Aston Martin Wins Modspace American Le Mans Monterey

September 17, 2011 Updated: October 2, 2015

The #007 AMR/Lola Aston Martin of Adrian Fernandez, Harold Primat, Stefan Mucke took its first ALMS victory at the ModSpace American Le Mans Monterey six-hour endurance race. (Americanlemans.com)
The #007 AMR/Lola Aston Martin of Adrian Fernandez, Harold Primat, Stefan Mucke took its first ALMS victory at the ModSpace American Le Mans Monterey six-hour endurance race. (Americanlemans.com)
One appeal of endurance racing is that there is ample time for repeated reversal of fortunes; plenty of time for strategies to be conceived, implemented, and altered. Cars which seemed uncatchable can be caught; cars which seemed to be sidelined can get back in the race.

The Modspace American Le Mans Monterey from Laguna Seca Saturday offered all this and more; hard-fought battles in every class playing out throughout the race, from the green flag until the final few hundred yards of the finishing straight in the final seconds of the race.

GT and P-1 champions were crowned; Aston Martin got its first P1 win, Flying Lizard its first of the season. Through six hours of racing there weren’t two laps without some kind of exciting action.

Aston Martin Racing finally got a win with its aging #007 AMR Lola Aston Martin; Adrian Fernandez, Harold Primat, and Stefan Mucke brought the V12-engined coupe home a lap ahead of the competition, taking the lead early in the race, trailing for most of the middle, than closing with a rush to the front while the competition broke or spun are waited in the pits (more on that later.)

“It was very close at the beginning, but in a 6 hour race you have to keep it clean the whole time,” Mucke told Americanlemans.com.” The car was really good when I went in for the last 1.5 stints.

“I was surprised the temperature helped us a little bit. The car started to suddenly work. We had an advantage passing other cars, not getting a lot of pickup. But the temperature and conditions really suited the car and made it really fast.”

Primat and Fernandez had only one previous race in the AMR Lola, after driving the now-defunct AMR-1. “It has been a difficult year for all of us with the new car at Aston Martin,” he said.

“It was nice to come back with the older car and know its reliable. The first day we were not really competitive and we made some changes. For the morale of the team it was great to come back with this.

“The racing in the ALMS right now is fantastic racing. The Mazdas and the Muscle Milk car was really competitive and I think we were all really pushing close up until the last 30 minutes or so.”

Battles Begin

All four LMP-1 cars lapped nose-to-tail for the first several laps. (Americanlemans.com)
All four LMP-1 cars lapped nose-to-tail for the first several laps. (Americanlemans.com)
The fighting started immediately, as the Mucke in the Aston Martin tried to take second from Butch Leitzinger in the $20 Oryx Racing Dyson Lola Mazda, while Chris Dyson in the #16 Dyson Lola Mazda treid to drive away. The top four LMP-1 cars were within a second of each other for the first several laps.

Mucke got second on lap three, then passed Dyson for the lead on lap eight. The Dyson crew had swapped the car’s engine an hour-and-a-half before the race; possibly a few things needed adjusting, because Dyson started dropping places rapidly.

On lap 16 Butch Leitzinger showed his talent, dodging inside a GTC car while Mucke went the long way around, giving the Oryx into first place.

Mucke then started a 25-lap battle with Lucas Luhr in the Muscle Milk AMR Lola-Aston Martin. The two touched and Mucke spun on lap 24. The on lap 52 Mucke, in third ahead of Luhr, got hung up behind the Risi Ferrari on the uphill approach to the Corkscrew. Mucke slowed and Luhr charged, entering the Corkscrew inched behind the factory Aston.

Stefan Mucke led at the beginning of the race and at the end; the Aston Martin might not have been able to catch the Lola Mazdas through the middle laps, but it is only the last lap which counts. (Americanlemans.com)
Stefan Mucke led at the beginning of the race and at the end; the Aston Martin might not have been able to catch the Lola Mazdas through the middle laps, but it is only the last lap which counts. (Americanlemans.com)
What happened next is open for discussion. According to race officials, Lucas Lurh gave Stefan Mucke the most imperceptible of nudges, spinning the #007 is it plunged down the Corkscrew. From all the cameras—in-car, trackside, and overhead—there is no clear indication of contact; it looks like Mucke went in too hot and lost the back end.

In any case, the Muscle Milk car was assessed a one-minute penalty, costing the team a lap.

The next lap saw the first full-course caution as the #11 JDX GTC Porsche went off. After pit stops, Chris Dyson retook the lead.

Another Cup car went off on lap 79 bringing out another FCY. After pit stops this time, Harold Primat, who had taken over the factory Aston from Stefan Mucke, came out in the lead, followed by Humaid Al Masaood int her Oryx and Guy Smith in the Dyson.

Smith wasted no time getting back to the front: on the lap 86 restart, he passed Al Masaood in T4 and then Primat in T7, going from first to third in three corners—the Dyson crew had obviously got the car working right, and Smith was getting all of it.

Fate Crushes Muscle Milk

The #007 Aston Martin weaves through traffic in the Corkscrew. (Americanlemans.com)
The #007 Aston Martin weaves through traffic in the Corkscrew. (Americanlemans.com)
After another round of yellow-flag pit stops (#11 Cup car off again) Smith led Klaus Graf in the Muscle Milk Aston Martin, ahead of Adrian Fernandez in the factory Aston and Steven Kane in the Oryx. That order stood for almost fifty laps when disaster, in the form of a broken oil pump, struck the Muscle Milk car.

Graf and Luhr had made up their lost lap and were closing on the race lead; they were pushing hard to close the points gap to Dyson, hoping to take the championship fight to Petit le Mans, where 30 points were available.

The broken oil pump broke their chances. After their mechanical failure at Sebring which cost them 30 points, a major mechanical failure at the 25-point Laguna Seca endure was just too much to make up.

The Muscle Milk crew didn’t surrender; they worked on the hot engine, tearing it down and rebuilding it in time to rejoin and finish the necessary 70 percent of the race to be scored. Even so, the points they earned were just not enough to keep Dyson Racing from closing out the championship.

Controversial Strategy

The #16 Dyson Lola Mazda or Chris Dyson, Guy Smith, and Jay Cochran led most of the race but fell back in the final 45 minutes. (Regis Lefebure/Dyson Racing)
The #16 Dyson Lola Mazda or Chris Dyson, Guy Smith, and Jay Cochran led most of the race but fell back in the final 45 minutes. (Regis Lefebure/Dyson Racing)
With Muscle Milk out of the picture, the race was between Dyson and Aston. On lap 201, after pit stops and driver changes, Jay Cochran in the Dyson Lola led Stefan Mucke by 13.5 seconds; Steven Kane in the Oryx Lola was 55 seconds back.

Mucke cut the lead to three seconds in five laps, and in another five laps took the lead just past the Corkscrew. By this time Kane had cut his gap to 27 seconds.

The #20 Oryx Racing Dyson Lola Mazda of Butch Leitzinger, Steven Kane and Humaid Al Masaood voluntarily sidelined itself to help the Dyson car seal the championship. (Regis Lefebure/Dyson Racing)
The #20 Oryx Racing Dyson Lola Mazda of Butch Leitzinger, Steven Kane and Humaid Al Masaood voluntarily sidelined itself to help the Dyson car seal the championship. (Regis Lefebure/Dyson Racing)
On lap 218 Cochran came in for fuel; with 43 minutes left in the race, this should have been his last pit stop. Kane came in a lap later. Mucke came in on lap 224, rejoining the race 37 seconds ahead of Cochran.

On lap 234, Jay Cochran contacted a GTC Porsche trying to squeeze past, puncturing the Lola’s left rear tire. He went back out but spun in the Corkscrew on cold tires and stalled, bringing out a full-course caution.

Here is where things get ugly; The Dydon team, wanting to wrap up the championship at Laguna Seca, asked the #20 Oryx Dyson car to pit long enough to let Cochran in the #16 Dyson car get by.

Rob and Chris Dyson knew that a DNF at Petit Le Mans, the last race of the season, coupled with a class win by the Muscle Milk Aston, would give Muscle Milk the win; the two teams would be tied in points but Muscle Milk had more wins, which would break the tie in their favor.

When the race went green again on lap 240, Steven Kane in the Oryx was a lap behind the factory Aston and a lap ahead of the Dyson Lola.

Two laps later the Oryx  came back into the pits, ostensibly to repair the computer. “Computer repairs” took two laps—just long enough for Jay Cochran to pass the Oryx. 

The #16 Dyson Lola Mazda finished three laps down—but since the Aston Martin AMR-Lola is an ILMC car, not an ALMS car, it was not eligible for points

Chris Dyson and Guy Smith won the 2011 American Le Mans Series LMP-1 championship. Hopefully this will help them raise sponsorship dollars for the 2012 season. The way in which they won it was not optimal, but … racing is a team sport, and it is in no way unusual that a sister car—in this case, the #20 Oryx Dyson Lola—be asked to take on for the team.

For Dyson, the win means a championship after years of struggling. For Oryx, Steven Kane and Huamid Al Masaood know that they might have taken second but had no chance at a win anyway. They will likely be back to contest the full 2012 season, and might win a championship of their own.

For Adrian Fernandez, Harold Primat, and Stefan Mucke, this was their first win in the Aston Martin, and the first ALMS win for Primat and Mucke.

The American Le Mans Series ends its season at Petit Le Mans, a ten-hour or 1000-mile endurance race run with the International Le Mans Cup series. The field will include all the best European as well as North American teams; Audi and Peugeot, Rebellion and Oak, plus Muscle Milk, Dyson, and Oryx will compete for the overall win.

Petit Le Mans starts at 11:30 a.m. ET on October 1 at the Road Atlanta racetrack in Braselton, Ga. Tickets are available through the Road Atlanta website or via phone at 770.967.6143, or 1.800.849.RACE. Tickets will also be available at the gate on race day.