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American Le Mans Series

The Planetlemans St. Petersburg 2008 preview

By Gabriel Portos ⋅ March 30, 2008 ⋅ E-mail this post ⋅ Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

In the very first edition of the St. Petersburg race last year Audi managed to grab their only street race victory of the season thanks to a clean, (almost) uneventful race. Will things be similar this year? The circuit is tight (remember the heavy shunt of Tomas Enge that took him out for quite some weeks), the race is short (1 hour 55 minutes, is this endurance?) and the LMP2s are quick even with the adapted new rules (remember Sebring…) .

A few key factors seem to be against Audi in this first sprint race of the season. Given the strong performance put by both Porsche and Acura at Sebring it is very likely that the LMP2s will be able to win this race overall in normal conditions. Penske is in top form, Dyson, Fernández and Andretti Green as well and are all hungry for victory. It should be a tough battle at St. Petersburg therefore and Audi will have a lot of hard work if they want to beat that swarm of very quick smaller prototypes.

A few other teams will also be present at St. Pete, clearly the Highcroft Acura in deer need of improvement compared to Sebring where they were slower than the other two Japanese-powered teams. Where Dyson demonstrated improvement compared the their “peers” on the Porsche side, Highcroft lagged a bit behind on the Acura camp.

The B-K Lola-Mazda will try to hit the track this time after their unfortunate accident during Sebring qualification session. A very welcome return is the van der Steur Radical with team owner Gunnar van der Steur and Rob pecorari behind te wheel. The car has not been racing for a while so the performance is a bit of a question mark, anyway it is good to see them back on the series.

In LMP1 the Intersport Lola will be present as well but not Autocon, both teams have not had good runs for quite a while, even when Autocon secured a Le Mans invitation in a pretty complicated fashion. Intersport ran pretty well at the first minutes at Sebring but then fell down the list with another opaque performance which we don’t see them turning around at the Florida street circuit.

GT1 will be another Corvette chase for the Bell Aston Martin, only if one of the yellow monsters suffers will the green Aston have a chance of something better than a predictable third. Nevertheless a commendable effort in a class having scarce entries on both sides of the Atlantic for the AC-sanctioned series.

In GT2 the championship is already pretty hot. The Lizards dealt the first blow at Sebring with a 1-2 and Risi will need to show quick an solid recovery after Jaime Melo’s fatal mistake at the 12 Hours. Don Giuseppe’s team will be also running a second car this time around with the debut of the Patrick Friesacher-Harrison Brix duo in the ALMS.

But some other teams showed their teeth at Sebring and will also be giving the two top teams a run for their money, especially on the Porsche camp. Both Farnbacher Loles and VICI put a very strong race indeed during the Florida classic and will be a force to be reckoned with, at least for the podium positions. The sole Tafel Ferrari that will be at St. Pete will need a serious change of luck to be in contention, even when the Farnbacher-Mueller duo should also be able to get them to the fight for the top.

The rest of the field will most probably not be on the pace with the aforementioned names, but it will be important to see the evolution of the LG Corvette, Primetime Viper and Robertson Ford GT which are clearly striving for competitiveness in the class. The Drayson-Barwell team will still have to do with their DBSR9 car which puts them already out of contention for a good place but a finish should be nice indeed for the brand new team.

The PTG Panoz will also be there, hoping to be quicker than in Sebring while the Corsa Ferrari is another question mark after the tyre mishap that prevented them to run at the opening round. We hope they will be able to be at the start since the car and drivers potential is huge.

A short race potentially packed with incidents which might bring a strange result if things become tough in the relationship between competitors and walls. Let’s hope we can witness as less full course yellows as possible and enjoy as many as possible of the meager 115 minutes planned for the race.

Discussion

2 comments for “The Planetlemans St. Petersburg 2008 preview”

Nothing major happened, save for Enge collecting the wall, but something broke there.

I look for a feverish fast pace set by the top 7 cars, as they break away from BK, Intersport and Van Der Steur. I expect a close battle for 8th between BK and Intersport if they can both keep it off the walls. Adam Pecorari is quick, however Gunnar is not, so look for Gunnar to start the car and hope they don’t get too far behind early.

The Radial has proven fairly quick in Europe, hasn’t really had a chance to shine very much here since the car has seen very limited running.

Prediction is for Acura to finally break through and get the victory and I pick… Fernandez and Diaz. I think they are the quickest pairing currently in the Acura camp.

Of course Porsche will not go down without a fight and neither will the Audi’s, who will to get on pole for this race and try to gap the competition or use the power of their proven TDI technology to force their way to the front much like McNish did last year, hope they can keep it clean and no drive-through penalties like last year.

Lap 1 should be VERY interested, we’ll see who tries a brave move and go for victory in turn one (bad move!)

GT1 is not worth mentioning unless Corvette’s strange reliability problems creep up again. Doubtful, but one never knows and as the British say; “If it ends up in tears for one of the cars, then the Bell Aston will pick up the pieces…”

Getting all the way to the top step is highly unlikely but stranger things have happen. In any case they are on their way to an automatic invite to Le Mans next season for being the only team brave or stupid enough depending how one looks at it, for competing against GM Racing/P&M.

GT2 is far from a forgone conclusion as well and I’ll finish up by saying I look for Melo/Salo to recover and Tafel to get the 2nd step of the podium in only their second full season and suprise!; I look for Fambacher-Loles to get the 3rd and final step and lock out Flying Lizards… The GT2 points, teams and manufactures titles will go down to the wire!

I do look for solid Top 10 results for both the LG Corvette and the Primetime Viper, but avoiding the “war” up at the sharp end, I look for this one to have at least two cars in the pits with championship worthy damage and won’t complete the race, get a DNF to match Risi’

Posted by Anthony | March 31, 2008, 10:48
I don’t think anyone in GT1 is stupid to face GM. The top 2 GT2 teams are factory backed teams. But GT2 does not allow full factory teams. So in effect all those competitors thinking they might have better chances in GT2, it’s simply a farce because they don’t have the resources of Risi and the Lizards.

Lock the Lizards off the podium? I doubt that.

And by the way, nothing broke on Tomas Enge last season. He just wasn’t braking at the turns. That was some amazing driving tough. If you’ve seen his driving you would know this. Even at Lemans the 007 car could have won it but he screwed up. Corvette would’ve been 3rd. Very fast but reckless.

The Radicals in Europe are factory backed. Van der Steur is using his own money. Even the sponsorship is from his own company (EFC). But the Radical is not the most competitive package out there for a true privateer in P2. Zytek would be my choice.

Posted by Bamba | April 1, 2008, 8:17