L i m e R o c k
Romain
Dumas’ appointment in his diary for this weekend was at Lime Rock for the last
race of the first half of the 2007 American Le Mans Series. The Lime Rock circuit,
situated not far from New York, had shown itself to be very favourable for the
Porsches last year, and the question was, would it prove to be so again in 2007?
To all intents and purposes, the answer was yes, except that this 6th round
of the series saw the introduction of the ACO 2007 technical regulations, one
feature of which was the application of a 5% smaller air inlet restrictor. “The ALMS finally ended up
using the same regs as for the Le Mans Series and for the Le Mans 24 Hour race”
Romain explained “For us, reducing the air
intake by 5% means a loss of power of about 25BHP. That’s quite a bit”.
Despite this change of the rules which was aimed at widening the gap between
the LMP1 and LMP2 entries, the Porsche RS Spyder once more showed a remarkable
high level of performance in the first practice sessions when Romain was again
quickest. It was a good move for the French driver to show his hand ahead of
official qualifying as, quite simply, they didn’t take place! In effect, faced
with the dreadful weather conditions on Friday afternoon, the ALMS officials
were obliged to cancel qualifying and use the times set in free practice to
establish the starting grid for the race.So
it was that Romain found himself on pole for the first race of the summer, on
a track which had completely dried out. The start of the preceding race at Salt
Lake City had been a contentious affair, but here at Lime Rock, Romain was able
to take the lead of the pack at the first corner without any problems. The driver
from Alès in southern France then put on a masterful display of driving, even
if Guy Smith in another Porsche RS Spyder shadowed Romain for a few laps and
then it was Allan McNish in the first of the Audi A10’s who put up a challenge.
But in trying too hard, the Scot went off the road and the No 7 Porsche soon
pulled out a sizeable lead. Near the 45 minute mark, the second Audi also spun
off and this brought out the Safety Car for the first time, by which stage Romain
had a lead of 33 seconds. The Penske Team decided to take this opportunity to
make its first pit stops. Timo Bernhard took over the No 7 car still leading
the race but just 15 minutes later, after a spin by Tomas Enge, the Safety Car
had to be redeployed. “The second Safety Car period
played to the advantage of Ryan Briscoe in the Team Penske Team second car”
said Romain after the race. “It’s true that the Safety
Car came out for a third time just five minutes before the end but by then it
was to late and we could do nothing. It’s a huge disappointment when you think
what we achieved in the first hour of the race, even if of course we are delighted
to have scored another one-two for Team Penske and for Porsche”
Romain continued. His lead at the top of the overall championship table is now
9 points while the nearest Acura is already 40 points behind. “Five wins in six races for
the Penske team is a very satisfying result at mid-season. Timo and I have been
on the podium at each round and that’s equally positive”
said the provisional leader of the LMP2 class, whose next race will be at Mid-Ohio
on 22 July.www.romaindumas.com