March 23, 2011
(Image © 2011 - John Thawley)
Editor-in-Chief's Note: Once again we're proud to be able to feature the stellar images of photographer extraordinaire John Thawley in our coverage of the American Le Mans Series this season. Click here to see John's visual highlights from last Saturday's 12 Hours of Sebring, which was a superb race from start to finish. Peugeot won again but this time the No. 10 Team ORECA Matmut 908 HDi FAP (above) driven by Loic Duval, Nicolas Lapierre and Olivier Panis took the victory in America’s greatest sports car race and the opening round of the 2011 American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patrón. We'll be adding more coverage from the race over the next few days, including a report from A.J. Morning, our East Coast motorsports correspondent. Enjoy! - PMD
(Image © 2011 - John Thawley)
Simon Pagenaud, David Brabham and Marino Franchitti drove Highcroft Racing’s HPD ARX-01e for the first time this week and almost stole the show with a stirring performance and its first Sebring victory. But Pagenaud finished second, 31.868 seconds behind the winning Peugeot, and held off the highest-finishing Peugeot 908 factory entry of Franck Montagny, Stephane Sarrazin and Pedro Lamy.
(Image © 2011 - John Thawley)
BMW Motorsport won a hard-fought GT battle for the manufacturer’s first win at Sebring since 1999 when it took an overall victory. The BMW Team Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing NO. 56 BMW M3 GT entry driven by Joey Hand, Dirk Mueller and Andy Priaulx led a 1-2 sweep for the German marque, which won the GT team and manufacturer championships in 2010. The most hotly-contested class in American road racing was filled with non-stop action from start to finish.
(Image © 2011 - John Thawley)
Corvette Racing pounded out a gutty, gritty performance Saturday to finish third and fourth in the GT class in the 12 Hours of Sebring. The No. 03 Compuware Corvette C6.R driven by Tommy Milner, Olivier Beretta, and Antonio Garcia completed 312 laps and finished third, 49.294 seconds behind the class-winning BMW. The No. 04 team car of Oliver Gavin, Jan Magnussen, and Richard Westbrook stormed back from three laps down after an accident at the two-hour mark and finished fourth with 311 laps.
(Image © 2011 - John Thawley)
Level 5 Motorsports won LMP2 in its class debut with team owner Scott Tucker, Luis Diaz and Ryan Hunter-Reay sharing the driving. The team won at Sebring in LMP Challenge last year and moved up to P2 after taking the LMPC championship in 2010. “We just got our cars last Saturday. This whole week was a big test session,” said Tucker, who won the LMPC driver’s championship last year. “I’ve got to hand it to Luis and Ryan. We had a small issue and went down a bunch of laps, but these guys pounded it out. It really worked out for us today.”
French Revolution and Digital Revulsion – The Sebring that took it to the Web.
By A.J. Morning
Sebring. This past weekend, the 59th running of the 12 Hours of Sebring brought so many stories to life, an in-depth examination of them all would take more time and space than practicality allows. So, here in brief, is the lowdown:
Team ORECA Matmut scored what was arguably the biggest surprise victory in recent years, thanks in part to drivers Loic Duval, Nicolas Lapierre, and Olivier Panis’ clever avoidance of the on-track incidents that put rivals Audi and factory Team Peugeot TOTAL out of contention and fighting to regain position in a crowded and brutal 56-car field that left virtually no car unscathed.
That a privateer team like ORECA could win at Sebring is impressive enough, but doing with last year’s 908 HDi FAP car? Stunning work. Team Principal Hughes de Chaunac had not tasted victory at Sebring since his Chrysler-backed Vipers swept the podium in GTS-class 11 years ago. “It’s a historic result for us… We finished just in front of the manufacturers,” he cheerfully claimed. “We avoided any mistakes. It was a perfect job from the team and these three drivers.”
During the week, I was able to meet with members of Team ORECA, who were unanimous in their enthusiasm for racing in America – “We love to come here, to race in America… the excitement, the people and the culture here, is like nothing else. We love America because there is so many (circuits) and no two are the same,” one team member told me. (He’s also apparently never been to a 1.5 mile NASCAR tri-oval.)
It is worth noting here that part of the reason for the car count reaching a fantastic 56 this year, and one reason de Chaunac brought Team ORECA to Sebring (and to Petit Le Mans) is the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup series. Not many people outside the motorsports press paid much attention when the ILMC was announced at Sebring a year ago, but with two dates in the U.S. (compared to one each in Belgium, France, Italy, China, and England), the ILMC plays into how the two biggest dates in the ALMS calendar will run – and if last year’s Petit Le Mans and this year’s Sebring are any indication, that’s a very good thing.
A couple of classes down in GT, the most competitive class in all of sports car racing saw no less excitement and fury. The BMW Motorsport team RLL – led by winning driver Joey Hand in the team’s No. 56 M3 GT and followed by teammate Dirk Werner in the No. 55 – ran a clean race through all 12 hours, and held off a hard charge in the late hours from the Corvette Racing C6.R of Tommy Milner. Milner was impressive in the No. 3 Corvette, his first with the factory Corvette team. A close look at the top teams in GT – BMW team RLL, Flying Lizard Porsche, Corvette Racing, Risi Ferrari and others indicates that, as we saw last year, there is no clear favorite for the title early on, and the battles in GT throughout this season absolutely cannot be missed.
One team making a fresh start with an all-new car was the Panoz Abruzzi “Spirit of Le Mans,” getting a shakedown before ostensibly going to Le Mans later this year. There are many words we heard used in reference to that car – it’s truly a love-it or hate-it design – but one word sums it up without a fight: Weird. At times it may be fast, at times it may spend a week in the pits getting its nails done, but that car is categorically weird – and any car that unusual is worth checking out, just because it dares to be so different.
A notable change to the track was Michelin’s eye-catching new Pilot Super Sport sponsorship of the walk-over bridge near turn 17 at the track. In a nighttime flash photo, Bibendum seems to leap right off the panel, a terrific effect. The new tire, as described to me by a Michelin rep, serves a purpose similar to the walk-over bridge, in that it connects the paddock to the infield. Clever.
Sebring did not just have the most loaded-up grid in years this time around, it also had a rather densely packed infield. Compared with the last few years, the crowd seemed to fill-in earlier and thicker, and by race day it was nearly impossible to find a place to park a pogo stick in the Green Park.
While ORECA was carrying out the French Revolution described above and the fans were enjoying the scene trackside, however, many racing fans outside the track in the U.S. and worldwide were having trouble just trying to watch it. Having ended its deal with Speed Channel (which never gave Sports Car racing 1/10th the attention it gives NASCAR), the American Le Mans Series is taking it to the web with ESPN3.com – with very mixed results.
Some of the feedback I’ve gotten, both in the U.S. and abroad, has been quite positive. I heard from people who don’t carry cable TV but have broadband internet, who were watching Sebring for the very first time and loved it. I heard from a friend in Europe who – though the feed was at times choppy and then disappeared for 40 minutes at a time – found the whole experience exciting. I also heard from huge numbers of fans all over who were aghast – why does ESPN3.com ask me for my provider, why doesn’t this video feed work, and why did the ALMS say at first that they were serving video on their website for this race alongside ESPN3, only to later change that to overseas-only? What overpaid lawyer screwed this up?
For those who logged on Saturday, the 12 Hours of Sebring was a glimpse of the future – a very early, not-fully-sorted glimpse – but an idea of where our sports coverage and entertainment will be in years to come.
The American Le Mans series gets an B+ for ambition in its new webcast package, but a D for execution. The concept of moving coverage from TV to the Internet is certainly forward-thinking and ahead of its time – for the moment, perhaps a bit too ahead. All of the problems facing ALMS with its new takin’-it-to-the-web deal can certainly be worked-out – and this series has always done well with making itself open and accessible to fans – but the lesson of this year’s coverage is that there’s much work left to be done.
That's it for now, I'll see you at the next pit stop.
(See A.J.'s photos from Sebring here.)
(BMW)
The official portrait of the 2011 Prodrive-prepared MINI John Cooper Works S2000 FIA WRC rally car.
(SCCA Media Services)
The 12-race 2011 Pirelli World Challenge Championships will be broadcast on VERSUS in either 90-minute or two-hour programs airing in Saturday or Sunday afternoon time slots. Announcers Greg Creamer and Calvin Fish will be providing color commentary and feature segments with behind-the-scenes footage. The 2011 Pirelli World Challenge Championships television schedule (all times Eastern): Streets of St. Petersburg (Rounds 1 and 2), Saturday, April 9 at 4:30 p.m.; Streets of Long Beach (Round 3), Saturday, April 30 at 2:30 p.m.; Miller Motorsports Park (Round 4)/Mosport International Raceway (Rounds 5 and 6), Saturday, June 18 at 3 p.m.; Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course (Rounds 7 and 8), Saturday, August 20 at 5 p.m.; Infineon Raceway (Rounds 9 and 10), Sunday, September 18 at 3 p.m.; Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca (Round 11) / Road Atlanta (Round 12), Saturday, October 29 at 1 p.m.
Editor-in-Chief's Note: I was really sorry to see the demise of the print version of National Speed Sport News. For years, NSSN was the weekly racing "bible" with coverage at all levels, from the major races to events at small and local tracks. The first edition of the paper appeared on Aug. 16, 1934. Chris Ekonomaki, now 90 years old, sold that first issue at Ho-Ho-Kus Speedway in New Jersey, started writing for the paper not long after and became its editor in 1950. His daughter, Corrine, said that the sluggish economy made it too difficult for her to continue the publication. She said the publication was an integral part of the Economaki family for its entire 76-year run. Another one of those bits of news that marks the end of an era, and makes us all step back and think about where we've been, where things are now, and the uncertainty of the future. - PMD
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway. From the "Hell Freezes Over" File, The Speedway has invited Donald Trump to drive the Camaro pace car for the 2011 Indianapolis 500 in May. No word as to whether he's accepted or not (we hope not), but really guys? That consummate jack ass is the best you can come up with? Wow. Please re-think that decision.
Editor-in-Chief's Note: My colleague Gordon Kirby has another excellent column up this week about the state of the sport. Check it out here. - PMD
Editor-in-Chief's Note: If you really must keep up on all of the latest F1 developments and the potential U.S. GP in Austin, Texas, go here. - PMD
Editor-in-Chief's Note: Check out Michelin's racing website - "Michelin Alley" - and get in on all of the behind-the-scenes buzz. Go here. - PMD
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