American Le Mans Series

Petit Le Mans - Hour 4: GT2 action time!

© Planetlemans

The fourth hour of the race finally brought real action in the GT2 class. Farnbacher in the #23 Alex Job Racing Porsche and Wolf Henzler in the #45 Flying Lizard Porsche were within a few tenths of a second of each other and were side by side on a few occasions. Papis in the #3 Corvette took advantage of the GT2 fight and overtook the #007 Aston Martin. Wolf Henzler was hit by the Zytek and the Porsche, ending the nice fight for the lead. Henzler came into the pit and was sent out with four new tyres, but one lap later he returned to the pit with suspected rear suspension damage. The team tried to repair it, but the problem stayed there and after another lap the car came back in and was put behind the wall.
In LMP1 it was the Autocon Lola that got into trouble after smoke and small flames were seen coming from the car. Willman was able to get the car back into the pit lane where the team was trying to find out what was wrong.

At the front the Audi’s did not have any problems and increased their lead over the other LMP1 cars. After three and a half hours Biela had a 7 second lead over Capello and a 15 second lead over Leitzinger in the only remaining Dyson Lola.

Mike Rockenfeller and Memo Gidley had to get into the penalty box for causing avoidable contacts. In the case of Rockenfeller it was him tipping the Zytek causing that car to drive into the Flying Lizard Porsche. By handing out the penalties race control issued a formal warning to all the teams because several drivers were getting a bit too aggressive on the track.

The #45 Flying Lizard went out on the track again after being in the pit lane for quite a while, unfortunately this could not be said about the #12 Autocon Lola. It was retired from the race.

After about 3 hours and 45 minutes several teams came into the pit lane for a full service stop. Despite a small problem with one of the front wheels, Creation had a smooth pit stop this time.

At about the same time another problem came up for the Flying Lizard team when the #44 Porsche hit the wall and damaged the right front radiator. Pechnik brought the car back in and the team started working on the front of the car straight away.

Justin Marks in the #22 BMW collided with Wallace in the #16 Dyson and pulled the car over on the grass. It was yet another coming together between a GT car and a Prototype. Just as the BMW got back on the track, after being on the side of the road for a few minutes, the #31 Petersen-White Lightning Porsche suffered a puncture and spun in a bizarre way.

After four hours of it was still an Audi 1-2. Intersport Racing was still leading the LMP2 class.The GT1 class saw Sarrazin leading in the #009 Aston Martin, one lap ahead of its nearest rival. Dominik Farnbacher in the #23 Alex Job Racing Porsche stayed out of trouble in GT2 and was in the lead, with Lazzaro in the Ferrari nearby.