Austin ALMS: Corvette duo win GT thriller, overall win to Pickett

Garcia hung on in the #3 Chevrolet Corvette C6.R to win the class by just under a second from Jonathan Bomarito in the SRT Viper GTS-R he shared with Kuno Wittmer.

Dirk Muller, who had battled with Garcia over the final hour, was a further four seconds back in the Rahal BMW Z4 that John Edwards started from the back of the grid.

Garcia said: "With 30 minutes to go, I had Dirk on my bumper.

"I knew that the traffic was my only chance, so I was really aggressive. That gave me some time over him and also gave me enough over the Viper at the end."

Bomarito had led during the first stint after a battle with Tommy Milner in the #4 Corvette and Magnussen and was in front when he handed over to Wittmer.

Wittmer was unable to match his team-mate's pace, which meant Bomarito was more than 21 seconds behind Garcia when he passed the second Viper driven by Marc Goossens for fourth.

The Viper made it up to third ahead of Joey Hand in the second BMW in the closing stages and then overtook Muller at Turn 1 with two laps.

Erstwhile GT points leaders Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner failed to score after their Corvette retired with gearbox problems early in the race.

PICKETT DOMINATES AGAIN

Overall victory went to Pickett Racing duo Lucas Luhr and Klaus Graf. The German pair, who were crowned LMP1 champions last time out in Baltimore, led every lap of the race in the HPD ARX-03c.

They finished two laps up on the Dyson Racing Lola-Mazda B12/60 shared by Chris McMurry and Tony Burgess.

LMP2 honours and third place overall went to the Level 5 HPD ARX-03b driven by Scott Tucker and Ryan Briscoe.

Briscoe was running behind team-mate Marino Franchitti, who shared with Guy Cosmo, in the final stages when the Scot picked up a puncture and had to pit.

The LMPC one-make prototype class was dominated by the BAR1 Motorsports pairing of Kyle Marcelli and Chris Cumming, who had a perfect run interrupted only by an unscheduled pitstop to attend to rear bodywork fouling the left rear tyre.

The one-make GTC Porsche class was won by The Racers Group entry driven by Damien Faulkner and Ben Keating.

Faulkner overhauled Sean Edwards in the NGT Motorsport car in the final laps after he was tapped from behind by Garcia.

Results - 83 laps:

Pos  Cl   Drivers                       Team/Car                       Time/Gap
 1.  P1   Graf/Luhr                     Pickett HPD                2h45m05.710s
 2.  P1   Burgess/McMurry               Dyson Lola-Mazda                +2 laps
 3.  P2   Tucker/Briscoe                Level 5 HPD                     +3 laps
 4.  P2   Tucker/Franchitti/Cosmo       Level 5 HPD                     +3 laps
 5.  P2   Brown/van Overbeek            Extreme Speed HPD               +4 laps
 6.  P2   Sharp/Lazzaro                 Extreme Speed HPD               +4 laps
 7.  PC   Marcelli/Cumming              BAR1 FLM                        +4 laps
 8.  PC   Guasch/Cameron                PR1 Mathiasen FLM               +4 laps
 9.  PC   Bennett/Kimber-Smith          CORE FLM                        +4 laps
10.  PC   Nunez/Shears                  Performance Tech FLM            +5 laps
11.  PC   Schultis/van der Zande        DragonSpeed FLM                 +5 laps
12.  PC   Junqueira/Heinemeier Hansson  RSR FLM                         +5 laps
13.  GT   Magnussen/Garcia              Corvette                        +5 laps
14.  GT   Bomarito/Wittmer              SRT Viper                       +5 laps
15.  GT   Müller/Edwards                RLL BMW                         +5 laps
16.  GT   Auberlen/Hand                 RLL BMW                         +6 laps
17.  GT   Farnbacher/Goossens           SRT Viper                       +6 laps
18.  GT   Beretta/Malucelli             Risi Ferrari                    +6 laps
19.  GT   Henzler/Sellers               Falken Porsche                  +7 laps
20.  GT   Sweedler/Bell                 AJR/West Ferrari                +8 laps
21.  GTC  Keating/Faulkner              TRG Porsche                    +11 laps
22.  GTC  Cisneros/Edwards              NGT Porsche                    +11 laps
23.  GTC  Dempsey/Lally                 Dempsey Del Piero Porsche      +11 laps
24.  GTC  Hedlund/Heylen                JDX Porsche                    +11 laps
25.  GTC  Canache/Pumpelly              Flying Lizard Porsche          +11 laps
26.  GTC  MacNeil/Bleekemolen           Alex Job Porsche               +12 laps
27.  GTC  Neiman/von Moltke             Flying Lizard Porsche          +12 laps
28.  PC   Mitchell/Drissi               BAR1 FLM                       +14 laps*
29.  P1   Meyrick/Legge                 DeltaWing                      +17 laps*
30.  GT   Miller/Holzer                 Miller Porsche                 +27 laps

* Not running at finish

Retirements:

     GT   Long/Braun                    CORE Porsche                    53 laps
     PC   Dalziel/Pew                   8Star FLM                       45 laps
     GT   Gavin/Milner                  Corvette                        26 laps