Saturday, July 07, 2007

Porsche defeats Audi...and there was MUCH rejoicing!


The Porsche Spyder won beating the Audi... Maassen (on the left in the above photo) said during the post race interview, "The Audi is built strickly for LeMans...but here in the tracks in the US there are corners and our car really handles well, I love Lime Rock! The more corners the better."
Our car, if we went to LeMans, we would really suck."

Ryan Briscoe, co-driver of the #6:
"There were no team orders, obviously" (he said in response to a question that maybe implied there might have been). It was clear that taking new tires during the stop was a big advantage. After the stop, we were much quicker. I got a great run down the hill and Timo was held up by a GT2 car and I sailed down the straight. But there was a long way to go and you never know what's going to happen. It was a very safe pass and we needed it for the championship. It's Roger reacting to the situations and he does it so well."
Penske watches closely during the final laps.

The #6 passes the Acura to take 2nd place back, then that car went on to pass his teammate and win the race.


Stats on the winning Porsche Spyder:

174 laps completed.
Best lap time was 45.371 seconds during lap 141.
The margin of victory was 7.481 seconds with a total race duration of 2:45:16.615.
Roger Penske was clearly happy with the win.



Audi's day didn't go so well...


McNish (above) wasn't so complimentary about Lime Rock, saying that he'd "keep comments to himself" about the quality of Lime Rock and whether the series should hold races here. It was clear from everything that was said about the track really none of the drivers interviewed had anything positive to say about the conditions of the track, except the winning Porsche team.

The Audi did win the class, and when he was reminded of this during the postrace interview he let out a very sarcastic "woohooo..."

"Before we arrived here we knew we would struggle in an LMP1 car when you have such a good LMP2 competition. I was able to get a good jump but was really struggling to keep up with the two Porsches. I got caught when I tried to get around the Intersport car. He went down and I locked up the brakes and then tried to pass him again on the next lap and he did the same thing."


He commented about the track conditions...

"It's bumpy everywhere. That's the nature of the track. The circuit is extremely tight and narrow and it's hard to get around traffic."

And the competition?
"Porsche and Acura, and also Mazda, have been able to build a good car to the regulations. They are just quicker on the circuits in North America."


The Flying Lizard Motorsports team however won their class...Bergmeister from the interview room as well:
"That was the worst start we could have had in the race, having a puncture on the first lap of the race and losing two laps. I thought we were already done. Luckily we were able to run a good pace."
The Peterson Motorsports Ferrari spins out and is passed by the #44 Flying Lizard Porsche

"The yellows came at the right time and the Ferraris ended up taking each other out. The track seems to give us good luck. I won here last year in a new car for Porsche and ended up winning the championship. We need to do what we did all year: race hard and finish races. Hopefully we'll have more wins."


DaveK
Publisher, Slot Car News

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