long and Jorg Bergomeister, as the duo drove to a GT2 victory. 

“It was definitely exciting,” GT2 winner Patrick Long said at the post-race press conference.

“With the 911 under us, it’s one thing we always pleaded [for] which is speed and reliability. We saw some attrition out there. But we showed we had the speed to run up front.”

““We were pretty conservative on the tire choice, and that paid off for us in the long run,” commented co-driver Jorg Bergmeister.

“Patrick did a great job at the beginning; for me, there was not much to do at the end except to cruise around and keep it on the track,’ he said, laughing.

With this win, Flying Lizard took over the GT2 points lead from Panoz.

 

 

Place overall	Place in class	Car #	Class	Drivers	Laps	Differential	Car	Status
1	1	9	P1	Brabham/(Sharp*)	93	00:00	Acura ARX 02a	Running
2	1	15	P2	Fernandez/(Diaz*)	93	32.150	Acura ARX-01B	Running
3	2	16	P2	(Dyson)/Smith*	92	1 Lap	Lola B09 86 Mazda	Running
4	3	20	P2	Leitzinger/(Franchitti*)	91	2 Laps	Lola B09 86 Mazda	Running
5	1	45	GT2	Bergmeister/(Long*)	88	5 Laps	Porsche 911 RSR	Running
6	2	37	P1	J.Field/C.Field/(Ducote*)	88	5 Laps	Lola B06/10	Running
7	2	92	GT2	Mueller*/(Milner)	86	7 Laps	BMW E92 M3	Running
8	3	21	GT2	Farnbacher*/(James)	86	7 Laps	Panoz Esperante	Running
9	4	28	GT2	(Gigliotti)/Curran*	85	8 Laps	Chevrolet Riley Corvette	Running
10	5	44	GT2	Law/(Neiman*)	84	9 Laps	Porsche 911 RSR	Running
11	6	40	GT2	(Murry*)/A.Robertson	3	10 Laps	Doran Ford GT-R	Running
12	7	87	GT2	(Henzler*)/Werner	74	19 Laps	Porsche 911 RSR	Running
13	3	66	P1	(de Ferran)/Pagenaud*	66	27 Laps	Acura ARX 02a	Not Running
14	8	11	GT2	Feinberg*/(Hall)	38	55 Laps	Dodge Viper	Not Running
15	9	22	GT2	(Sutherland*)/Phinney	38	55 Laps	Panoz Esperante	Not Running
16	10	90	GT2	Hand*/(Auberlen)	28	65 Lap	BMW E92 M3	Not Running
17	11	62	GT2	Melo*/(Kaffer)	27	66 Laps	Ferrari 430 Berlinetta	Not Running

*Qualifying Driver (Starting Driver)