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American LeMans
Long Beach ALMS Notebook - Saturday
Audi turns the tables; Tafel beats the ants.
David Phillips  | http://www.racer.com/speedtv  |  Posted April 20, 2008   Long Beach, Calif.
Audi's victory was the fruit of myriad improvements over last year's Long Beach showing. (LAT photo)

TABLES TURNED Two weeks ago, with teammate Marco Werner looking on, Lucas Luhr got the jump on Romain Dumas’ Porsche Spyder on a late restart at St. Petersburg to make the pass that resulted in the overall race win for the Audi R10. Today it was Luhr’s turn to spectate in the closing laps as Werner again did battle for the lead, making a pass on Dumas that, ultimately, led to a second successive win for the #2 Audi R10.

“It was very exciting,” said Luhr. “I was standing in the pits watching Marco closing on the Spyder and I said ‘I can’t watch. I’m getting too old for this.”

For the record, Luhr will turn 30 years of age on July 22 of this year . . .

ONE BIG STEP FOR AUDI Last year the Audi R10s struggled here on the streets of Long Beach, nowhere more so than the fiendishly tight Turn 11 hairpin. Turn 11 is, of course, key to a fast lap at Long Beach as it leads onto the long Shoreline Drive straightaway and, as any student of racing can tell you, the most important corner on any racetrack is the one leading onto its longest straightaway.

As we noted yesterday, both Audi R10s were significantly quicker at Long Beach this year, with Lucas Luhr setting LMP1 pole at 1:11.765 and Frank Biela just a tick behind at 1:11.896 as compared to the 1:12.713 turned by Dindo Capello last year. Much of that improvement came in Turn 11.

“We changed the steering angle for the hairpin this year,” said Werner, “and it made a big improvement. It was a big step, worth more than half a second a lap.”
Mueller held off a determined charge from Henzler to win in GT2. (LAT photo)

GETTING ANTSY? Dirk Muller’s spirited stint in the second half of the race cemented the GT2 class win for Tafel Racing’s Ferrari F430. But Mueller had a pretty good omen before taking over from teammate Dominic Farnbacher.

“About two minutes before I was getting ready for the driver change, I grabbed my helmet and my mechanic stopped me from putting it on,” he said. “It was full of ants. Together we got it solved right before I got in the car and then it was no problem. It was quite a funny thing and I think a sign that things were going to work OK for us. I can’t imagine having to radio in to (team technical director) Tony Dowe and say, ‘Tony, I’m coming in. My helmet is full of ants.’”

EXPERIENCE PAYS OFF Muller also attributed his ability to hold off the persistent efforts of Wolf Henzler’s Flying Lizards Porsche over the final laps to his touring car experience in Europe. “I had five years of hard fighting in European touring car racing before coming here to the American Le Mans Series,” he said. “That taught me how to drive and to know what to do to stay ahead of another fast car.

“I knew the possible places where Wolf could attempt to pass me, and it was a question of placing my car in a position where it would make passing very difficult. I have to say Wolf was a nice driver. There was no bumping but also no place for him to pass, and he accepted that and drove in a sporting manner.”

NUMBERS GAME

* Not only was the LMP2 win by David Brabham and Scott Sharp the first LMP2 victory for the Patron Highcroft Racing team, the win also gave Brabham the distinction of becoming the first driver to win a race in all four ALMS classes. Since 1999 he has earned seven LMP1/P900 victories (in a Panoz LMP), four wins in GT1/GTS (Ferrari and Aston Martin) and a single GT2 win in a Panoz Esperante.

* The GT1 victory by the Johnny O’Connell/Jan Magnussen Corvette C6.R represented Corvette’s 15th straight GT1 class win and the 60th class win for Corvette in ALMS competition.

* Today’s LMP1, LMP2, GT1 and GT2 class wins represented the 247th, 248th 249th and 250th class wins for Michelin in ALMS competition.
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David Phillips

Senior writer, RACER Magazine

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