Long Beach kicks off with sportscars turning test laps Racing series ALMS Date 2009-04-16 By Nancy Knapp Schilke - Motorsport.com The roar of race cars were heard on the Long Beach Grand Prix streets on Thursday to mark the start of this weekend's activity. The American Le Mans Series gave early fans an indication of what to expect on the 1.968-mile tight street circuit. The opening day of the 35th running of the event showcased the sportscars with David Brabham leading the way in the Highcroft Racing's LMP1 Acura ARX-02a. There were two test sessions held in the afternoon today, Brabham's fast unofficial time of 1:14.226 (95.449 mph) was clicked off in the later one. His teammate Scott Sharp landed his best lap at 1:16.156. Two weeks ago, the two drivers teamed up to score the overall victory on the Streets of St. Petersburg. "We made some pretty good improvements during the session," said Brabham. "We don't have a lot of time here so you have to be sure you get it right. We have some direction for tomorrow so that is the main thing that we really needed to achieve today. Last year was a huge race for us here; it really got our season going. There is a real difference between thinking you can win and knowing you can. That was the case at Long Beach last year and we now enter this weekend with a win already under our belt at St. Pete. "Traffic will be important here because there are places where you simply can't pass and you are just dependent on the speed of the GT car in front of you. That is the same for all the prototypes in the field and last year we were able to use that to our advantage to make up some ground," added Brabham. The 11 turn temporary course with the slowest being the final one leading to the straightaway. If one wants to catch view of them when they hit their top cornering speed, check out Turn 7. Fastest in LMP2 in the Acura ARX-01b was taken by Adrian Fernandez with his best lap at 1:15.450 (93.901 mph). He and his co-driver Luis Diaz have taken double class wins already this season for the Fernandez Racing team: Sebring and St. Pete. It is the final race for the Corvette Racing LMGT1 car in America, the Corvette C6.R will run for the final time in its history at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June. The team will later this year make the anticipated debut in the LMGT2 class. "We are excited and sad. It is the end of a very special era. This has been an amazing car. If there was one team that set the bar for other cars in the American Le Mans Series to emulate, it's Corvette Racing," said team driver Johnny O'Connell. "There are amazing teams in GT2 and great drivers in Ferrari, Porsche and BMW. In 2010, all eyes are going to be on GT2. If you think about it, it's a cool change. It used to be prototype, prototype, prototype. Now it's GT2. This is where you want to be." Today it was Frenchman Olivier Beretta taking the top of the time chart in the GT1 class with a 1:18.450 (90.310 mph). The two-car team has an amazing win record and they look forward to closing out this weekend with a good show for the fans. The GT2 class is indeed a hot bed of competition and one Corvette Racing looks forward to joining later this season. In today's two test sessions, it ended up with Ferrari setting the fast time. Risi Competizione's Jaime Melo turned the best lap at 1:21.334 (87.107 mph) in the team Ferrari F430 GT. Close at hand though was the Farnbacher Loles Racing's Porsche 911 GT3 RSR; a mere 0.06 seconds! Today was truly a time for the teams to test out their setups for Friday's official practice and qualifying. Round three on the ALMS 2009 calendar will take place Saturday afternoon with a start time of 4:15pm (PDT). This weekend will mark the first time that the Indy Racing League's two series will compete on the challenging circuit. The IndyCar Series and the Indy Lights will take to the track for the first time tomorrow. However there are several racers who have run at the Grand Prix of Long Beach so perhaps some may have an advantage. IndyCar practice one starts at 10:00am, after the ALMS morning practice. Indy Lights take to the street circuit at 12:30pm. Adding to an activity and closing out the day will be the Sports Car Club of America's (SCCA) SPEED World Challenge GT Series practice. LINK: http://www.motorsport.com/news/article.asp?ID=324226
Long Beach Street Circuit / 1.968 miles April 16-18, 2009 / Long Beach, California ALMS Test Session 1 1 1 66 P1 de Ferran/Pagenaud 1:15.801 93.466 17 -.--- 18 Acura ARX 02a 2 2 9 P1 Brabham/Sharp 1:16.156 93.030 14 0.355 19 Acura ARX 02a 3 1 15 P2 Fernandez/Diaz 1:17.800 91.064 14 1.999 14 Acura ARX-01B 4 2 20 P2 Leitzinger/Franchitti 1:19.262 89.385 11 3.461 12 Lola B09 86 Mazda 5 3 37 P1 J.Field/C.Field/Ducote 1:19.845 88.732 19 4.044 20 Lola B06/10 6 1 3 GT1 Magnussen/O'Connell 1:19.868 88.706 26 4.067 26 Chevrolet Corvette C6R 7 2 4 GT1 Beretta/Gavin 1:19.870 88.704 12 4.069 26 Chevrolet Corvette C6R 8 1 45 GT2 Bergmeister/Long 1:21.992 86.408 24 6.191 25 Porsche 911 RSR 9 2 62 GT2 Melo/Kaffer 1:22.196 86.194 9 6.395 23 Ferrari 430 Berlinetta GT 10 3 87 GT2 Henzler/Werner 1:22.435 85.944 15 6.634 21 Porsche 911 RSR 11 4 12 P1 Lewis/Willman 1:23.032 85.326 15 7.231 24 Lola B06/10 12 4 44 GT2 Law/Neiman 1:23.170 85.185 9 7.369 24 Porsche 911 RSR 13 5 92 GT2 Mueller/Milner 1:23.439 84.910 5 7.638 23 BMW E92 M3 14 6 90 GT2 Hand/Auberlen 1:23.660 84.686 9 7.859 22 BMW E92 M3 15 7 18 GT2 Westbrook/Stuck 1:23.870 84.474 23 8.069 24 Porsche 911 RSR 16 8 28 GT2 Gigliotti/Said 1:24.358 83.985 22 8.557 24 Chevrolet Riley Corvette 17 9 11 GT2 Feinberg/Hall 1:24.944 83.406 9 9.143 20 Dodge Viper 18 10 17 GT2 Sellers/Cicero 1:25.964 82.416 21 10.163 21 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR 19 11 40 GT2 Murry/D.Robertson 1:26.293 82.102 6 10.492 25 Doran Ford GT-R 20 12 21 GT2 Farnbacher/James 1:26.434 81.968 2 10.633 2 Panoz Esperante Fastest Drivers: GT1 Jan Magnussen GT2 Patrick Long P1 Simon Pagenaud P2 Luis Diaz
Granted I am an avid sportscar racing fan but Long Beach is a total waste of time and expenditure IMO. A one hour forty minute race on a street circuit is stupid when there are many circuits in the US more deserving for a longer race and better for the fans. This hardly classifies as "LeMans Series" racing - not worth of any endurance significance. . . one pit stop, one driver change....plus ABC is carrying it tape delayed. Carol
IMSA lists the result of the race as provisional due to this: An IMSA pit lane official imposed a 20 second penalty at the stop - alleging the Patrón Highcroft Racing fire extinguisher crew member was not wearing an appropriate helmet. The penalty - which actually kept the car stationary for 24 seconds - was imposed despite the fact that the helmet has passed tech scrutineering at each ALMS event and that it was the same helmet used by the team since the commencement of the Acura program in 2007 * * * * the total time for deFerran is 1:41.42.927 and the total time for Highcroft is 1:41.43.943 - actual margin of victory was 1.016 - apparently Duncan protested the penalty why would you hold a car for 4 seconds longer than the penalty imposed? what about other penalities over the weekend?? * * * * Carol
Here's what Autosport is currently reporting: But the car was held for an additional 20 seconds by the IMSA observer in the pit, who judged that the crew member holding the fire extinguisher was not wearing the correct helmet. That penalty let the De Ferran car back through into the lead, and despite Brabham's best efforts, Highcroft had to settle for second. Sharp was adamant that no rules had been broken and the penalty was unjust. "You hate to lose one this way especially when nobody did anything wrong," he said. "We got a bogus penalty and when we later heard that the equipment was fine and the fire extinguisher guy has been wearing the same helmet for the past couple of years. "That is really a shame because the car was running great and I think we could have won this one." Team boss Duncan Dayton said series officials had confirmed to him that the penalty was incorrect. "We were subsequently told that we shouldn't have received the penalty, but it had already been served," he said. "They actually held us for 24 seconds. We had no choice but to protest the decision and it is pending review." NOW > > > Here's what the IMSA Pit Notes report (obvious why Duncan is protesting the penalty!!! especially when officials said it was incorrect) At 5:18 pm (1h 0m running), Scott Sharp (#9-P1 Acura ARX-02a), retains the overall lead. into the pits. 4 tires, fuel, driver change: David Brabham. 20-second penalty for crew member not having a helmet. Simon Pagenaud (#66-P1 Acura ARX-02a) takes the overall lead. * * * * It will be interesting to see the official ruling on this one. Carol
That fire in Boris' vette was scary!!! Very glad he is OK. If that had been me, my fire suit would need a serious internal cleaning!
I read the race report on dailysportscar.com to see if I wanted to bother recording the tape delay broadcast on Sunday. I decided not to. Went to VIR instead that Sunday and watched a fantastic Trans Am sprint race! The Long Beach race does nothing for me. As mentioned before the race duration is ridiculous, and since the race organizers prefer to pretend that the ALMS race hardly even exists during that weekend then what's the point in showing up? An early morning warmup session and then a late afternoon race?! Sheesh! If you want to promote sports car endurance racing in this country you're going to have to run races that are actually longer than two hours, and stop playing second fiddle to other competing interests such as the IRL. The low entry numbers don't bother me (hell, Belgian GT is running a race this weekend with 12 cars!) as long as there's good racing to be seen. I also think all ALMS races should be A MINIMUM of 3 hours long. TV be damned. They can show a tape delayed condensed version cut down to 2 hours, the same air time they're currently willing to sell time for. I heard about the fire and very thankful Mr. Said made it through OK! Gary
