American Le Mans Series

First overall victory for Andretti Green Acura at Detroit

© American Le Mans Series

Andretti Green Racing, led by XM Satellite Radio Acura drivers Franck Montagny and James Rossiter, claimed its first overall victory in American Le Mans Series (ALMS) competition Saturday at the Detroit Sports Car Challenge at The Raceway at Belle Isle. A sharply-timed driver change from Rossiter to Montagny at the 43-minute mark put the XM Acura team in a position to claim track position late, which they did by winning the race off the pit lane with just 69 minutes remaining.

Montagny led a total of 47 laps during his stint and beat David Brabham to the finish line by 3.985 seconds to grab Andretti Green’s second LMP2 class victory and the first since winning the 2007 Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring. de Ferran Motorsports finished third on the day, giving Acura its first-ever overall sweep of the top three positions in ALMS competition. The three Acura-powered machines led all 104 laps during the 2 hour, 45-minute race.

The ALMS will break for a few weeks before resuming on Oct. 4 with the 2008 edition of Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta.

Franck Montagny, #26 XM Satellite Radio Acura: “I’m very happy for the XM Acura team. It’s a strong team with good drivers and everybody works very hard. This feels good to claim the top spot. I felt very confident coming into the race that we could have a good result. I’m quite happy.”

James Rossiter, #26 XM Satellite Radio Acura: “We put ourselves in the strongest position possible for the end of the race by making the driver change when we did. Franck did a great job in the car and the XM team did a great job on the strategy. It was a very challenging weekend. I only had 20 minutes of dry running before I started the race, so I really didn’t know the track very well. But, even last night, Franck and I were looking at maps to learn the circuit and trying to improve ourselves. The team gave us a great car and we just did the best we could.”

Michael Andretti, co-owner, Andretti Green Racing: “This feels really good. With everything that has gone on with this team over the course of the year, I’m just so happy that we were able to finally get this done. I’m so happy for every person that works on that team. They deserved this.”

Detroit Sports Car Challenge
LMP2 Results
Pos. Name Laps
1 Montagny/Rossiter 104
2 Brabham/Sharp 104
3 de Ferran/Pagenaud 104
4 Dumas/Bernhard 104
5 Long/Briscoe 104

Detroit Sports Car Challenge
Overall Results
Pos. Name Laps
1 Montagny/Rossiter 104
2 Brabham/Sharp 104
3 de Ferran/Pagenaud 104
4 Dumas/Bernhard 104
5 Long/Briscoe 104