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ALMS: Sebring 12 Hours Notebook - Saturday
Written by: David Phillips
Senior writer, RACER Magazine   http://www.racer.com/speedtv
03/15/2008
Sebring, Fla.
 
Ferrari 430 Berlinetta GT of Gunnar Jeannette and Johnny Mowlem test at Sebring. (LAT photo) » More Photos

TWO DOWN EARLY The 34- car entry for the 56th running of the Twelve Hours of Sebring was reduced by two rather quickly. First came today’s official announcement that Corsa Motorsports had withdrawn its Hankook Tire-shod Ferrari 430 GT from the event. The Corsa Ferrari took part in a couple
practice sessions on Wednesday but, although lapping within a couple of seconds of the GT2 class pace setters, was restricted in the number of laps it ran owing to durability issues with its tires.

“After several days of practice on this challenging course, it is clear that we have not yet achieved our competitive goals,” said Bill Bainbridge, Hankook Director of Bran Communications. “Therefore it is
in our mutual interest that we withdraw from this event and continue our tire development work and testing in order to compete in the series at the highest level.”

Today also saw the conclusion to a couple of days of exhausting work by the B-K Motorsports team, after Ben Devlin’s massive crash in Thursday’s qualifying session necessitated a thorough rebuild of the team’s BP Lola/Mazda. Although the car was ready in time for s few laps of “hardship” practice, when the team topped up the car with ethanol for the race they discovered a leaking fuel call and was forced to withdraw.
The Penske Porsche team was soon down to its #7 entry. (Fastline photo) » More Photos

EARLY EXIT FOR PENSKE PORSCHE Penske Racing’s two-pronged assault on Sebring was very quickly halved, as Ryan Briscoe brought the LMP2 Porsche-Spyder in with an oil leak about an hour into the race. The team changed the oil pump and Sascha Maassen returned the #6 DHL Porsche to action only to retire for good with a terminal case of overheating after completing 70 laps.

DÉJÀ VU Approximately 90 minutes into the race, the LMP2 Acura/ARX-01B of Marco Andretti assumed the overall lead of the race thanks in part to having run nearly 50 laps on single set of tires. Of course, Andretti had something to do with it as well, having recovered from a first lap, first turn “off” resulting from A concertina effect initiated when one of the Audi R10s had to slow to avoid hitting its sister car. Thereafter Andretti never put a wheel wrong and hauled his way back up into the LMP2 class lead which became the overall lead when the LMP1 Peugeot and Audis made their second pit stops of the day. For those keeping score, that was the first time since 1972 that someone named Andretti has lead the Twelve Hours of Sebring.

PRESSURE COOKER The presence of the LMP1 Peugeot 908 gave Audi some welcome competition for LMP1 honors at Sebring. Making no bones about the fact that they were using Sebring as a dry run for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and with no plans to compete in the full American Le Mans Series
schedule, Peugeot was under no particular pressure to win, only to push the 908 to the limits of its performance and reliability.

In contrast, when Peugeot’s Nicolas Minassian stormed around polesitter Rinaldo Capello at the drop into an early lead, the Audi drivers appeared to be under pressure the likes of which they haven’t experienced in several seasons (if ever). First, Capello biffed the Fahrnbacher Loles GT2 Porsche out of his way half an hour into the race. And while the Porsche suffered by far the worst of the damage, the Italian was given a stop-and-go penalty for “avoidable contact.”

Not long afterwards, the R10 of Marco Werner indulged in an agricultural excursion at Turn 10, not once but on successive laps (33 and 34). Thus, when Minassian pitted and turned over the Peugeot to Pedro Lamy, the French squad enjoyed a 34.9sec lead over the Audi of Capello/Allan McNish and Tom Kristensen while the sister R10 driven by Werner/Lucas Luhr and Mike Rockenfeller was a lap down.

“I was loving that start,” said Minassian. “Sometimes you’ve got to think about it, other times you just have to go. It was a good start. The Audi accelerated maybe before me
but I went to the outside and
braked very late.

“It’s important to be in the lead, especially in the early laps of a race like this. We made a good gap in the first stint, then we double-stinted our tires and I definitely had to push to stay ahead. It was very difficult -- the car was sliding and the track was very slippery. As we’ve seen this week, after it rains the track is very slippery. But as the race has progressed, the grip is coming back.”
Peugeot topped the second day of testing at Sebring. (Greg Aleck/Fastline photo) » More Photos

All that work, however, was destined to come to naught when wisps of smoke began trailing from the rear of the Peugeot. Just shy of the three-hour mark, Lamy brought the car in during a full course yellow after Paul Drayson’s GT2 Aston Martin slammed the wall in Turn One. The team recharged the gearbox hydraulics and Stephan Sarazin took the wheel, but an hour later he pitted and drove back to the paddock to effect more repairs to the hydraulics.

Although any chance of victory was gone, the Peugeot returned to continue its extended test of speed and reliability, with first Sarazin, then Minassian and Lamy slamming around lap after lap in 1:44/1:45 range, on average two seconds or more a lap quicker than the Audi R10s which were not exactly being soft-peddled as their drivers chased the LMP2 Porsches and Acuras for the overall win, after having suffered mechanical issues of their own.

O’CONNELL CLOSING IN? Don’t want to jinx him, but Johnny O’Connell is closing in on a
remarkable record, needing only for the #3 Corvette to run a relatively untroubled final two hours to the finish in order to claim his seventh career class win in the Twelve Hours of Sebring. O’Connell has been
tied with none other than Phil Hill for total victories since winning his third straight (and sixth of his career) Sebring in 2004.

O’Connell’s cause was aided and abetted by an uncharacteristic spate of mechanical gremlins that visited their sister ’Vette of Oliver Gavin, Olivier Beretta and Max Papis. First the #4 Corvette broke a halfshaft and lost 15 minutes effecting repairs, then lost more time to overheating and was nine laps in arrears of O’Connell, Ron Fellows and Jan Magnussen at the nine-hour mark.
Team Corvette reasserted itself as usual, qualifying or practice. (Fastline photo) » More Photos

NO REPEAT IN GT2 Any chances of a repeat of last year’s scintillating last-lap GT2 victory by Jaime Melo in the Risi Competizione Ferrari F430GT came to a crashing halt shortly before the seven-hour mark when Melo wrecked his car and the Farnbacher Loles Porsche of GT2 rival Dirk Werner at the
hairpin shortly after a restart.

Melo appeared to have not properly warmed his brakes after an extended full course yellow and, on the restart, arrived at the hairpin with little or no sign of slowing down. He took to the inside grass to avoid the Penske Porsche of Timo Bernard, but clobbered the hapless Werner when the German turned in to the corner.

“I went into the hairpin and it was a big mess, with lots of cars,” said Melo. “To avoid it I went on the inside line and could not stop, because I was on the grass. I hit the #87 Porsche. I could say it was my fault and I’m very, very sorry for everyone involved.”

“I’m so sad right now,” said Werner. “The Ferrari was really close because the track had just gone green. We couldn’t drive really fast, we were just cruising around and waiting until the track was clear. Then the car crashed into me and broke something on the suspension so I couldn’t steer any more. I tried to go back to the pits, but I couldn’t steer the car and I was afraid I would cross the track at a certain point. Then the engine temperature went high, so I had not chance to get back to the pits.”

The precipitous departure of Melo and Werner left the #45 Porsche of Jorg Bergmeister/Wolf Henzler and Marc Lieb with a two-lap lead over their sister Flying Lizards entry of Darren Law, Seth Neiman and Alex Davison.
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