American Le Mans Series

The Planetlemans Long Beach preview

© Planetlemans - Marcel ten Caat

With one victory overall a piece, Audi and Porsche prepare for yet another ALMS battle on the streets of Long Beach with Acura certainly aiming at raining on their parade and grabbing a victory for themselves. In the GT classes Corvette will run a solo race in absence of the Bell Aston Martin while GT2 should be a very open battle between Porsche and Ferrari.

Last year’s ALMS debut at Long Beach would start a series of overall victories by Porsche which would only stop at Petit Le Mans and question the (until then) unchallenged Audi R10 superiority o endurance racing. But, in fact, can you call a 100 minute race endurance? In addition to race duration the nature of the track as a street course persents a series of challenges to the heavier LMP1 cars which are not to be underestimated.

The new (IMSA-tuned) 2008 rules for LMP2 cars have made it less easy for the Spyders and Acuras to run away with overall victory but they still have a very realistic chance of getting the top spot on the podium and Audi will need to work hard if they want to repeat their latest victory at St. Petersburg when an opportunistic move by Lucas Luhr got them first place.

It will be a very tactic battle at the LMP level with the top teams (Audi, Penske, Dyson -who were third here in 2007- and the 3 Acura teams) calculating to the minimum details their pit stop strategy and especially how to behave if full course yellows are called. Fuel strategy will be key but any unexpected encounter with the concrete walls might throw that in the dustbin particularly since there will be hardly any recovery time in such a short event.

The rest of the LMP field will be Intersport and the return of the Autocon Creation in LMP1 (Michael Lewis-Tony Drissi will drive) as well as the B-K Lola-Mazda in LMP2, a 7th overall and 6th in class at St. Pete was a good encouragement for the BP-sponsored car. GT1 will be a Corvette-only race as said before and the only question is whether the “Ollies” can repeat last year’s victory.

GT2 however is a completely different story. After their St. Pete victory the championship leaders are the Tafel Racing drivers (Farnbacher-Mueller) but the team standings show Flying Lizard on top as this 3-car array has their drivers 2nd, 3rd and 4th on the points table of this class. Risi is 3rd but only thanks to the “other” car (Krohn Racing actually at Sebring) since the Salo-Melo duo has collected just 1 point up to now and they will need a serious reversal of fortune to challenge for the championship. Brix and Friesacher brought the car home in the points last race so that should show they can do a good job at Long Beach as well.

The podium obtained by Farnbacher Loles at St. Pete and the strong 4th of the Corsa Ferrari after their tyre switch show these cars also as strong contenders together with the VICI Porsche (line up of Craig Stanton, Nathan Swartzbaugh and Ruben Carrapatoso). Of course we will also see the Primetime Viper, PTG Panoz, Robertson Ford GT, LG Corvette and Drayson-Barwell Aston but none of these cars will challenge for the class win, rather try to have a good finish and collect points for the championship which can prove very useful at the end of the season.

An attractive race, hopefully with not many incidents given its very short duration and a challenge for Audi and Acura to reverse the Porsche 1-2-3 of 2007.