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Stuck and Said lose Sears Point win

The Prototype Technology Group's BMW M3 has been disqualified from its surprise GT class win at Sears Point.

The M3, driven by Hans Stuck and Boris Said, beat the previously dominant Porsche 911GT3s in the fifth round of the American Le Mans Series held at the California track last weekend. However, post-race scrutineering found the car to have an oversized fuel tank.

Ironically, this promoted the Dick Barbour Porsche to first place. The Barbour car was disqualified from a class win at the Le Mans 24 Hours for the same reason.

It had been expected that the BMW would merely lose its championship points, but be allowed to keep the win. However, the final results of the Sears Point race, released yesterday by Sports Car, the governing body of the ALMS, revealed that the PTG-entered car had been removed from the race.

"This was a brand-new car which we had just finished, and we had not checked the capacity of the fuel tank," said team owner Tom Milner. "We had the capacity checked at the gas pumps and it came up to about three-quarters of a gallon below. Apparently, this form of measurement wasn't accurate enough, and after taking expansion and other things into account, our fuel capacity was a half-gallon too large."

The team accepted the findings of the scrutineers, but Milner insisted they had not benefited from the increased capacity of the tank.

"It didn't have any effect on our performance or the outcome of the race - we pumped out 2.5 gallons after the race," he insisted. "But regardless of those facts, our fuel tank capacity was above the maximum allowed. We all feel bad about this, and it was an oversight on our part. We did every measurement that was available to us to make sure the tank was legal and just missed it by a half-gallon."

The American Le Mans Series continues at Mosport International Raceway in Canada on August 6.


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