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Sears Point Raceway

X-Factor

22/07/2001

Race

Report

© Tom Kjos

Sonoma, California, USA--The start of the American Le Mans Series third event of the season at Sonoma, California was unexceptional at the front, as the two Audi Sport North America R8s get cleanly away from the field. Just behind them, Andy Wallace lost his third position on the grid to David Brabham's Panoz LMP1, an event that could have some bearing on the outcome if the Panoz trapped the Champion Audi while the Joest team cars pull into a substantial lead. The only realistic chance for Champion was to simply outdrive the silver machines, and that can't be done unless there is a clear track.

Jon Field's Intersport Lola was relegated to the back of the grid for opting to start on tires other than those on which he qualified. Only a few laps in, with four turbo cars in the LMP field, the Lola-Judd locked up the award for best sounding car at speed. Winston Cup fans will prefer the Panoz Ford V8, it is assumed.

The GTS cars got away in grid order, the Saleen S7R heading the two Corvettes.

PTG's Bill Auberlen jumped BMW Motorsport's Dirk Müller at the start, the latter having been momentarily caught behind a slow-off-the-line Corvette.

At 12:27, the Panoz plague continued, as Frank Lagorce's #51 slowed on course, the transmission reportedly stuck in neutral (how it got in that position is anyone's guess). The car was retired at 18 laps, Panoz continuing to support its claim to the "nightmare season" award.

At 30 laps, Reynaldo Capello's #1 Audi led comfortably over teammate Frank Beila's #2. Even more "comfortable" for the Joest team anyway, was the substantial gap they built on the third place Panoz, #50, of David Brabham. Andy Wallace remained behind the Panoz for about a half-hour of the race, perhaps as a result of already having lost the chance of an upset. The Champion team then did an early stop, reportedly to take the one "splash" of the two stops and a splash of fuel they thought they would require. Would this free the colorful Champion Audi of traffic and allow a run at the leading Audi Sport team?

The #7 Cadillac of Emmanuel Collard began to struggle, ending the first hour in 14th place dealing with an alternator failure that required a battery change later.

The best battle on the track at just short of an hour was between Terry Borcheller in the Saleen S7R and Ron Fellows in the #3 Corvette. Fellows was firmly fastened to the Konrad car's tail, taking looks inside and out, until finally on lap 37, Fellows out-dragged Borcheller up the pit straight from the hairpin, and nipped him at turn one. So the Corvette made one of its few on-track passes of the new S7R; a head-to-head sprint win now looked possible for the yellow racers.

Meanwhile, the first hour of the race had seen absolute BMW dominance in GT. As we expected, there were seven cars in this race from early on, four BMWs and the AJR and Petersen Porsches. Bill Auberlen seemed intent early on on making it a one car cruise, as he pulled steadily away from Dirk Müller's BMW Motorsport Schnitzer M3, until it stabilized at about ten seconds. Müller led a BMW train, less than five seconds covering the three.

A full course caution at 12:57 PM on lap 40 as the Seikel Racing Porsche GT3-R and the Kyser Racing Porsche attempted to occupy the same piece of asphalt in the turn 11 hairpin. That took the Kyser Porsche out of the race, while the more lightly damaged Seikel continued. Champion's unorthodox pit strategy now appeared to be wasted as it left them still in fourth position behind David Brabham's Panoz. Fourteen cars pitted together at 1:05, including all four M3s.

After the green dropped at 1:09, thick traffic though the first three turns inverted the order of the four BMWs at the front in GT. Jorge Müller, in relief of JJ Lehto, was able to grab the lead, followed by Fredrik Ekblom, and hold position on the track, then Hans Stuck, who replaced Boris Said. Boris reported that "the car is fine, my right foot fell asleep, and that's never happened before. We're just conserving."

Bill Auberlen's hard work went for naught when Niclas Jönsson found himself the fourth of the BMWs. Early in the race, Randy Pobst's #22 Alex Job Racing Porsche suffered a sticking throttle, and had to pit for a quick fix. He was back in for a second stop to change tires at 12:32, and to add insult to injury was assessed a twenty second penalty for too many crew working on the car. The lap down likely ended any chance of a podium finish. The BMWs were now trailed by the other AJR car, Luca Luhr's #23 (started by Sasha Maassen), and Timo Bernhard's Petersen Motorsports Porsche. These two were one lap back of the BMW M3s, the remaining GT field now two or more adrift.

A second full course caution flew at 1:24 when the #8 Cadillac lost a wheel in turn 1. The opportunity to pit allowed the GT cars to finish the race without another stop. The top six GT cars did so, none making a driver change. Green flag racing resumed at 1:37. The prototypes had now completed 56 laps, and it was clear that Audi Sport would likely cruise the little more than an hour to a 1-2 finish. The fight as usual was for third, and as it was from the start, between the Brabham-Magnussen Panoz and the Wallace-Herbert Champion Audi. David Brabham, out of the car on the yellow flag pit stop, described the action and the key event for Panoz, "I made a great start and had to push hard to put a gap between me and Andy (Wallace, in the Champion Audi R8). I had a few hairy moments on the track keeping in front of him, but I really loved it." Almost the first fun of the season for David or any other member of the Panoz team. He said later, "Anyone would have seen the smiles on our faces this weekend; heading up to Le Mans it was like a morgue (on the team)."

The four BMWs were running so close together they looked like they were tied together, particularly after caution periods, and often traded places. Three of the M3s had so far led the class.

After its early lead and the tight battle with Ron Fellow's #3 Corvette, the Konrad Saleen fell into the clutches of the second Corvette team car. To the surprise of some, the Corvettes were showing speed to match the Saleen. In fact, the story was tires. The Corvettes had gone with a harder compound, the Saleen softer (both are on Goodyear). Ron Fellows: "The Saleen was on softer tires; after about 35 laps he ran out of grip in the rear, and I was able to overtake him. Our tires were still good at 50 laps. Goodyear tires have improved as much as anything in the entire Corvette program."

At the start of this race, the prototype order was Audi, Audi, Panoz, Champion Audi. At hour one, the order was Audi, Audi, Panoz, Champion Audi. At hour two the order was Audi, Audi, Panoz, Champion Audi. At the finish the order was Audi, Audi, Panoz, Champion Audi. There was some good intra-team racing between the silver cars, which were on different pit stop strategies. All that aside, this was still the eleventh consecutive win for the Joest Audis. Behind that, Panoz grabs a podium spot after (in the words of David Brabham) "just knocking the dust off them (the LMP1) and coming here to race." When Brabham grabbed the lead on Andy Wallace at the start, this race was over. Johnny Herbert is still feeling good about his new partner and new team. "We're happy racing together, we're the same size, there's no changing seat. We speak the same language like 'gar-age' and 'ruh-bob', we even have some of the crew speaking 'English'." Good drivers on the Florida team, and a car that set records last year.

The Panoz third was not easy by any means, but the expectation was for more from Champion than they showed here. "We know pace-wise we are podium material," said Herbert. "Today just wasn't to be our day. But we are here to convey to everybody that we will be at Portland on the podium."

"Yes, we will (be on the podium at Portland). Absolutely right," added Wallace. The expectations are still there.

LMP 675 was a drive to 13th place by the Barbour Reynard Judd. The team gave us little indication that the 675 approach has any potential. Nor does the level of activity in the class presage such a hope.

GTS was the best race throughout. On this track, there was no clear Saleen superiority in speed. With luck the NBC audience saw a lot of these cars. I have the sense they did not see enough. It really did come down to tires. From the other side, Terry Borcheller seconded Ron Fellow's view: "I was disappointed. Basically, we had the wrong tire compound and not enough testing." Saleen was thought by some to be a threat to the class by "raising the bar" in a way that was somehow not quite fair. It seems to be more the case that it has improved the Corvettes' game. Asked if Corvette might rethink its schedule and compete at Portland, Ron Fellows said "Ask me in two hours; I'm going to talk to them about that right now. It was not in our original schedule." It should be, and so should Mosport.

The GT order at the start was BMW, BMW, BMW, BMW….yadda, yadda, yadda…(see prototype, above). At the end, the four of them were in positions 7 though 10. They gave us pretty much the same show that Porsche has over the years. Pretty good racing, but you really have to be a fan of the marque to really get into it. With a lap to go, there was an incident between BMW Motorsport's Fredrik Ekblom and Hans Stuck that dropped the latter from second to third in class. Ekblom's view was that, "the track was slippery. Hans tried to get on the power too soon. We had slight contact (which helped him spin). This track is hard." Boris Said, Hans' "separated-at-birth brother and teammate", who could see the last lap, last turn incident from the PTG pit, made a contrary observation that (since he is a man of much discretion) he will now not repeat. The Stewards of the Meeting have seen it Hans' way (without the minor invective, of course).

"Having received a report from the Race Director that, on the last lap of the race, car number 43 (driver Fredrik Ekblom) hit the rear of car number 6, causing it to spin, having reviewed all available video evidence, having examined both cars involved in the incident and having heard the driver and team representative of team number 43, the Stewards of the Meeting have determined that this was an avoidable collision. However, given that the consequences of this contact were not more severe, the Stewards of the Meeting have decided to apply a time penalty of 35 seconds to car number 43, which will be added to its total elapsed race time. In addition, the Stewards of the Meeting hereby place driver F. Ekblom under probation for the next race in which he participates in the 2001 ALMS Series. The competitor is reminded of his right of appeal."

Are we having fun yet, kids? See you all at Portland.