American Le Mans Series

Petit Le Mans - Final: Audi wins, but lots of drama in the end

© Audi Motorsport

The final minutes of the 2006 Petit Le Mans turned out to be a real horror movie for some teams. With only 10 laps to go the #1 Audi came into the pit in what looked like a splash-and-dash. But when the pit crew did not seem to be ready for the pit stops there was a lot of confusion on what happened. The front of the car was taken off and it looked like the left front wishbone had been damaged. Instead of a short pit stop the car was being worked on for quite a while, the repairs on the wishbone allowed Haruki Kurosawa to pass the stranded Audi and get into second position.
In the GT2 class there was even more drama as Bill Auberlen who had done such a good job in the previous hour got it all wrong and parked his car in the barriers. This accident meant Sebastien Bourdais regained third place in the class.

With four laps to go the Highcroft Lola had also closed the gap to the #1 Audi R10 and was now racing in third, followed just a bit later by the Creation taking over fourth place from the Audi.

After just over 9 hours and 15 minutes Allan McNish wrote history by winning Petit Le Mans with a diesel engine. Thanks to the problems of the second Audi the Zytek took second place and Highcroft took a surprise third place.

The Penske Motorsport boys came home in a 1-2 finish in the LMP2 class. Third in the class was the Horag-Lista Racing car, driven by Eric van de Poele.

Another 1-2 finish came in the GT1 class where Tomas Enge took his Aston Martin Racing to victory, ahead of team mate Lamy. Oliver Gavin in the #4 Corvette completed the podium.

The Petersen-White Lightning squad claimed the GT2 victory, with Bergmeister in the car as it crossed the finish line, after having several near-misses during the race. The Risi Competizione Ferrari 430 in the hands of Marino Franchitti finished in second place with Sebastien Bourdais giving Panoz the last podium spot.