American Le Mans Series

Planetlemans previews the Sebring 12 Hours

© American Le Mans Series // Peugeot will be mixed this year at this stage already

The 56th edition of the Sebring 12 Hours will be the first non-Le Mans all-out confrontation between the two diesel megapowers Audi and Peugeot. The long-awaited confrontation between the two works teams will kick-off the ALMS season and be a sensational appetizer for the rest of the year on both sides of the Atlantic.

As usual Audi will display a mighty array of 2 cars and 6 top drivers in order to renew once more their Sebring crown and they are certainly the main favorites for the overall win. McNish-Capello-Kristensen are probably the best endurance line-up in the world these days while Luhr-Rockenfeller-Werner are a pretty good combination of talent and experience.The French lion however will pose a serious challenge and has already shown its claws during the Wheels Down Winter test at the bumpy track by setting quickest time. Just one 908 will be at the start of the mythical Florida race but it will be certainly going for the top. Lamy-Sarrazin-Minassian behind the wheel do guarantee that.

While Peugeot’s mechanical fragility was an issue last year the French team has worked hard and expects this to be the ideal (and ultimate) test in this aspect in preparation for Le Mans. Speed and a solid team organization are there but this will be their first time at Sebring so this might be a slight handicap compared to their German rivals. Audi has many winning cards on their side with their rock-solid endurance record, a very experienced crew and drivers that know the circuit inside and out. Hopefully it will be a battle down to the wire to the benefit of all fans at the track or watching on TV.

The other 3 LMP1 teams will be certainly far behind in the distance even if Intersport will be on their reliable Lola and Autocon on a brand new Creation chassis. The interesting one to watch however will be the ECO racing Radical with its new biodiesel engine. It will be the first appearance of what seems an ambitious project on many aspects so it will certainly be capturing a lot of attention.

© American Le Mans Series // Will Penske break the Sebring curse in 2008?

Will the LMP2 cars be able to challenge for the overall win this year? Certainly at Sebring it will be very tough, the long distance races last year did not see as close racing as the shorter ones did and the new ACO rules adding weight to the smaller class will certainly not be in their favor. The constant evolution of the Porsche Spyders however combined with the 50% “rule break” imposed by IMSA and the strategic wit of Old Fox Penske might reserve a surprise nevertheless to those powerful diesels.

While Penske appears to be the main LMP2 challenger it is important to remember this is the one race they have not been able to win yet and this might act as extra motivator…or maybe the contrary! Two strong lineups for Roger’s team as usual : Bernhard-Dumas-Collard and Maassen-Briscoe-Long will bring the fight as close to the top of the field as possible. Other Porsches will be on the track, regulars Dyson Racing with a renewed driver squad (Dyson-Smith and Leitzinger-M.Franchitti-Lally) joined this race only by Swiss squad Horag Racing with a very experienced crew of Theys-Lienhard-Lammers, their debut on the Weissach car. The yellow Penske cars should however maintain an edge over these privateer cars in terms of speed but as we have seen often this is not the only race-winning factor in this world so don’t count them out just yet.

© American Le Mans Series // Fernández will use the new ARX-01B in 2008

Acura won here last year on their debut with Andretti Green and they are back with a renewed chassis on their three teams: Brabham-Johansson-Sharp will be with Highcroft Patrón, the all Mexican duo of Fernández–Chapulín Díaz will be back at Lowe’s Fernández while AGR will line-up team boss Michal Andretti’s son Marco next to their full season duo Herta-C.Fittipaldi. B-K Racing with their Mazda-powered Lola complete the American team list while also flying from Europe for this race the Barazi-Epsilon Zytek will be in the hands of team owner Juan Barazi and superfast Dutchman Michael Vergers. Their performance should be another indication of how far off both series are in terms of LMP2 competition level, a matter of discussion among fans for quite some time already, especially after the low performances of LMS teams at the last two ALMS rounds in 2007. Not to forget that Barazi is still a privateer team however…

GT1 should be another walk in the park for Corvette even when the lonely Bell motorsports Aston is well equipped in all fronts. The Vettes have their historical drivers on board (O’Connell-Magnussen-Fellows and Beretta-Gavin-Papis) while the Aston should be quick in the hands of Borcheller-Ducote and Spanish ace Antonio García. A non-Corvette victory would be a mega surprise here.

© American Le Mans Series // GT2 is still a very close class in 2008

Last but by no means least GT2. The class that gave the fans (in their opinion) the best moment ever in the ALMS history last year at Sebring is back in strength at the old airfield. Both contenders in that spectacular finish are back: Risi Competizione with two F430 Ferraris (Melo-Salo-Bruni and the Krohn Racing run one of Krohn-Jonsson-van de Poele) while the Flying Lizards get to Sebring with an array of 3 Porsche 997s: Bergmeister-Henzler-Lieb, van Overbeek-Pilet-Lietz and Law-Neiman-Davison. An all-star Porsche works driver list on the first two cars even when the Bergmeister-van Overbeek duo has been split up this year.

Other contenders for the class victory will be Tafel Racing and their new 2-Ferrari squad, drivers will be Farnbacher-Mueller-Bell and Simonsen-Tafel-Ehret. Talent and experience aplenty on both cars. A swarm of other teams will also be bringing quite some make diversity to the ALMS this year, even when the Porsches will still be a classical weapon for some of them. The Stuttgart brand will see cars entered by Farnbacher-Loles, VICI Racing and Autoracing Club Bratislava while one more Ferrari will be entered by Corsa Motorsports and driven by a strong line-up of Jeannette-Mowlem-Kelleners on the debut of Hankook rubber on the ALMS.

The aforementioned diversity will in fact be brought by the Primetime Dodge Viper, the PTG Panoz Esperante, LG Motorsports entering a GT2 Corvette C6, Robertson Racing on the brand new Doran Ford GT and Drayson-Barwell’s Aston Martin DBRS9 (in absence of their still not ready Vantage). Except for the Panoz and probably the Corvette none of these teams seems to have the competitiveness of the Porsches and Ferraris, let’s just hope none of them turn into the moving chicanes the prototype driver abhor so much….

The wait has been long enough, the endurance world is ready for another season and Sebring as usual is the best possible framework for the kick-off. Let the races begin!!