Muscle Milk Lola-Aston dominates at Mosport Park
The Muscle Milk Lola-Aston Martin of Lucas Luhr and Klaus Graf notched up its second American Le Mans Series race win of the year at Mosport Park
Luhr absolutely dominated the opening stages, stretching out a 54-second advantage over Chris Dyson's Dyson Lola-Mazda in the first half hour.
But Luhr then fell down the order by pitting later than the rest of the field under the first yellow - the team adamant that the call to open the pits had come too late for it to bring the car in at the same time as the other frontrunners, leaving it among the LMPC cars for a while.
That gave Dyson a spell in the lead, but the Lola-Aston was too quick to be held back today, and just before the halfway mark Luhr was able to retake the lead and then pull away from Dyson's Guy Smith. The second Dyson car of Steven Kane and Humaid Al Masaood was third, with the inexperienced Al Masaood having run close behind Dyson in the first stint.
BMW was finally defeated in the GT class for the first time in 2011, as Jan Magnussen and Oliver Gavin won for Corvette, just ahead of the Jaime Melo/Toni Vilander Risi Ferrari.
The BMWs had still led much of the race, with Joey Hand in front until a troubled first pitstop that ended with a penalty for pitlane contact with the Risi Ferrari.
Dirk Werner and Bill Auberlen then hit the front in the other BMW, until they were given a penalty for tapping the GTC-leading TRG Porsche into a spin, dropping them to third.
Porsche did challenge for the victory, and even led for a while, before Flying Lizard's Jorg Bergmeister spun in traffic while running first in class. The car was later delayed by a long pit visit for power steering repairs.
CORE Autosport's Gunnar Jeanette and Ricardo Gonzalez dominated the LMPC class, as GTC came down to another thrilling last-lap battle in which Spencer Pumpelly narrowly overcame TRG team-mate Dion von Moltke to win in the car he shared with Duncan Ende, having fought back brilliantly after the clash with Werner.
Results - 129 laps:
Pos Cl Drivers Team/Car Time/Gap
1. P1 Luhr/Graf Muscle Milk Lola-Aston 2h46m12.067s
2. P1 Dyson/Smith Dyson Lola-Mazda + 28.420s
3. P1 Al Masaood/Kane Dyson Lola-Mazda + 2 laps
4. PC Jeannette/Gonzalez CORE FLM + 4 laps
5. PC Bennett/Montecalvo CORE FLM + 6 laps
6. PC Lux/Zugel Genoa FLM + 6 laps
7. PC Field/Vera Intersport FLM + 7 laps
8. GT Gavin/Magnussen Corvette + 8 laps
9. GT Melo/Vilander Risi Ferrari + 8 laps
10. GT Auberlen/Werner BMW + 8 laps
11. GT Mueller/Hand BMW + 8 laps
12. GT Henzler/Sellers Falken Porsche + 9 laps
13. PC Nicolosi/Boon Performance Tech FLM + 10 laps
14. GT Beretta/Milner Corvette + 10 laps
15. GT Murry/Lazzaro Robertson Doran Ford + 10 laps
16. GT Neiman/Holzer Flying Lizard Porsche + 11 laps
17. UNC James/Sanstrom Panoz + 12 laps
18. GT Sharp/van Overbeek Extreme Speed Ferrari + 12 laps
19. GT Miller/Maassen Miller Porsche + 12 laps
20. GT Jones/Moran RSR Jaguar + 13 laps
21. GT Bergmeister/Long Flying Lizard Porsche + 16 laps
22. GTC Ende/Pumpelly TRG Porsche + 17 laps
23. GTC von Moltke/Bunting TRG Porsche + 17 laps
24. GT Brown/Cosmo Extreme Speed Ferrari + 17 laps
25. GTC Pappas/Faulkner Black Swan Porsche + 18 laps
26. GTC Sweedler/Wong Alex Job Porsche + 18 laps
27. GTC Ham/Cumming JDX Porsche + 18 laps
28. GT Robertson/Robertson Robertson Doran Ford + 20 laps
29. GT Junqueira/Wilden RSR Jaguar + 32 laps
Retirements:
PC Marcelli/Ducote Intersport FLM 48 laps
P1 Burgess/McMurry Autocon Lola-AER 39 laps
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