Porsche Bags 4th Straight Wins
As Penske drivers Ryan Briscoe and Sascha Maassen claimed the manufacturer’s fourth-straight overall win, both being second in a row, in a thrill-a-minute race around Lime Rock Park’s cramped confines, Porsche maintained its winning round in the American Le Mans Series.
With the late introduced 2007-spec LMP2 air restrictors, Porsche’s RS Spyder lost 5 percent of its engine power for this race. Nonetheless, it was still the car to have around the 1.54-mile Connecticut venue. The LMP1 Audi R10s, which was much heavier, weren’t at home on the narrow and bouncy circuit. Moreover, Porsche appeared to extend its advantage over its Acura LMP2 rivals.
The second Penske Porsche mainly led the two-hour, 45-minute race. Romain Dumas and Timo Bernhard led the first two hours. But the latter was caught behind two slower cars.
After both cars went off track, the Audis ended up nowhere. Allan McNish spun twice avoiding a slower prototype. As a result, he ended up fifth overall along with co-driver Rinaldo Capello. Marco Werner crashed the other R10 massively.
Ahead of Chevrolet Corvette teammates Johnny O’Connell and Jan Magnussen, Olivier Beretta and Oliver Gavin won GT1. Their winning was essentially decided when Beretta ended up 0.01 second quicker in free practice, given that overtaking between the two cars was banned, before rain that canceled qualifying.
Porsche got its first ALMS GT2 victory of the season over Ferrari. The three F430 GTs of the race came together in one incident, thus allowing the Flying Lizard Porsche of Jorg Bergmeister and Johannes van Overbeek to win the class.
Porsche is not only dedicated to building ordinary cars or Porsche 911 parts. It also indulges in racing activities.
The American Le Mans Series (ALMS) gave all drivers and teams since 1999 the probability to compete for a whole racing season with the legendary 24-hour race of Le Mans. The ALMS regulations, which are issued by IMSA (International Motor Sports Association), are based on the long-distance classic. These are the two prototypes and two GT classes drive at the same time in a single race; meaning, the spectators watch four races in one. Year after year the ALMS satisfy its fans with enthusiasm due to the presence of many notable manufacturers and prominent drivers at this very open and attractive race series. One of the many manufacturers is Porsche.
Porsche got a double champion in the 2006 season. It succeeded as the first manufacturer to win the championship title in two different classes. Sascha Maassen and Lucas Luhr won the manufacturer’s class, while team (Penske Motorsports) and driver titles were won in the LMP2 class. In, Jörg Bergmeister won the manufacturer’s and driver titles in the 911 GT3 RSR (996) in the GT2 class.
The 2007 racing calendar has been increased from ten to twelve races. Porsche will face this challenge with the advanced RS Spyder, 911 GT3 RSR (997) models and several top class teams, including Penske Racing, Dyson Racing, Flying Lizard, Tafel Racing and Rahal Letterman Racing.
Rain Stockton is an engineer by profession. He is a motorsports fanatic, especially F1 and NASCAR. He seldom fails to attend major car racing events. A frustrated race car driver, he spends some of his free time working in one of the largest automotive shops in Indianapolis.
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