American Le Mans Series

The Planetlemans Sebring 12 Hours preview

© American Le Mans Series // Peugeot vs Audi, interrupted by Acura this year?

The 57th edition of the Sebring 12 Hours will kick-off the American Le Mans Series 2009 season and is set to become a cracker. Audi and Peugeot will go head-to-head again, but they are facing a new LMP1 opponent, Acura. It could well be the only time the three will race each other in 2009.

Penske Racing took the overall win in 2008, but without the Porsche RS Spyders at the start of the race victory should be heading to one of the three LMP1 teams again. Acura has moved up from LMP2 into LMP1 and the Patrón Highcroft Racing and de Ferran Motorsports teams can hardly wait to challenge their diesel-powered rivals. Brabham-Sharp-Franchitti are capable of winning a race, while de Ferran-Pagenaud-Dixon can only dream of taking their first Acura victory at Sebring.

The opposition for the only confirmed LMP1 full season entries so far is strong though. Audi has not only entered two cars again, despite most of their LMP racing programme canned, but they are brand new R15 TDIs. Bringing a brand new car to Sebring has so far been very successful for Audi as their R8 won on its debut in 2000 and the R10 TDI did the same back in 2006. Capello-Kristensen-McNish should still be the best line-up seen in a sportscar and at Sebring they will be running the #2 Audi R15 TDI, a clear favorite for the win. Luhr-Rockenfeller-Werner are again in the #1 car.

Team Peugeot Total is very serious on attacking and beating Audi at Sebring this year. Back in 2008 the team used one car in their first Sebring attempt, this year there will be two Peugeot 908 HDi FAPs. Minassian-Lamy-Klien will be racing the #07, while an all-French #08 (Montagny-Sarrazin-Bourdais) will be going for the win as well. Last year the Peugeot suffered some problems at Sebring, but if the French squad has overcome the balance problems they had in pre-season testing due to the new regulations they should be able to fight for the overall victory.

The two other LMP1 cars, both Lola B06/10 AER, will certainly not fight for the overall win. Intersport Racing (Field-Field-Ducote) and Autocon Motorsports (Willman-McMurry-Burgess) do not have the cars to challenge for victory, and should be fairly happy when they end up fighting the LMP2 challengers.

Unlike last year the LMP2 category has lost quite a lot of cars. At Sebring only three cars will take the start and none of them will be a Porsche RS Spyder. Lowe’s Fernandez Racing is the only Acura team left in LMP2 and if the car is as good as it was in 2008 it should be possible for Ferandez-Diaz-Jourdain to take the class win. Dyson Racing has swapped its Porsches for two Lola coupes, hoping to have more success with the Mazda powered cars. Dyson-Smith-Lally and Leitzinger-Franchitti-Devlin should give the Acura a run for its money. Unlike Europe the LMP2 cars at Sebring will be allowed to run with the 2008 spec rear wings.

Corvette Racing will say farewell to its Chevrolet Corvette C6.R GT1 race cars with another class victory in the Sebring 12 Hours. Unfortunately for the fans there is no competition in the GT1 class as only two C6.Rs are entered. Corvette Racing regulars Magnussen-O’Connell and Beretta-Gavin are joined by Garcia and Fässler here (and will be at Le Mans later this year).

And then GT2. Once again the class for the smallest GT cars will have the biggest field at Sebring. Fifteen GT2 cars will be running at Sebring for sure. There will be a lot of diversity throughout the class with Porsche, Ferrari, BMW, Panoz, Chevrolet, Ford, Dodge and Aston Martin having cars running in this category. Who will be able to win it?

In recent years the battle was between Porsche and Ferrari, but this year BMW has joined with two factory cars. At the Sebring Winter Test the times set by the BMW weren’t that fast and if they have not been sandbagging and have not improved their cars it could be hard for them to be a serious challenger. If they were not giving their best at the test, Ferrari and Porsche could be in for a serious fight with the BMW Rahal Letterman Racing Team cars (Hand-Auberlen and Müller-Milner).

There are quite some capable Porsche crews racing at Sebring in the 12 Hours. Flying Lizard’s #45 Porsche 997 GT3 RSR will have Bergmeister-Long-Lieb as their candidate for the GT2 class win. So far the new Porsche has been performing well in test days on both sides of the Atlantic and the German manufacturer is of course hoping to beat its rivals. Bergmeister-Long-Lieb will not be the only Porsche drivers capable of winning though. A few spaces further in the pit is Farnbacher Loles Racing. With (Dirk) Werner-Henzler-Lietz in the car the #87 should be considered as a front-runner as well. And only on Sunday VICI Racing announced it would enter its #5 for Westbrook-Basseng-Arnold, another Porsche entry with a superb driver line-up.

So three Porsches will big guns at the wheel will be fighting for GT2 victory, but don’t rule out Ferrari. The #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari F430 GT will have Jaime Melo back behind the wheel for a full season. Melo will be joined by German Pierre Kaffer and Mika Salo (doing the long distance races only this season). Melo-Kaffer-Salo should be the Ferrari to beat at Sebring. A Ferrari that could be in to cause an upset is the Advanced Engineering Pecom Racing Team #95. FIA GT San Luis round winners Russo and Companc will be joined by none other than Italian ace Gianmaria Bruni.

So it looks like it could be a five-way battle for victory (or seven when one includes the BMW’s). But that still leaves eight cars that are also running in GT2. The best of those eight should be the second VICI Racing and Flying Lizard Motorsports entries. The #18 VICI Porsche will have Pastorelli-Stuck-Stuck, marking the return of Stuck Sr. to the ALMS and the Jr. making his debut. Law-Neiman-Van Overbeek will race the #45 Lizards Porsche.

Krohn-Jönsson-Van de Poele are back for another try, but it remains to be seen what the #61 Ferrari can do with so many great teams around. Same way for the #21 PTG Panoz. Farnbacher-James showed the car is no ‘has-been’ and given the right circumstances it could end up on the podium after twelve hours. At this team much depends on what the Yokohama tyres will do vs Michelin rubber.

The Primetime Race Group Dodge Viper (Feinberg-Hall-Holt), LG Motorsports Riley-Corvette C6 (Gigliotti-Curran-Molo), Robertson Racing’s Doran Ford GT (Robertson-Robertson-Murry) and Drayson Racing Aston Martin Vantage (Drayson-Cocker-Bell) will complete the field. None of these teams are likely to challenge the Porsches, Ferraris and perhaps BMWs for victory…but will still provide the spectators around the circuit some high quality racing.

The off-season has been long enough, it is time for another racing season. Let’s get Sebring underway!