The Audi R15 and Peugeot 908 waged war for the entire 12 hours of the race, acting as though it was a 20 minute sprint instead of an all out endurance race. This battle proved to be an amazing way for the American LeMans Series to celebrate their 100th race. If you didn't have an opportunity to catch the action, here is small example of the type of racing that went on for the entire 12 hours.
I was excited to see the action in GT2. As I expected, the Ferrari 430's dominated the class, with an amazingly strong showing by PTG with their 3 year old Panoz, piloted by Ian James and Dominik Farnbacher. A special word of congratulations to Ian James in holding off Marc Lieb in the Flying Lizard GT3RSR. Unfortunately the battle ended in tears, but it must have taken some amazing driving to hold off the brand new Porsche with the under-powered and under-developed Panoz.
Of course my greatest disappointment of the weekend were the new BMW M3's, with both cars out of the race before the half-way point. According to Bobby Rahal, team Principal of Rahal Letterman Racing, the cars developed oil leaks and needed to retire. According to spectators at the race, this is exactly what happened, except that the oil leak was likely caused by a connecting rod ventilating the crankcase. That having been said, enjoy some (poor quality) footage from the brief time that the M3's were running.
Congratulation to Audi for winning a tough race and Peugeot for giving the Audi team a real run for their money. While these two titans won't be around much in ALMS this year, the 24 Hours of LeMans in June promises to be a true fight to the finish.
As for ALMS, if Porsche and BMW can up their game, the 2009 season in GT2 class may prove to be as exciting as P1 at Sebring, if they do not, I see many podiums for RISI Ferrari and (yikes) Panoz.
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