| Long Beach,
April 14. Time for the second round of the American Le Mans Series, this
time on the Streets of Long Beach. I wasn´t expecting the pits
to be this open in the ALMS so it was really nice to be able to stroll
around in the pits just before the race while the teams were heading to
the line-up. |
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| Now, this
is a nice setting for a racetrack. To the right and far ahead you see the
pitlane ending/track entry. |
| Upon arrival
at the track we got to see the Champ Cars qualifying session, which gave
an idea to what speeds they were doing and I must mention the sound of
those cars, you should have heard it! At least I thought so until the whole
ALMS field blasted away on the main straight - magic! Now, THOSE cars you
sould hear. The mix of sounds from the Acura LMP:s, the Porsche RS Spyders,
Corvettes, Ferraris, Panoz´ and 911 GT3 RSRs was an awesome experience. |
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| Sebastien
Bourdais took pole position and from there he went on to win the race as
well. |
| Letting you
in a bit on my view of nothing and everything I noticed that the new RSR
have (obviously) developed to even more extremes than the 996:s, you get
an idea only by taking a quick look at details like aerodynamics and brakes. |
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| A view
pretty common if you are racing against a Porsche. |
| Looking at
the race itself, it was a 1h 45min sprint race where pit stop strategy
would play an important role. With the cars and drivers being very evenly
matched within each class (at least among the top teams) as a driver there´s
really no way to ever make up for a bad team decision. |
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| Danish
driver Jan Magnussen in the #4 Corvette C-6R put in the fastest lap of
the GT1-class, but he did not manage to pass the teams sister car (Beretta/Gavin)
that won the class. |
| Taking a look
at the drivers different driving styles and pace, I was amazed by the driving
style of Wolf Henzler who, from looking at the most twisty part of the
track, seemed to go absoltely flat out through his whole stint, distiguishing
himself from any other 911-driver that day, although on the same lap that
he set his fastest lap, Jörg Bergmeister actually went 0,3 seconds
faster being the fastest 911-driver of the day, but just missing out being
fastest overall in GT2 by 0,1 sec to the Ferrari 430 GT in the hands of
Mika Salo. |
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| Wolf Henzler
put on an impressive show in the #71 Porsche, but just missed the podium. |
| Anyway, having
the #71 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR set up to loosely turn around (or throwing
it through) the hairpin, Henzler was able to get on the throttle a little
bit harder an eye-blink earlier - in every lap - than other guys who had
to adjust their line through the hairpin to get better exit speed on the
main straight |
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| Grandstands
full of fans contributed to a nice atmosphere. The pit entrance can be
seen to the right. |
| Looking at
the LMP cars (both class 1 and 2) Sascha Maasen and Romain Dumas stood
out too with the same kind of aggressiveness, also Timo Bernhard showed
that spirit. All of them being Porsche factory drivers racing the Porsche
RS Spyders could explain their similar driving styles and maybe their cars
were setup to work very well with a very aggressive driving style. |
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| A "Le Mans"
grid has to look like this! This is the grid before the first warmup laps,
then there´s a rolling start. On pole Dario Franchitti in Acura. |
| Added to this
I am a little bit surprised how the main part of the drivers seemed to
be driving more in a "professional" manner, but please keep in mind I didn´t
study all drivers´ styles in detail and depending on the teams strategies,
where they were in the race, tyre wear, setup, you name it, any of it can
contribute to that it is sometimes just not the time to be running on the
absolute edge. |
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| Audi R10
seemed a bit lost on the Long Beach track, although winning it´s
class it was the LMP2 cars that dominated the race overall. Here Werner
gets stuck for a few seconds after being nudged by a Ferrari during braking
for the hairpin (also something I would never expect at this level). |
| Looking at
the overall race result, the LMP2 cars were really giving the LMP1 cars
a hard time. The top 6 finishers were LMP2 cars so first in 7th place you
find an LMP1 car. I think the LMP1:s have better chances on faster tracks
and in longer races, especially the Audi R10 (diesel). Swedish driver Stefan
Johansson (Acura) missed the podium by 22 seconds, but Swedish driver Nic
Jonsson made the podium in the GT2 class in a Ferrari 430 GT. The other
Acura-guys Herta/Franchitti must have been really disappointed being fastest
on the track and leading the race most of the time, but it was all for
nothing as they ended up 6th in the end. |
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| Dumas and
Maasen in the Penske Porsche RS Spyders. |
| The experience
visiting ALMS was really interesting, the cars are advanced and brutal
at the same time and I can imagine them running a whole 24 hour race... |
Talk to you
soon,
Carl |
