The green flag for the first 2011 race of the American Le Mans Series will be waved on Saturday, in Sebring, for the famous 12-Hour race.
It will be the start to a new season but experts predicts it is likely to be a simple continuation of the Audi/Peugeot domination-war at the top of the series’ standings.
Audi has taken the top-spot during the latest tests that took place yesterday. Timo Berhard, Romain Dumas and Mike Rockenfeller’s 2010 R15 recorded the quickest times of the day in both sessions.
On Monday, it had been the Peugeot 908 – a new prototype that caused many headaches to the brand in pre-season testing – of Franck Montagny, Pedro Lamy and Stéphane Sarrazin that scored the best time.
If the latest results are true to themselves, it means that the No. 01 Audi will likely be the one car to keep an eye on for victory on Saturday in LMP1. The fastest Peugeot on track yesterday was more than one second behind the leaders.
The two Peugeot teams, that of Montagny/Lamy/Sarrazin and the sister car driven by Anthony Davidson, Marc Gene and Alexander Wurz, will hope that the pre-season crashes remain isolated incidents. Reliability will be a key of this half-day event.
The competition promises to be even fiercer in GT championship. Nine cars were separated by mere milliseconds (the top-7 was within 0.418 seconds!) on top of the chart last Tuesday.
The top-3 represented three different brands, for the pleasure of the fans. The Ferrari F430 GT of Gianmaria Bruni, Pierre Kaffer and Giancarlo Fisichella led the way ahead of the Corvette C6.R of Olivier Gavin, Jan Magnussen and Richard Westbrook. Bill Auberlen, Augusto Farfus and Dirk Werner were on board of their BMW M3 GT.
The 12 Hours of Sebring are scheduled to start at 10:30am on Saturday. The qualifying sessions will be held this Friday.
The 2011 ALMS season will feature nine weekends of racing including one single event in Canada (Ontario): the Grand Prix of Mosport, held on July 22-24.
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| Photo: Peugeot Sport |
It will be the start to a new season but experts predicts it is likely to be a simple continuation of the Audi/Peugeot domination-war at the top of the series’ standings.
Audi has taken the top-spot during the latest tests that took place yesterday. Timo Berhard, Romain Dumas and Mike Rockenfeller’s 2010 R15 recorded the quickest times of the day in both sessions.
On Monday, it had been the Peugeot 908 – a new prototype that caused many headaches to the brand in pre-season testing – of Franck Montagny, Pedro Lamy and Stéphane Sarrazin that scored the best time.
 |
| Photo: Audi |
If the latest results are true to themselves, it means that the No. 01 Audi will likely be the one car to keep an eye on for victory on Saturday in LMP1. The fastest Peugeot on track yesterday was more than one second behind the leaders.
The two Peugeot teams, that of Montagny/Lamy/Sarrazin and the sister car driven by Anthony Davidson, Marc Gene and Alexander Wurz, will hope that the pre-season crashes remain isolated incidents. Reliability will be a key of this half-day event.
The competition promises to be even fiercer in GT championship. Nine cars were separated by mere milliseconds (the top-7 was within 0.418 seconds!) on top of the chart last Tuesday.
The top-3 represented three different brands, for the pleasure of the fans. The Ferrari F430 GT of Gianmaria Bruni, Pierre Kaffer and Giancarlo Fisichella led the way ahead of the Corvette C6.R of Olivier Gavin, Jan Magnussen and Richard Westbrook. Bill Auberlen, Augusto Farfus and Dirk Werner were on board of their BMW M3 GT.
The 12 Hours of Sebring are scheduled to start at 10:30am on Saturday. The qualifying sessions will be held this Friday.
The 2011 ALMS season will feature nine weekends of racing including one single event in Canada (Ontario): the Grand Prix of Mosport, held on July 22-24.