Audi R8 wins in farewell race

Champion Audi drivers Allan McNish and Dindo Capello had to twice come from behind to beat the best of the LMP2 class Penske Porsches to the outright win.

Audi's new Le Mans winning R10 TDI will return to the ALMS (having won the season opening Sebring 12 Hours) at the next round at Miller Motorsports Park. In the interim, Champion has returned to the old R8 design, but the Lime Rock event was the last chance to add to this legendary car's winning record.

At first this race looked like it would be a repeat of the previous round at Mid-Ohio, which was dominated by the Porsches.

But Sascha Maassen's second placed car fell out of contention early on after contact with Marc Gene's GT2 class Risi Ferrari.

A mid-race full course yellow gave McNish, who took over from Capello after 45 minutes, a chance to close in on the race leading Porsche, which Romain Dumas had just handed over to Timo Bernhard. It didn't take long for McNish to get in front and start pulling away.

Then a curious pit stop mix-up, when officials prevented McNish from stopping despite pit road having just opened during a yellow, allowed the Porsche to get in front again.

Dumas got back into the lead car for the final stint and initially looked like he could hold McNish at bay.

But the former Formula One driver and Le Mans winner gradually reeled the Porsche in and swept past in traffic with just under half an hour to go.

"This is one of the most remarkable cars that anyone can ever have driven, and it showed its true colours today," McNish said.

"It's certainly not in its most powerful trim, but I've got to say that everything - from start to finish - ran beautifully.

"They (Porsche) were very quick under green. We just had the legs in traffic, which was partly experience and partly because I think they were protecting themselves a little."

Penske and Champion monopolised the lead battle as both Dyson Lolas had major problems early on. The car which James Weaver had qualified third suffered a clutch failure before the start, and then Chris Dyson collided with the Olivier Beretta/Oliver Gavin GT1 Chevrolet.

That ended Beretta and Gavin's amazing run of success in GT1, but left the door open for a stunning Chevy versus Aston Martin race.

Aston driver Darren Turner led at first but suffered severe rear grip problems, allowing his teammate Stephen Sarrazin into the lead.

When Tomas Enge took over from Turner, he managed to recover all the lost ground and retake the lead, only for the grip issue to return and send Enge tumbling back to third.

That left Sarrazin's co-driver Pedro Lamy to beat the Ron Fellows/Johnny O'Connell Chevrolet to the flag in a spectacular last lap drag race.

The GT2 win went to Jorg Bergmeister and Patrick Long's Petersen/White Lightning Porsche. Toni Villander had led initially in the second Risi Ferrari, only to crash heavily on some dropped oil after 40 minutes.

Bergmeister and Long then came out on top of a close race-long battle with the Wolf Henzler/Johannes van Overbeek Flying Lizard Porsche and the Bill Auberlen/Joey Hand PTG BMW.

Results

Pos  Cl   Drivers                               Make              Laps
 1.  P1   Rinaldo Capello, Allan McNish         Audi R8            177 
 2.  P2   Romain Dumas, Timo Bernhard           Porsche RS Spyder  177 
 3.  P2   Sascha Maassen, Lucas Luhr            Porsche RS Spyder  174 
 4.  GT1  Stephane Sarrazin, Pedro Lamy         Aston Martin DB9   166 
 5.  GT1  Ron Fellows, Johnny O'Connell         Corvette C6.R      166 
 6.  GT1  Darren Turner, Tomas Enge             Aston Martin DB9   166 
 7.  GT2  Jorg Bergmeister, Patrick Long        Porsche 911 GT3    162 
 8.  GT2  Johannes van Overbeek, Wolf Henzler   Porsche 911 GT3    161 
 9.  GT2  Joey Hand, Bill Auberlen              BMW E46 M3         160 
10.  GT2  Justin Marks, Bryan Sellers           BMW E46 M3         158 
11.  GT2  Marc Gene, Mario Dominguez            Ferrari 430 GT     158 
12.  GT2  David Brabham, Scott Maxwell          Panoz Esperante    157 
13.  GT2  Tom Milner, Gunnar Jeannette          Panoz Esperante    156 
14.  P1   Chris McMurry, Michael Lewis          Lola EX257 AER     156 
15.  GT1  Olivier Beretta, Oliver Gavin         Corvette C6.R      142 
16.  GT2  Lonnie Pechnik, Seth Neiman           Porsche 911 GT3    142 
17.  P2   Liz Halliday, Clint Field, Jon Field  Lola B05/40 AER    136 
18.  GT2  Klaus Graf, Mike Rockenfeller         Porsche 911 GT3    129 
19.  P1   James Weaver, Butch Leitzinger        Lola B06/10 AER    122 
20.  P1   Duncan Dayton, Andy Wallace           Lola EX257 AER     81 
21.  GT2  Toni Vilander, Ralf Kelleners         Ferrari 430 GT     32 
22.  P2   Ben Devlin, Gunnar Van der Steur      Lola B2K/40 AER    32 
23.  P1   Chris Dyson, Guy Smith                Lola B06/10 AER    21 
24.  P2   Jamie Bach, Guy Cosmo                 Courage C65 Mazda  0