THE LINE

August 24, 2011

(Image © 2011 - John Thawley Motorsports Photography - http://www.johnthawley.com)
The GT slug-fest at Road America came down to a battle of pit stops and strategy - and great racing - that ended with Risi Competizione's Jaime Melo and Toni Vilander driving their No. 62 Ferrari F458 Italia to its first win in ALMS. See another gallery of superb John Thawley images, this time from Road America here.

(Image © 2011 - John Thawley Motorsports Photography - http://www.johnthawley.com)
Corvette Racing's No. 4 Corvette C6.R won its third-straight MICHELIN® GREEN X® Challenge GT award this year, a scant 0.4 points ahead of BMW Team RLL (No. 56) and 1.4 points ahead of Risi Competizione. In the GT category, all but one of the cars that finished the race used E85, giving them all strong Clean scores. The key to winning this category was race speed (Fast) and energy consumption (Efficiency).

(Image © 2011 - John Thawley Motorsports Photography - http://www.johnthawley.com)
Muscle Milk Aston Martin Racing won its fifth-straight MICHELIN® GREEN X® Challenge trophy. The team topped all three scoring factors - Clean, Fast and Efficient. The Muscle Milk Aston Martin led the most laps and had the fastest average speed. The team excelled in Efficiency with its lower overall energy consumption despite weighing 50 kilograms more than the Lola-Mazda.

(Image © 2011 - John Thawley Motorsports Photography - http://www.johnthawley.com)
Luis Diaz, Christophe Bouchut and team owner Scott Tucker (No. 055 Level 5 Motorsports Lola-Honda) won the LMP2 category in its return to ALMS competition at Road America. Tucker was a busy boy, as he was also entered in the IMSA GT3 Cup Challenge by Yokohama, the Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Championship and the SCCA Pro Racing Trans Am Series.

(Image © 2011 - John Thawley Motorsports Photography - http://www.johnthawley.com)
Butch Leitzinger and Rudy Junco (No. 52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA FLM09) won the LMP Challenge class by 19.515-seconds over the No. 63 Genoa Racing ORECA FLM09 driven by Eric Lux, Christian Zugel and Elton Julian. It was Leitzinger's 10th career victory, but the first for both PR1 and Junco.

(Image © 2011 - John Thawley Motorsports Photography - http://www.johnthawley.com)
Road America - "America's National Park of Speed" - provided the perfect setting for what was an outstanding ALMS race.

(Aston Martin)
Aston Martin has confirmed the specs of its 2012 Vantage GT3 race car. The GT3 racer features a modified version of Aston Martin’s production 6.0-liter Vantage V12 engine. The dry-sumped engine is expected to produce around 600 bhp with 700 Nm of torque and is shifted back and lower in the chassis for better weight distribution. A carbon fiber prop shaft mates the engine to a Xtrac 6-speed sequential transmission with semi-automatic paddle shift gear change. The Vantage GT3 will be eligible for numerous race series around the world including the FIA GT3 Championship, ADAC Masters, Nürburgring VLN, Blancpain Endurance Series, British GT, Belcar and Open GT among others. Testing of the new car will begin in October and deliveries of the first cars will commence in early 2012. Prices start from £298,000.

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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