Road America: Champion Audi wins

In a reversal of fortune from the last race at Mosport Park, the two watched and waited as both the Joest Audi and Dyson Lola teams had their problems to prevail for the win ahead of the second LMP675 Dyson Lola of Chris Dyson and Andy Wallace. Making a fine showing in third overall, second in P900, were David Saelens and Olivier Beretta in the JML Panoz, also one lap down to the winners.

"It's not the most tasty of wins," admitted Lehto afterward, "because we didn't have to fight for it, but we will take it. We were able to catch up in the points a little bit because Joest had a big problem and lost a lot of laps, but they still finished third."

The Joest Audi lost seven laps as the team replaced a failed starter motor. It seems that running on the pit speed limiter along the long Road America pit lane puts extra strain on the starter. "We may have found the only weakness in the R8," joked an Audi spokesman.

Jan Magnussen made a last-lap pass on Johnny O'Connell's Chevrolet Corvette to win the GTS class for the Prodrive Ferrari 550 Maranello team with co-driver David Brabham. "I had a good tow up the front straight," said Magnussen of the decisive moment, "but he was up against the inside pit wall. I went to the outside to try to suck him back out and it worked! I braked about 100 meters later than I had all day, and got by."

The Michael Petersen-White Lightning Porsche 911 GT3 RS scored its first-ever win in the ALMS, taking GT class honors with drivers Johnny Mowlem and Craig Stanton. The team's path to victory was helped by problems for the two Alex Job Racing Porsches, which forced both out of the lead.

"It's nice to win one," said an elated Mowlem. "This has been a long time coming, the whole team has earned it. We got a little lost early in the weekend as we tried a new differential, but we changed back to one Bob Wollek put in the car at Sebring in 2001. Maybe Bob was looking over us today."