'10 ALMS Round 1 • Sebring • March 17th-20th

[dxk1]

Ho hum another enduro win for Risi. This is getting to be old hat. The most unexpected thing for me was watching the Corvettes play amateur hour. Time to pull out the old cliches. They certainly pulled the old Keystone Kops routine, or was Alphonse Gaston, or was it a Chinese Fire Drill. Anyway, had to be one of the most embarrassing events in Corvette Racing history. Very disappointing.

DK

[HORNDAWG]

Originally Posted by dxk1

Ho hum another enduro win for Risi. This is getting to be old hat. The most unexpected thing for me was watching the Corvettes play amateur hour. Time to pull out the old cliches. They certainly pulled the old Keystone Kops routine, or was Alphonse Gaston, or was it a Chinese Fire Drill. Anyway, had to be one of the most embarrassing events in Corvette Racing history. Very disappointing.

DK

I am sorry for you, that you find Risi's win boring, as there was quite a lot that happened in the class.

As to Corvette, while it is disappointing, poo poo occurs. And I guarantee that particular problem will not happen again!






L.P.

[Cuttlefish]

I just went out and bought a Muscle Milk in celebration. It was delicious, if pricey. Biggest congrats to Cytosport, accomplishing what they did with a gentleman driver against two teams with winning histories is incredible. They've always had a fan in me, but I'm now I'm a believer. I may have to start drinking more Muscle Milk to support the team!

I was also impressed by Aston Martin. Tremendous job, flawless reliability, consistent lap times. I'm looking forward to see them duel with Cocker at Long Beach, but they'll inevitably take the win when Drayson takes over.

Falken and Pirro were the other standouts for me. Falken proved it's possible for independents to put up a good fight; Pirro proved the Lola-Judd combo has legs. I hope we'll see more independent run B10/60s in the ALMS in the future. Perhaps Dyson should return to P1 Lolas. Or maybe Level 5 should ditch their turtles.

I was equally impressed that Corvette managed to lose. I understand "it's racing", but Corvette Racing is a well established team, and they were absolutely pathetic today.

AJR's performance really makes me wish they'd go back to GT2... Having 8 cars on the same footing would really make for some great racing.

I'm worried about the propensity of the LMPCs to crash. I assume it's a combination of fast car and inexperienced driver, but I hope that these incidents will diminish over time.

[porsche91722]

Originally Posted by HORNDAWG

As to Corvette, while it is disappointing, poo poo occurs. And I guarantee that particular problem will not happen again!
L.P.

I don't know about that, they have a bit of history banging into each other

[Peat]

I didnt make it through the last 2 hrs. My motor died and i got wheeled behind the wall and placed under a warm duvet. I see nothing of major not occurred towards the end?

[Andy77]

Originally Posted by HORNDAWG

I am sorry for you, that you find Risi's win boring, as there was quite a lot that happened in the class.

As to Corvette, while it is disappointing, poo poo occurs. And I guarantee that particular problem will not happen again!

L.P.

Well, Risi got away very lucky from that incident with Krohn while the Porsche boys had probably the worst portion of bad luck. I mean how high is the chance to get hit by the loose tire of the other Porsche in class and break your own rim with that? The Corvette incident was hilarious to put it nice but these things happen despite best preparation.

To me Peugeots Sebring win has the same bitter political taste, their Le Mans and Petit Le Mans victories had. Well, you still have to go out and finish first but the political debate and continous protests of Peugeot towards the other contender throw a light shadow on their wins at least.
However, I would have loved to see a continueing fight between Drayson and the Aston for the golden apple pie in LMP1. Unfortunately, his lordship proved to be the weak point there, apart from the technical issues.

I have already said the following in the chatroom during the race but I repeat it here again. I hope that the Sebring 12h becomes part of both ALMS and LMS schedules so that points for both series get awarded in order to get a bit more competition in a rather thin (prototype) field. Same goes for Petit Le Mans.

[NightStalk3r]

Had it not been for IMSA's screw up with the safteycar after the #45 collected the Falken tire, we still would have had a nice battle for the win, at the end the Lizards had got 1 lap back.

[Jonerz]

Originally Posted by NightStalk3r

Had it not been for IMSA's screw up with the safteycar after the #45 collected the Falken tire, we still would have had a nice battle for the win, at the end the Lizards had got 1 lap back.

Agreed. Unfortunately at the end of the race you couldn't throw a blanket over the top, let's say five in GT, but that won't be the norm by any stretch the rest of the season.

I must say I was immensely happy for Cytosport to win in P2. A 5 or 6 lap victory there got me more excited than the overall win for Peugeot. GTC was domination by Alex Job, and as a fan of his and a fan of the Porsche-only class I was pretty happy. Also, is TRG back to the ALMS in that class? Kevin Buckler seems to have indicated so. LMPC saw spins and crashes due to the laggy gear-box and Sportstradamus' very general (and very widely predicted) prediction that suspension parts wouldn't last. All-in-all I loved Sebring this year. It wasn't a gunfight but it was fabulous cars going very quickly on one of the greatest race tracks in the world in one of the greatest tests of man and machine. Here's to the ALMS season being underway!

Chris

[dxk1]

Originally Posted by HORNDAWG

I am sorry for you, that you find Risi's win boring, as there was quite a lot that happened in the class.

As to Corvette, while it is disappointing, poo poo occurs. And I guarantee that particular problem will not happen again!
L.P.

Maybe I didn't do as good a job as I wanted to express my sarcasm toward those who insist Risi are winning only because they are lucky. My point is that they have won so many in a row now that it seems old hat and it can't just be luck. I agree, it was a thrilling race and Risi has proven once again that they have excellent drivers, excellent speed, some luck and most of all very good strategy.

DK

[marcosgt]

Originally Posted by Andy77

To me Peugeots Sebring win has the same bitter political taste, their Le Mans and Petit Le Mans victories had. Well, you still have to go out and finish first but the political debate and continous protests of Peugeot towards the other contender throw a light shadow on their wins at least.

That's funny, that's exactly how I've felt about Audi for decades - I'm not going to shed any tears for a team that's bent and pushed the rule limits for years to get victories.

Audi COULD have been at Sebring - All this talk of Peugeot not wanting to race them is BS - The R15 (great looking car though it is) was declared illegal (only a really paranoid person is going to state that it was declared illegal only at Peugeot's behest), so why should Peugeot have to race against it?

I'm sure if the boot was on the other foot, it'd be no different...

M.

[SebringMG]

I was actually pretty disappointed by the performance of the AMR car during the race, did not think it showed much in the way of pace compared to the privateer Drayson but then outside of Muecke the driver lineup was fairly poor (compared to Cocker and Pirro).

Great results for Risi and Cytosport

[d.rocky]

well done to the armadillo for making it all the way across the track without being hit!
bet his mates were well impressed!!!

[HORNDAWG]

Originally Posted by SebringMG

I was actually pretty disappointed by the performance of the AMR car during the race, did not think it showed much in the way of pace compared to the privateer Drayson but then outside of Muecke the driver lineup was fairly poor (compared to Cocker and Pirro).

Great results for Risi and Cytosport

Fernandez's pace is not "fairly poor"!!!!


L.P.

[The Badger]

Originally Posted by SebringMG

but then outside of Muecke the driver lineup was fairly poor (compared to Cocker and Pirro).

Primat owns the car , thats why he is there . And there is absolutly nothing wrong with Fernandez !!!

[rayburn]

Originally Posted by Peat

I didnt make it through the last 2 hrs. My motor died and i got wheeled behind the wall and placed under a warm duvet. I see nothing of major not occurred towards the end?

And I only lasted a half hour longer! Nevertheless, I enjoyed the race, and was glad the Aston made it to the finish in third. It was the first time I have ever watched a race at Sebring, and it reminded me strongly of how Silverstone used to be - very open and wide track, which made for some interesting battles along the way.

Thanks to Justintv for providing coverage.

[The Badger]

Originally Posted by dxk1

Maybe I didn't do as good a job as I wanted to express my sarcasm toward those who insist Risi are winning only because they are lucky. My point is that they have won so many in a row now that it seems old hat and it can't just be luck. I agree, it was a thrilling race and Risi has proven once again that they have excellent drivers, excellent speed, some luck and most of all very good strategy.

DK

If you call the 997 being held up in the pits "Risi strategy" ..... fair enough !!!

A lot of the time that Risi has won the big events , Porsche has had terrible luck . Im not trying to take anything away from Risi's wins , but to label them a better team that the Lizards is pushing it .

Just remember who won the championship , it wasnt Risi .

GT2 was a thrilling race up until the major cock up with the safety car . After that , I wasnt much interested . Once again a brilliant race was ruined .

[arakis]

Originally Posted by The Badger

If you call the 997 being held up in the pits "Risi strategy" ..... fair enough !!!

A lot of the time that Risi has won the big events , Porsche has had terrible luck . Im not trying to take anything away from Risi's wins , but to label them a better team that the Lizards is pushing it .

Just remember who won the championship , it wasnt Risi .

GT2 was a thrilling race up until the major cock up with the safety car . After that , I wasnt much interested . Once again a brilliant race was ruined .

they won it because imsa/aco decided to give porsche 25kg weight break, even though they clearly had the pace,

risi was the faster car at sebring and it is shown by the best lap, and bruni's easy overtake on jorg, after pitts,

so both cars on new tires, with best drivers in, and risi flys by like jorg doesent exist, and makes 8 sec addvantige in no time, jorg takes it down to 2, risi getsi it up to 8 in 2 laps, then risi has an excurison, after witch jorg gets to 4sec, and it ends there!!!

Risi LED the race for 10+h, when bmw and risi were handed the lead they only had 3-5 sec advantige, within 10 laps they had a 30 sec advantige, and they kept that advantige util lizards were handed the lead in the pits after the caution, witch Bruni, took back within one lap, so no lizards wouldn't have won the race at best they would have been 2nd, beacuse simply put Risis ferrari ran flawless and it was faster, a little bit maybe, but enough not to let lizards win

[arakis]

If you want a more deeper analasys, the porsche has tire isuses for the first 5-10 laps, then it gets up to pace and can fight with ferrari, but every time after pits for the next 5-10 laps ferrari disaper into the distance!!

[Lola T70]

Originally Posted by marcosgt

Audi COULD have been at Sebring - All this talk of Peugeot not wanting to race them is BS - The R15 (great looking car though it is) was declared illegal (only a really paranoid person is going to state that it was declared illegal only at Peugeot's behest), so why should Peugeot have to race against it?

I'm sure if the boot was on the other foot, it'd be no different...

M.

Sorry to say but the R15 was declared legal on several occasions and it is only not legal now because the rules changed for this season.

Whether Audi could have been at Sebring or not with the new car, I don't know and not sure how we can really tell.


Anyway, I want to say well done Risi, I think they came out on top of one of the most competitive fields in GT possibly ever, winning big ones so often is not luck.

[Félix]

I hear the 2 BMWs were racing up until the last lap where one crashed. I can't find any video or precise info. What happened exactly?

[The Badger]

Horndawg quote : "Waiting for results to go final, still provisional at both ALMS and IMSA. There was a possible issue mentioned, so...."

Any word on what that was about yet please ?

[HORNDAWG]

Originally Posted by The Badger

Horndawg quote : "Waiting for results to go final, still provisional at both ALMS and IMSA. There was a possible issue mentioned, so...."

Any word on what that was about yet please ?

Results are final. The LMPC #95 and #99 excluded for minimum drive time violations. Did not think a car could be excluded for that, but it is a new class and it is Pro/Am, so I suppose if the Am time is not met there might be just cause for DQ. (?)
http://www.americanlemans.com/files/...nal%20Race.pdf






L.P.

[broadrun96]

Have seen a couple cars excluded for drivers going over so being under would seem logical. Had sworn through most of the race that Bouchut hadn't left the car all race and would have gone over his time. Every time speed showed the onboard, it looked like his helmet in the 55.

[ubrben]

Joey Hand set fastest race lap not Priaulx.

Muller spun in T17. No contact with the sister car.

Ben

[TWK]

Originally Posted by broadrun96

Have seen a couple cars excluded for drivers going over so being under would seem logical. Had sworn through most of the race that Bouchut hadn't left the car all race and would have gone over his time. Every time speed showed the onboard, it looked like his helmet in the 55.

being UNDER is a result of a new rule that sets a minimum time in all classes. Previous rules in all classes set only maximums. That was 2 hours for Sebring. Competition Bulletin 10-03, 12 February, 2010:

21.2 - Driving Time Requirements:
a. A Driver may not drive more than eight (8) hours total in the race.
b. A Driver may not drive for more than four (4) hours in any six (6) hour period
c. A Driver must drive for a minimum of two (2) hours total in the race.
d. Reserve drivers are not permitted.

Penalty for any of the above: Exclusion of car, Drivers and Entrant.
Note: Computation of the time requirement will be at the sole discretion of IMSA.