R o a d A m e r i c a
Just
as at St Petersburg at the start of the year, the American Le Mans Series shared
the billing with Champ Cars this weekend at Elkhart Lake. So it was that the
ALMS teams took to the stage on the Saturday evening for the 8th round of the
season for a race due to last not 2 hrs 45 minutes as is usual but for four
hours.On a circuit often compared to Spa-Francorchamps for its natural setting and its average lap speed (more than 210kph!), it was clear that the LMP1 cars would enjoy more of an advantage than on some of the circuits visited by the ALMS over the last few months, where the LMP2 entries, and in particular the Porsche RS Spyders, have shone in their performances. Qualifying results spoke for themselves as the two Audi A10’s wrapped up the front row by more than one second over the first Porsche, in this instance that of Romain and his co-driver, Timo Bernhard. It was the third time this season that Romain had set the pole position time for the LMP2 class.
On
Saturday afternoon, when the 27 car field had assembled on Road America’s long
start/finish straight, the sky did not look promising, full of big clouds as
it was… nonetheless, everyone started on slick tyres. Romain had a perfect start,
charging down to the first corner in the wake of the two Audis and ahead of
the second Team Penske Porsche, but an incident at the back of the field immediately
brought out the Safety Car. At the restart, and remembering the severity of
the local officials at the same race last year, Romain was perhaps a little
too cautious and allowed a Creation LMP1 car and the No 6 Porsche of Ryan Briscoe
to overtake him. However, it did not take long for the driver from Alès in southern
France to soon regain the lost places and he held his third place until it was
time for the first fuel stop after an hour’s racing. It was precisely at this
moment, a quarter of the way into the race, that the rain began to fall, which
was the cue for Romain to take centre-stage! The rain was light at first but
soon became torrential and Romain was quickly catching the Audis, when the Safety
Car was deployed again. Romain take the opportunity to make his second stop
and rejoined ahead of the Audis! There was another full-course Safety Car period
soon after, and this time, it was Pirro who jumped the No 7 Porsche on the restart.
“The track started drying
out" Romain explained “and I caught up with the
Audis. Then McNish had a puncture and Pirro was in the lead. We were coming
up to the ‘Kink’, I braked very, very late and I used the kerb to get round
the corner and I managed to overtake him! It’s the sort of manoeuvre which doesn’t
always work but on this occasion I felt the race wasn’t over for us and that
we had a few more cards to play”. Romain
had to hand the car over to his team-mate Timo Bernhard with an hour of the
race to run, in order not to drive for more than his permitted time at the wheel.