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Capello and McNish win at Laguna

Audi's Rinaldo Capello and Allan McNish fended off a chasing Penske Porsche to take victory for the second time in a fortnight in the American Le Mans Series finale at Laguna Seca

In a repeat of their battle at the end of the Petit Le Mans, Capello put a late-race pass on Romain Dumas and then resisted pressure from the Frenchman until the chequered flag. Capello's margin of victory over the Dumas/Timo Bernhard car was just 0.4 seconds.

"I would rate this race as even better than Petit," Capello said. "At least there we had an advantage on the long straight, which we don't have here.

"It was not easy in the last 15 minutes and it only got harder. Every lap I could have been overtaken. I tried to brake as late as possible but not too late so as to not make a mistake."

A similar battle for third saw Marco Werner and Mike Rockenfeller in the second Audi overcoming Sascha Maassen and Ryan Briscoe's Porsche for the final podium spot. The Fernandez Lola-Acura and the Andretti-Green Acura finished just three seconds behind their dice.

Class champions Oliver Gavin and Olivier Beretta beat their Corvette teammates Jan Magnussen and Johnny O'Connell again in the GT1 battle, with an extremely quick pitstop making the difference for the Gavin/Beretta C6.R.

Risi Ferrari's Jamie Melo and Mika Salo clinched the GT2 crown with another win. Salo came back after a pitstop to pass Ralf Kelleners' Rahal Letterman Porsche for the class lead with 25 minutes remaining.

Pos  Drivers                              Car                   Laps
 1.  R.Capello, A.McNish                  Audi R10 TDI          157
 2.  R.Dumas, T.Bernhard                  Porsche RS Spyder     157
 3.  M.Rockenfeller, M.Werner             Audi R10 TDI          157
 4.  S.Maassen, R.Briscoe                 Porsche RS Spyder     157
 5.  A.Fernandez, L.Diaz                  Acura Lola BO6        157
 6.  B.Herta, T.Kanaan                    Acura ARX-01a         157
 7.  C.Dyson, G.Smith                     Porsche RS Spyder     157
 8.  B.Leitzinger, A.Wallace              Porsche RS Spyder     156
 9.  J.Campbell-Walker, H.Primat          Creation CA07 Judd    154
10.  T.Chilton, D.Manning                 Zytek 07S Zytek       153
11.  O.Gavin, O.Beretta                   Corvette C6.R         150
12.  J.O'Connell, J.Magnussen             Corvette C6.R         150
13.  M.Salo, J.Melo                       Ferrari 430 GT        146
14.  W.Henzler, D.Farnbacher              Porsche 911 GT3 RSR   146
15.  R.Kelleners, T.Milner                Porsche 911 GT3 RSR   145
16.  J.Van Overbeek, J.Bergmeister        Porsche 911 GT3 RSR   145
17.  G.Pickett, K.Graf                    AER Lola B06-10       144
18.  T.Pappas, T.Borcheller               Porsche 911 GT3 RSR   143
19.  B.Auberlen, J.Hand, B.Sellers        Panoz Esperante       139
20.  S.Neiman, L.Pechnik, D.Law           Porsche 911 GT3 RSR   139
21.  N.Jonsson, T.Krohn                   Ferrari 430 GT        136
22.  J.Feinberg, C.Ducote                 Dodge ViperComp Coup  136
23.  D.Robertson, A.Robertson, D.Murry    Panoz Esperante GTLM  135
24.  J.Bach, B.Devlin                     Mazda Lola B07-40     133
25.  J.Tafel, N.Swartzbaugh, L-E.Nielsen  Porsche 911 GT3 RSR   117
26.  S.Mucke, H.Shimoda                   Zytek 07S Zytek       112
27.  C.McMurry, B.Willman, T.Burgess      Lola EX257 AER         92
28.  D.Brabham, S.Johansson, R.Kerr       Acura ARX-01a          89
29.  J.Field, C.Field, R.Berry            Creation CA06H Judd    40
30.  P.Dumbreck, L.Luhr                   Ferrari 430 GT         31

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