By: John Dagys

Dumas Back In The Saddle

Romain Dumas was one of the welcome faces back in the American Le Mans Series paddock on Sunday, as the two-time champion returns to the Series for a one-off race with Team ORECA Matmut.

Romain Dumas has been a popular driver in 2009. a full-time drive for the Penske Porsche team in Grand-am has been followed by appearances for Audi at Le Mans and now ORECA at Petit Le Mans. (John Dagys)

Dumas was getting much-needed seat time aboard the team’s ORECA 01-AIM prototype in advance of Saturday’s 1,000-mile/10-hour marathon.

“For sure I’m very happy to be back here,” Dumas said after climbing from the multi colored prototype. “Even though it was raining this morning, starting again with a prototype like this with a paddle shift makes me real happy. And with a French team with French teammates, it makes it even better.

“When ORECA offered me the drive, Porsche luckily allowed me to do it. I knew that it was going to be difficult to compete with the Peugeots and Audis, but I really wanted to drive a prototype again, and this is one of the best car’s in Europe. It also helped that I was already here in the U.S., after running in Salt Lake City yesterday. I flew overnight to be here this morning and it’s great!”

Dumas and longtime co-driver Timo Bernhard have spent the majority of the year in Grand-Am with Penske Racing’s Porsche-powered Daytona Prototype program. The duo finished fourth in the season’s penultimate round of the season Saturday, as elusive victory number one slipped away again after a problematic mid-race pit stop.

It’s been a tough year altogether for Dumas, who also competed in this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans in a factory Audi R15 TDI. With his vast experience in Porsche’s RS Spyder, and also a few races aboard a Pescarolo-Judd, the rapid Frenchman is quickly becoming one of the most versatile prototype drivers.

“I was surprised by the car’s braking and turning abilities,” Dumas said of the ORECA 01. “It is quite good and very quick. Even in damp conditions, the car was quick. I hope we have a good car for the weekend. We know it’s a big challenge for a French team like this to come here for one race, especially with learning all the strategies with safety cars, etc. It could be very difficult. But I hope we can compete with Acura; that’s our target.”

The French car and team got to grips with the Braselton, Ga. track quickly in testing. Audi's Allan McNish believes they'll be a force to reckon with in the race. (John Dagys)

Dumas and team veterans Olivier Panis and Nicolas Lapierre all turned laps on Sunday, and while no official times were released, a few stopwatch-in-hand onlookers were quite impressed by the pace of the gasoline-powered prototype.

The Hugues de Chaunac-led squad raised even more eyebrows when it practiced pit stops in the early afternoon. In shades of Audi’s endurance race preparations, ORECA went through simulation stops that included various scenarios, such as four tires, fuel and a rear deck change.

After struggling to detach the rear deck in the first attempt, the crew tried it again and again until it was satisfied with the result. ORECA hasn’t shown up to just turn laps and evaluate the car’s reliability, they’re here to win. And it’s proven by their level of pre-race preparation.

And Dumas brings ALMS experience to the table, not to mention his past success at Road Atlanta. He and Bernhard locked up their second championship together here last year, in a memorable Penske 1-2-3 sweep of the podium in LMP2. Could there be more success in the near future?

“I have great memories of Road Atlanta, but it’s been a bit up and down for me here,” Dumas said. “I won the championship here last year, and two years ago, we lost the race with 10 minutes from the end to Audi because of a safety car. I won here back in 2003 in my first factory drive for Porsche in GT. And now it’s my first LMP1 drive at Road Atlanta too, so who knows!”

Werner Hopes For More Seat Time

Marco Werner and the squadron of Audi drivers know far too much about testing the R15 in the rain. (John Dagys)

Audi Sport Team Joest embarks on its third and final race of the year Saturday, in what could be considered an abbreviated debut season for its new R15 TDI. The German manufacturer scaled back its 2009 program due to the global economic climate, thus only competing at the Twelve Hours of Sebring, 24 Hours of Le Mans and now the Petit Le Mans.

Veteran factory driver Marco Werner has been on-board for all those races, plus a cameo appearance in the Nurburgring 24 Hours, but that’s been it. The defending ALMS P1 champion has been sitting on the sidelines for much of the season, which is understandably quite frustrating for a top-level driver like himself.

“Everyone says that it’s normal that the drivers say they need more races!” Werner said. “But we as drivers are doing nothing at the moment. For me, it feels like an off-season. All I did was a double-stint at Sebring because I had the problem with my ribs. I did another double-stint at Le Mans, then Lucas shunted the car and we didn’t finish. To be honest, I haven’t done very much racing altogether. I didn’t learn enough this year.”

While Werner has been racking up testing miles in the Audi R15 TDI this year, there’s nothing better than actual race conditions. The team had hoped to get more testing in this weekend to see how they would directly stack up to the likes of Peugeot, Acura and ORECA. But with rain washing out much of the action on Saturday and Sunday, Audi was back in its same old situation of having little to no dry running time.

The downhill section of Road Atlanta is daunting in the rain...and in the dry, as the eventual race winner learned in 2008. (John Dagys)

“We came here one week early to do testing, and it’s nothing,” Werner said. “You do a little bit, but you end up learning nothing because it won’t help us for the race. I saw the weather forecast for Wednesday and it’s hopefully going to be dry. But you then start Wednesday with zero. That’s the problem.

“For us, the whole year’s been this way. Everywhere we went testing, it was raining. We went to the south of Spain and Portugal, places where there’s normally good weather for the winter, but it was really cold and wet. Every test was in the rain. I heard we did 20,000 km before Le Mans, but 17,000 or 18,000 of them were in wet conditions.”

Conditions were the same for everyone at Road Atlanta, and Peugeot, for instance, didn’t bother going out and putting their cars at risk. Last year, the French diesel squad was forced to withdraw one of its 908s after suffering a crash in this very same test.

Audi took a cautious approach to Sunday’s session, but still walked away with less data than it originally hoped for. And with no direct comparisons to Peugeot in this test, it’s tough to see where the Four Rings stack up to their diesel rivals in Saturday’s race.

“Like what I said at Le Mans, there’s many question marks,” Werner said. “We weren't really on the track with the other competitors until Le Mans, and for here it’s the same. It’s a new game because it’s another type of track, but for me as well a lot of question marks. I hope we’ll be more competitive than we were at Le Mans because this track is more suited for the R15 TDI. We saw we were not fast enough on the straights at Le Mans, which should help us a little bit here.”

Audi has yet to officially give any word on its plans for next year, although the rumor mill has been swirling with gossip of a potential full-season comeback. But like anything, it’s all dependent on the economy. Either way, Werner wants a full-season slate of races next year and could consider racing Audi’s R8 LMS GT3-spec car given the right opportunity and enough notice in advance.

“If I know early enough, I will maybe fight for a position in that,” he said. “The R8 LMS and R15 TDI are completely different, but it’s still good to keep racing as a driver. Your instinct in the races for overtaking, etc is very important. It’s the best practice for everything. Dindo [Capello] is doing the Italian GT Championship with the car, but I didn’t have anything this year, just the Nurburgring 24 Hours.”

Successful First Test For Drayson Lola-Judd

Drayson Racing made considerable progress in what was effectively the first proper test of its brand-new Lola B09/60 Judd. The British squad shook the car down at Silverstone last weekend but never had the prototype at full speed until Sunday.

The Drayson Racing drivers talk over the handling traits of the Lola-Judd. (John Dagys)

“It was nice to have a proper run in the car, around a proper circuit, rather than the little Stowe track at Silverstone last week,” said driver Jonny Cocker. “But it was a shame at the end because I’d just jumped in the car to do a little run [in the dry] with almost an half hour left and it started pouring down, so we decided to stop.”

On and off rain hampered everyone’s progress on Sunday, but the team was able to complete 100 laps across its three drivers, Cocker, team owner Paul Drayson and test ace Jamie Campbell-Walter. Rob Bell, Drayson’s third race driver, was on FIA GT duty this weekend in Portugal and will get his first laps on Wednesday.

Campbell-Walter did the majority of the driving Sunday, helping the Dale White-led squad get acclimated to running a prototype. Cocker did two 10-lap stints in wet conditions and had hoped for more running time over the weekend. But he immediately felt comfortable in the car, and even helped diagnose a small issue.

“There was some different things I felt that I wasn’t sure was normal,” Cocker said. “My instinct was telling me it was wrong, and Jamie confirmed it, which was nice. I’ve already learned quite a lot considering the amount of time I’ve been in the car so far. I think that should set us up nicely for Wednesday.

The Drayson Team also practice pit stops and refueling their prototype -- it's a very different challenged compared to the GT2 car they were used to. (John Dagys)

“Now it just depends on what the weather will do throughout the week. If it’s wet, it will probably be more of a leveler for the petrol vs. diesel. We’ll have to see. We didn’t take an awful amount of attention to the times today because it was just our first day of testing. I think it was a bit of a shame I didn’t do more laps considering we’ve had two days. But the weather has been a nightmare for everyone, really.”

Racing Green (Courtesy of Michelin)

A funny thing is happening in the race to “green.” A race, or more accurately, ‘a race within the race’ has broken out at every American Le Mans Series event in 2009.

Nineteen months after the U.S. Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency and SAE International named the American Le Mans Series as the first “green racing” series in America it remains the first, and only such series.

Moreover, the MICHELIN® GREEN X® Challenge, with a formula developed by the Argonne National Labs to measure over 30 measures of performance, energy use, emissions and environmental impact has quickly become the premier green competition not only here in the ALMS, but also at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and at the European Le Mans Series.

Through the first eight races of the 2009 ALMS season, six of the overall race winners were also the MICHELIN® GREEN X® Challenge Prototype category winners. No winner has finished lower than third in its category. In the hotly contested GT category, Corvette, Porsche and BMW have all claimed honors.

The competition, and the results, should come as no surprise. The reason, quite simply is that efficiency wins. The more efficient a car’s aerodynamics, handling, engine performance, energy source, tires and race strategy, the better it does not only in the ALMS race but also in the ‘race within the race.’

With new federal standards mandating 35 miles per gallon mileage for passenger cars by 2015, the freedom and diversity of the ALMS rules, like those at Le Mans, provide manufacturers with the most attractive opportunity to develop and showcase relevant new technologies and energy forms.

Recently, BMW and Jaguar have entered American Le Mans Series competition and Corvette has made an exciting new entry into the GT2 category as manufacturers accelerate the push to race what they sell.

Recent reports suggest that other manufacturers, including Toyota, may soon be developing hybrid powered entries. New fuel types are also under active consideration.

Meanwhile, the five tire makers competing in the ALMS are heavily focused on reducing rolling resistance that accounts for nearly 20 percent of a vehicle’s energy use.

Here at Petit Le Mans, the manufacturers and teams look at Petit Le Mans and the MICHELIN® GREEN X® Challenge with the goal to win both.

Winning two major awards at one event is very efficient.

For More, Visit Michelin Motorsports

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