Werner/Luhr lead Audi 1-2 at Laguna

Pirro had looked set to end his highly-successful Audi career with a win in what was his co-driver Albers' first sportscar start, only for Werner to slip ahead at the final restart.

The Andretti-Green Acura beat the de Ferran Acura to third overall and the LMP2 class win by a tiny 0.054 seconds after a spectacular late battle, but had a shot at the outright win until the two Audis muscled past on a restart with 40 minutes remaining. Acura's class one-two was not enough to deny Porsche the LMP2 manufacturers' title.

The Audis had only qualified on the fifth row, but steadily edged towards in the front in a disjointed event that saw 12 caution periods accounting for just over half of the four-hour race. The first hour alone featured six full course yellows, with each restart allowing the powerful Audis to gain more ground.

Pole-sitter David Brabham led the opening 18 laps for Highcroft Acura before being passed by Gil de Ferran, with Luhr then hitting the front on a restart after 71 minutes.

But with a variety of strategies being adopted by the leaders during the many yellows, by half-distance the Audis had dropped back to fifth and sixth as Penske Porsche's Romain Dumas, AGR's Franck Montagny, Adrian Fernandez (Fernandez Acura) and Simon Pagenaud (de Ferran) ran nose to tail in a tense battle for the lead.

Another caution brought the Audis back into this fight, and Pirro was able to slice through into the lead when Dumas and Pagenaud made contact and lost momentum with an hour and a half to go.

The No.6 Penske Porsche was delayed early on when Pat Long sustained damage in a brush with Montagny, but emerged in the lead at the three hour mark when Sascha Maassen stayed out as the rest of the leaders pitted under yellow. His sojourn at the front was brief though, as he slid into the gravel on cold tyres at the restart.

It was at the end of the caution for this incident that the Audis burst to the front for the final time, with Pirro forcing his way past Kanaan and delaying the Acura enough for Werner to follow him through.

Pirro then appeared to be on course for a poignant victory until a slight slip at the final corner as he prepared for another restart allowed Werner to blast through into the lead. The German subsequently edged away to secure his and Luhr's eighth LMP1 and sixth outright win of 2008.

Kanaan only just held off Pagenaud for third, the pair swapping places in traffic twice in the final half-hour.

The Bernhard/Dumas and Helio Castroneves/Ryan Briscoe Penske Porsches followed the Acuras home, while the two Dyson Porsches took seventh and eighth, with the Fernandez Acura delayed by a battery problem and the Highcroft Acura losing six laps with a steering issue.

Class champions Johnny O'Connell and Jan Magnussen led GT1 for most of the race, but in the closing stages their Corvette teammates Olivier Beretta and Oliver Gavin managed to slip ahead and claim only their third class win of the year.

GT2 saw another extremely close battle, this time between the Mika Salo/Jamie Melo Risi Ferrari and the Dirk Muller/Dominik Farnbacher Tafel Ferrari. They were nose to tail for much of the distance, before Tafel got a crucial break at the final stops when they managed to put some lapped cars between themselves and Risi.

Champions Jorg Bergmeister and Wolf Henzler lost their chance of another GT2 win for Flying Lizard Porsche when they tangled with the lapped Vici Porsche in the first hour.

Pos  Cl    Drivers                            Car                   Laps
 1.  LMP1  Luhr/Werner                        Audi R10 TDI          145
 2.  LMP1  Pirro/Albers                       Audi R10 TDI          145
 3.  LMP2  Montagny/Kanaan                    Acura ARX-01b         145
 4.  LMP2  de Ferran/Pagenaud                 Acura ARX-01b         145
 5.  LMP2  Dumas/Bernhard                     Porsche RS Spyder     145
 6.  LMP2  Castroneves/Briscoe                Porsche RS Spyder     145
 7.  LMP2  Dyson/Smith                        Porsche RS Spyder     145
 8.  LMP2  Leitzinger/Franchitti              Porsche RS Spyder     144
 9.  LMP2  Fernandez/Diaz                     Acura ARX-01b         144
10.  LMP2  Maassen/Long                       Porsche RS Spyder     144
11.  LMP1  Mowlem/Johansson                   Ferrari 430 GT        142
12.  GT1   Gavin/Beretta                      Corvette C6.R         139
13.  GT1   O'Connell/Magnussen                Corvette C6.R         139
14.  GT2   Farnbacher/Muller                  Ferrari 430 GT        139
15.  LMP2  Brabham/Sharp                      Acura ARX-01b         139
16.  GT2   Salo/Melo                          Ferrari 430 GT        139
17.  GT2   Werner/Miller                      Porsche 911 GT3 RSR   138
18.  LMP1  Campbell-Walter/Simpson/Halliday   Creation CA07 Aim     138
19.  GT2   Milner/Hand                        Panoz Esperante       137
20.  GT2   van Overbeek/Pilet                 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR   137
21.  GT2   Neiman/Law/Pechnik                 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR   135
22.  GT2   Aucott/Kaffer                      Ferrari 430 GT        134
23.  GT2   Drayson/Cocker                     Aston Martin Vantage  134
24.  GT2   Pappas/Lazzaro/Pilgrim             Doran Ford GT-R       133
25.  GT2   Bergmeister/Henzler                Porsche 911 GT3 RSR   133
26.  GT2   Figge/Ehret/Brix                   Ferrari 430 GT        132
27.  GT2   Krohn/Jonsson                      Ferrari 430 GT        129
28.  GT2   Robertson/Murry/Robertson          Doran Ford GT-R       129
29.  GT2   Feinberg/Hall                      Dodge Viper Comp Cou  112
30.  LMP2  Bonilla/Devlin                     Mazda Lola B07-46     106
31.  LMP1  Field/Field/Lewis                  Lola B06/10 AER       102
32.  LMP1  McMurry/Burgess                    Creation CA07-002 Ju  87 
33.  LMP1  Noda/Prendeville                   Radical SR10 AER      46