Published: October 3, 2011
Updated: 10/03/2011 08:50 am
ATLANTA - The 14th annual Petit Le Mans powered by Mazda was a classic 1,000-mile endurance thriller and a more than worthy finale to the 2011 American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patr?n.
Peugeot Sport Total won its third straight Petit Le Mans after an intense battle with Audi Sport Team Joest as Franck Montagny, Stephane Sarrazin and Alexander Wurz drove to victory.
AF Corse held off Flying Lizard Motorsports and BMW Motorsports for the GTE-Pro win at Road Atlanta in what served as the penultimate round of the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup.
Tim Pappas and Black Swan Racing successfully defended their GT Challenge driver and team championships, while Eric Lux, Gunnar Jeannette and Ricardo Gonzalez had a three-way tie for the LMP Challenge driver's championship. CORE autosport earned its first LMPC team championship.
An intense battle for the lead between Audi's Romain Dumas and Montagny ended with three hours to go when the two touched at the entry to the long back straight. The contact sent the Audi into the wall at Turn 8. From there it was clear sailing to the checkered flag for Peugeot.
"I was most of the time faster than the Audi, so it was easy to pull away," Montagny said. "But we had a long yellow period. Then I got in traffic and Romain caught up to me. He tried to overtake me but I closed the door (at Turn 10).
"But later I opened my line to get around a GTC Porsche, and I took my line back into the left-hand corner. Romain took a jump into the hole that was only open for the Porsche. I was really sorry to have a fight like this and finish."
The No. 10 Team Oreca-Matmut Peugeot 908 Hdi-FAP driven by Nicolas Lapierre, Nicolas Minassian and Marc Gen? was second, followed by the No. 007 Aston Martin Racing AMR Lola Coupe B09 60 of Adrian Fernandez, Stefan M?cke and Harold Primat.
The Petit Le Mans win clinched the LMP1 championship for Peugeot in the 2011 Intercontinental Le Mans Cup as well as the team title for Team Peugeot Total.
BMW Motorsports took the GTE-Pro lead from pole-sitter AF Corse early, but a punctured tire for the No. 55 BMW M3 GT handed the lead back to AF Corse and the No. 51 Ferrari F458 Italia driven by Giancarlo Fisichella, Gianmaria Bruni and Pierre Kaffer.
A quick pit stop for BMW allowed Joey Hand to briefly take the class lead, but Bruni retook the spot on a restart moments later.
Fisichella brought the Ferrari home for the win.
"It was a very, very tough race," Bruni said.
In classic GT fashion, J?rg Bergmeister spent every inch of the final lap around Road Atlanta sparring with Dirk Werner's No. 55 BMW.?At the line it was Bergmeister in the No. 045 Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 RSR he shared with Patrick Long and Patrick Pilet by 0.182 seconds over Werner, who co-drives with Bill Auberlen and Augusto Farfus.
After the No. 26 Signatech Nissan Oreca 03-Nissan was forced to go behind the wall for repairs, LMP2 was dominated by Level 5 Motorsports. The No. 33 HPD ARX-01g driven by Scott Tucker, Christophe Bouchut and Jo?o Barbosa won by eight laps over the No. 22 United Autosports Oak Pescarolo driven by Zak Brown, Stefan Johansson and Mark Patterson.?
It was the second win in as many races for Level 5's new HPD ARX-01g.
"We're really pleased with the performance of the Honda," Tucker said. "? We knew it'd be a really tough battle."
Signatech was third.
In GTE-Am, Krohn Racing won its home race with drivers Tracy Krohn, Niclas J?nsson and Michele Rugolo in the No. 57 Ferrari F430.
"I'm going to let the team walk the trophy up the hill," joked Krohn, whose shop is based at Road Atlanta. "They did a great job today. We didn't miss a step."
The No. 50 Larbre Competition Corvette C6-ZR1 shared by Patrick Bornhauser, Julien Canal and Gabriele Gardel was second, followed by the No. 60 Gulf AMR Middle East Aston Martin Vantage.
The battle for the LMPC win between PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports and Intersport Racing was a nail-biter, but the focus often fell back to the CORE autosport and Genoa Racing cars, battling for the LMPC driver and team championships.
PR1's Ryan Lewis, Ken Dobson and Henri Richard found themselves trading the lead with Intersport's Kyle Marcelli, Tomy Drissi and Chapman Ducote as CORE and Genoa struggled with off-course excursions and mechanical travails.
At one point it appeared as though all of PR1's efforts would be for naught when contact caused some damage to the No. 52 Oreca FLM09. The injury was minimal and PR1 crossed the line 0.172 seconds ahead of Intersport's No. 89 Oreca FLM09.
With a third-place finish for the No. 06 Oreca FLM09 of Gunnar Jeannette, Ricardo Gonzalez and Ryan Dalziel, CORE earned its first LMPC team championship by one point over Genoa Racing.
"We definitely didn't know what was going to happen," Jeannette said. "I don't think we still know what's happening. All that aside, I have to say it's a fantastic year driving with Ricardo and being a part of the CORE autosport organization."
Pit lane played a major role in the battle for the GTC win and championships. Even with an early pit lane violation and subsequent penalty, TRG's No. 66 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup driven by Spencer Pumpelly, Duncan Ende and Peter Ludwig was in the lead with less than 3? hours left.
Black Swan Racing usurped the lead from TRG with a quick pit stop, but then Alex Job Racing played the same strategy with the No. 23 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup to take the lead in the final round of pit stops.
Driving the No. 54 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup he shared with Tim Pappas and Sebastiaan Bleekemolen, Jeroen Bleekemolen was able to take the lead from AJR's Leh Keen in the race's closing minutes.
Bleekmolen collected the win 8.130 seconds ahead of Keen, who drove the No. 23 Porsche with Bill Sweedler and Brian Wong.?Forced to pit with less than 10 minutes remaining to take on fuel, TRG finished third.
The win gave Black Swan Racing its second consecutive GTC team title and Pappas his second consecutive driver's championship.
Source: http://www2.highlandstoday.com/content/2011/oct/03/030850/peugeot-wins-at-road-atlanta/areasports/
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