American Le Mans Series

Sebring Winter Test – Test Session 1 Result

© American Le Mans Series

After having fifteen cars during the Sebring Winter Test in 2009 this year’s test days have brought a record number of twenty-eight cars to the Sebring International Raceway in Florida. At 8:00 am the track went green for the first session.

The four hour long session saw the first action of the Aston Martin Racing Lola Aston Martin on American soil. Driven by Harold Primat, Adrian Fernandez, Stefan Mücke and Chris Buncombe the British sportscar topped the timing sheets at noon. A lap time of 1:47.826, with 11 completed laps was enough to keep the remaining twenty-seven cars behind. Intersport Racing’s Lola B06/10 AER was second fastest in the first test session.

Behind the two LMP1 cars it was defending American Le Mans Series champion Patrón Highcroft Racing’s HPD ARX-01c in third place overall. The David Brabham, Simon Pagenaud and Marino Franchitti driven car was only 0.437s slower than the Lola Aston.
Second fastest LMP2 was the Team CytoSport Porsche RS Spyder. The Porsche of Pickett and Graf was however 1.7s slower than the HPD ARX-01c. The #16 Dyson Racing Lola B09/86 Mazda completed the top five overall, 2.903s from the #009 Lola Aston Martin.

Next up were the LMPC cars. Fastest in class was the #99 Green Earth Team Gunnar Oreca FLM09 of Christian Zugel, Gunnar Jeannette and Elton Julian. A split second (0.047s) behind in second place was the #36 Genoa Racing car of Larry Connor. Level 5 Motorsport’s #55 Oreca FLM09 was third in class, just over two seconds behind the #99 and #36.

The Risi Competizione Ferrari F430 GT2 of Melo and Bruni set the fastest lap in the GT2 class. A 2:02.286 put the car just in front of the slowest LMPC car, at 1.055s it was the #92 BMW Rahal Letterman Racing Team BMW M3 of Bill Auberlen and Tommy Milner in second place in GT2. Flying Lizard Motorsports’ Jörg Bergmeister and Patrick Long were just 0.032s slower than the BMW, the Porsche 997 GT3 RSR taking third in class in the opening session. Ninth in class was the Robertson Racing Ford GT, which was damaged during Winterfest at Sebring last month. The car was repaired after the crash and made its first official laps again.

And finally the GT Challenge class. The #92x Kelly Moss Racing Porsche 911 GT3 Cup of Darrell Carlisle was fastest, ahead of the #44x GMG Racing Porsche of Brent Holden and the #33x Kelly Moss Racing entry of Peter LeSaffre.

Full results can be found here.