American Le Mans Series

Grand Prix of Mosport - First 45 minutes report

© American Le Mans Series

The Grand Prix of Mosport got underway at 3.06pm local time and from the word go the Audi R10s got away from the rest of the field. The Andretti-Green Racing Acura had a great start, overtaking one of the Penske Porsches.

Further down the field a great battle took place in GT2 from the start. The lead Risi Ferrari had a small gap over the number 61 Ferrari which was under attack by the Tafel Racing Porsche. Five other GT2 cars were close behind the top three cars.
Ten minutes into the race Pecorari lost control of his Radical SR9 after something apparently broke in the rear suspension. The Van der Steur Racing car slammed into the barriers and was heavily damaged. Pecorari got out of the car shaken but unhurt. The safety car was deployed while the corner workers cleared the track.

Fourteen minutes later the field was released again and the Audi R10s sped away. Capello led Pirro by about half a second while the Porsche of Dumas was 1.5 seconds behind.

While the GT2 cars were struggling to get through the corners and battling for position at the same time, the prototypes were making it even harder for the GT2 drivers as they were flying by at a much higher speed. The gap between LMP2 leader Dumas and second placed Herta remained about six tenths of a second while lapping the slower cars.

The battle for the LMP2 lead kept on going, but in GT2 the battle for second place between the PWL Ferrari and the Tafel Racing Porsche was also heating up. The Ferrari 430 used all the room there was, nearly going through the grass, but did not get by. As the LMP2 leaders overtook the two fighting GT2 cars Wolf Henzler took advantage and created a small gap to Dirk Müller.

Just before crossing the two-hours-to-go mark Capello was leading LMP1, Dumas LMP2 (just…), Gavin GT1 and Salo led GT2.

_{Marcel ten Caat - Planetlemans.com}