S t P e t e r s b u r g
Once again the American Le Mans Series teams were racing in Florida last weekend, for the second round of the championship. After Sebring, it was time to meet up again on the Streets of St Petersburg, a large city situated on the Gulf of Mexico coast. A new round and a new track, one which just a few drivers knew form competing in the IRL round there last year.
Most
drivers considered the street circuit interesting and it was thought to be favourable
to the LMP2 cars, the relatively lighter cars compared to the LMP1 entries,
having an advantage in acceleration. This analysis was soon proved correct in
practice when Romain Dumas had just 15 timed laps to learn and master the track,
a process interrupted several times by stoppages which marred the first day
of practice. So it was with the bare minimum of experience of the track that
Romain faced qualifying which was also disrupted by many red flags. After all
the stops, Romain managed just two flying laps in which to set a time for his
place on the grid. And what a time! In just two laps the driver from Alčs set
the fastest lap overall while careering around the St Petersburg circuit and
avoiding the walls! “The car was quite simply perfect, I could give it 100%.
I kissed the wall a few times but I really enjoyed myself. I might have gone
just a little bit quicker if my last run hadn’t been stopped by a red flag”
said Romain, after setting his first pole position of the season ahead of the
other Team Penske Spyder RS, the Audi R10 and the first of the Team Fernandez
Acuras. This quite brilliant lap - which would have been good enough for
8th place on the IRL grid - would therefore give the French driver a good start
ahead of the pack of Porsches, Audis and Acuras in the race the next day.But what should have been an advantage became a risk even before the Start/Finish line. Hardly had the green flag been shown when Allan McNish tried a kamikaze move
on
Romain, rubbing alongside him then trying to overtake even before they reached
the line, which is definitely not in the rule book! The Scotsman’s Audi hit
the back of the No 7 Porsche Spyder RS, damaging the rear diffuser, bits of
which also ended up in the air intake ducts of the second Team Penske car! His
car unbalanced by McNish the Frenchman had no choice but to allow the Scot go
by, in order to prevent a huge accident to the whole field, which was only just
avoided at the first corner. “I
respect Allan, he’s a great driver, but I really don’t understand why he tried
to push his way by before we got to the line. The rules are quite clear - it’s
the driver in pole position who sets the pace and who must cross the line first
at the start of the race. I accelerated as normal but it’s true that the
Audis with their better torque have the advantage on a flying start. Of course
I knew that the officials would be watching and that he would be penalised,
so I just let him go. But unfortunately when he hit me, he damaged the rear
diffuser quite badly and of course that upset the aero efficiency of the car
and we lost a lot of our speed”. Even worse,
on only the second lap, the damage to the rear bodywork caused a puncture to
the right-rear tyre, dropping Romain two laps behind… So all the advantage of
pole position had been completely lost and just five minutes into the race,
Romain had another challenge - to finish the race in as high a position as possible.A challenge which he tackled brilliantly, together with his team mate, Timo Bernhard, and the Penske team which was faultless in its management of the race strategy and pit stop timings. After a frantic 2 hours and 45 minutes of racing, the No 7 Porsche Spyder RS crossed the finish line in second place in the LMP2 category, giving Penske a one-two in the class and pulverising the Acuras at the same time. “Frankly, after the first 55 metres of the race, I wasn’t even sure if we make the end of the race but finally we got second place and we’ve taken the lead of the championship. I’m very pleased we’ve achieved the one-two for Porsche. After practice, we had genuine reasons to hope for a better result but overall, we have to be quite pleased”, Romain said after the race, a big grin on his face. The teams now move on to the next round at Long Beach in two weeks time, a race which promises to be as exciting as Round 2. The race length has been reduced by an hour and the drivers are facing a real sprint. As if it the racing wasn’t lively enough already…!
Romain DUMAS