THE LINE - MARCH 20, 2013
Monday, March 18, 2013 at 12:36PM
(John Thawley ~ Motorsports Photography @ www.johnthawley.com ~ 248.227.011)
Audi Sport crushed the field in the 61st Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Fueled by Fresh from Florida. Marcel Fassler, Benoit Treluyer and Oliver Jarvis (No. 1 Audi R18 e-tron quattro) wheeled the first hybrid car to win at Sebring and in the American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patrón. Treluyer was spectacular in his final two stints, taking fuel with 20 minutes left while maintaining his lead over teammate Tom Kristensen in the No. 2 Audi. Kristensen, Allan McNish and Lucas di Grassi placed second. Check out John Thawley's brilliant images from Sebring here.
(John Thawley ~ Motorsports Photography @ www.johnthawley.com ~ 248.227.011)
“For sure at the end with the traffic it was really hard to see in the mirror,” said Treluyer, who has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans the last two seasons with Fassler and Andre Lotterer. “I just had to keep the gap. Tom was doing good on the out laps and could warm the tires better than me. But after that I could go quicker than he and I could bring it home.” The two Audis shared the lead 21 times among themselves. All three drivers won at Sebring and in the ALMS for the first time. Incredibly, the victory was the 11th for Audi in America’s oldest sports car race since 2000.
(Richard Prince/Corvette Racing Photo)
Tommy Milner (No. 4 Corvette Racing Compuware Corvette C6.R) passed Matteo Malucelli for the GT lead and eventual class win as Corvette Racing won at Sebring for the first time since 2009. Milner, who drove with Oliver Gavin and Richard Westbrook, overtook Malucelli – who went off twice in the span of a lap – in Risi Competizione’s Ferrari F458 Italia with 13 minutes left. “I'm a bit at a loss for words,” said Milner, the defending ALMS GT champion with Gavin. “We obviously are off to a great start. We had two unbelievable stops toward the end, and that gave me the adrenaline to keep pushing. I knew I needed to do my part. It was just an unbelievable finish.” It was a roller-coaster day for the No. 4 car. It lost two laps with electrical problems early and received a one-minute penalty for avoidable contact. “Certainly it seemed like we were making it harder than we wanted to,” Gavin said. “We got about a lap and a bit down. The crew was fantastic today, but Tommy and Richard drove great. Tommy at the end drove ridiculously well. Then the Ferrari made a mistake at the end and he was in a spot to take the lead. This is just fantastic.”
(John Thawley ~ Motorsports Photography @ www.johnthawley.com ~ 248.227.011)
Level 5 Motorsports went 1-2 in P2 with Marino Franchitti, Ryan Briscoe and team owner Scott Tucker winning in the No. 551 Honda Performance Development ARX-03b. Tucker tied a Sebring record with his fourth consecutive class win, joining Bob Holbert (1961-64), Olivier Gendebien (1959-62) and Sascha Maassen (2001-04). “This is an incredible experience,” Tucker said. “Today, and over the past four years, make you realize that (Sebring) is just a special place and I think everyone likes coming here. You kind of make your own luck, and we got lucky in a lot of spots. Things went to plan.” Franchitti crossed the line just seconds ahead of Ryan Hunter-Reay in the No 552 Level 5 entry (above). Hunter-Reay drove with Tucker and Simon Pagenaud.
(ALMS)
David Ostella, David Chang, Mike Guasch (No. 52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA FLM09) won in Prototype Challenge presented by Continental Tire, and Alex Job Racing won for the second straight year in GT Challenge with its No. 22 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup driven by Jeroen Bleekemolen, Cooper MacNeil and Dion von Moltke. The GTC class race had the most lead changes of any on Saturday with 31, with the top six GTC cars on the lead lap as late as the final hour. Von Moltke won at Sebring for the second straight year and added to his GT victory in the Rolex 24.
The end of an era begins the countdown to a brand-new one.
By A. J. Morning
Sebring. This year’s Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring brought with it two major dramatic themes. Both involve the closing of an age. For nearly as long as the American Le Mans Series has run, one of its biggest attractions has been the super high-tech presence of Audi’s LMP team. Their drivers have always been among the world’s finest, often with Formula 1 pedigree (indeed, the years-old joke on the paddock is that F1 is the “feeder series” for Le Mans sports cars), nearly as diversified as the UN, or at least Angelina Jolie’s nursery.
Thus, with the FIA World Endurance Championship continuing to play to the more sterile but market-friendly circuits (its only US date for 2013 being COTA in Texas), and with the LMP1 class departing from the series after this year, the Audi team returned for a swan song run – a thank-you and farewell to the fans and the series, and as always, a tune-up for the 24 Hours of Le Mans. What’s remarkable about Audi’s run last Saturday was not that they won, but how they continue to make it look so easy. It isn’t. Just completing 12 Hours at Sebring is a conquest of its own; winning it, and winning so convincingly for so long leaves Audi with an overall streak to rival the greatest ever.
Then, there’s the story of the Series itself.
“Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!”
The words of Peter Venkman in Ghostbusters may have been intended as a joke, but no less hyperbole has been spent in recent months on next year’s integration of the American Le Mans Series and Grand Am into one combined program.
“This NASCAR thing? It’s gonna’ suck!” – (echoed comments from any number of ALMS fans in the crowd and via the internet, on next year’s unified series)
We’ve had all winter to grouse about it, to complain and prognosticate on what it all means to the future of racing, but with both series’ 2013 openers now in the books it’s time to more seriously consider: What’s the United SportsCar Racing series going to mean?
Everything – the new name, the loss of LMP1 class, the inclusion of Daytona Prototypes, the mixing of various GT classes – everything has been under scrutiny, and not just from the fans. Team owners Rob Dyson and Greg Pickett, both longtime LMP1 competitors as well as great friends, held a joint conference with the motorsports press during the week and both seemed to have more questions about 2014 than answers. How exactly will the specifications shake out? Where will the tires come from? Will P2 be competitive with DP? Right now, less than 11 months until the United SportsCar Racing series goes live in Daytona for 2014, there’s still a ton of scaffolding in place, lots of “we’re working on it,” and not too much else to go on.
There are several things we can count on, however:
The relationship with ACO will be preserved. This was pretty obvious, as ACO has benefited greatly from ALMS over the years, and had very little liability in the deal. It’s a win for ACO no matter what, so they’re in.
IMSA sanctioning is being kept in place, another obvious move. The “big reveal” ceremony showed a somewhat revised IMSA logo, which wasn’t broken to begin with, but someone’s market research must have concluded it was the way to go.
Manufacturers and sponsors will no longer need to hedge on which series will provide the best return. One top-level sports car series means we no longer have a split in that slice of the pie. It also means TV networks can present a more cohesive package – even though Speed Channel is going away later in 2013, other networks are bound to take notice. Velocity, are you listening?
For the ALMS faithful, the biggest complaint seems to be about NASCAR running everything. While that’s certainly valid on some fronts, the Wal-Mart of racing in the U.S. does do some things incredibly well. Turning racing into money is the France family specialty; it’s what they DO, before anything else. Also, as evidenced by the extreme makeover at Daytona International Speedway, they don’t mind spending real money on the fans’ experience at the track. As the USCR schedule forms, a few circuits are sure to lose out, obviously. Those that remain, however, will stand to benefit in ways previously unimagined.
In Steve McQueen’s movie Le Mans, his character Michael Delaney famously said, “When you’re racing… it’s life. Anything that happens before or after, is just waiting.”
It’s time to stop waiting, and go racing.
That’s it for now; I’ll see you at the next pit stop.
(Photo by Harold Hinson for Chevrolet)
Kasey Kahne (No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Great Clips Chevrolet SS), shown here in front of Kyle Busch (No. 18 Joe Gibbs M&Ms Toyota), on his way to victory in the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway last Sunday in Bristol, Tennessee. It was Kahne's first win at Bristol. ''Feels really good to win at this place,'' Kahne said. ''Such a tough track over the years. This is a big race for me. When you race in the Sprint Cup Series, Bristol is a race you want to win.'' Kyle Busch ended up finishing second.
(Brian Czobat © 2013, autostock USA.)
Brad Keselowski (No. 2 Penske Racing Miller Lite Ford Fusion) finished third at Bristol to take over the lead in the Sprint Cup Series points chase. Brad is the only driver to have four top-five finishes to open the 2013 NASCAR season.
(Photo by Harold Hinson for Chevrolet)
It was Kasey Kahne's fifteenth win in NASCAR's Sprint Cup competition. Hendrick Motorsports has now won two of the first four races in 2013.
(Photo:"The Spitzley/Monkhouse Collection" - Courtesy of Bonhams)
Bonhams has consigned the 1954 2½-litre straight-8 Mercedes-Benz W196 einsitzer – chassis number ‘00006/54’ – in which five-time World Champion Driver Juan Manuel Fangio won both the 1954 German and Swiss Grand Prix races. It will be auctioned off on July 12 at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Having made its debut in that German GP, chassis ‘00006’ holds special significance as the first open-wheeled slipper-bodied postwar Mercedes-Benz ever to win a Formula 1 Grand Prix race. It's also the only Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix car from that era outside of the factory's hands. The W196 introduced several technologies to Formula 1 including fuel-injection, all-independent suspension, multi-tubular lightweight "spaceframe" chassis design, inboard mounted brakes and the "lay-down" configuration of its straight-8 engine to minimize body height.
Editor-in-Chief's Note: Check out this new Porsche video - featuring Derek Bell - ahead of the company's return to the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2014. - PMD
