The American Le Mans Series is back in action. After a seven-week break around the Le Mans 24 hour race, the sixth round featuring the world’s fastest sportscars takes place on 7th July at Lime Rock Park in the US state of Connecticut.
On the 2.480 kilometre circuit situated two-and-a-half hours drive from New York City, four Porsche RS Spyders again compete in the strong LMP2 class. Penske Motorsports enters two of the Weissach developed and built sports prototypes: Sharing the #6 car are title defender Sascha Maassen (Germany) and Ryan Briscoe (Australia). At the previous round In Salt Lake City the pair secured the third overall victory for Porsche so far this season. Timo Bernhard (Germany) and Romain Dumas (France) compete at the wheel of the #7 RS Spyder. After their overall wins at Long Beach and Houston the duo rank first on the points table.
“The circuit is very short, very tight and has lots of humps and bumps – and on top of that there’s traffic in every corner,” says Timo Bernhard, who secured class victory here last year with Romain Dumas. “Driving here is great fun, even though it’s not easy. The surface has undergone repairs often so you can’t always drive the normal line. Instead you have to find the best grip.”
Also bringing two RS Spyders to Lime Rock is the Porsche-supported privateer team, Dyson Racing: Sharing driving duties in the #16 vehicle are Andy Wallace (Great Britain) and Butch Leitzinger (USA). Their team mates in the #20 cockpit are Chris Dyson (USA) and Guy Smith (Great Britain).
In response to the RS Spyder’s winning streak this season with three overall victories in Long Beach, Houston and Salt Lake City, the American Le Mans Series’ organisers, IMSA, have introduced some changes to the technical regulations: From the Lime Rock race on, all LMP2 vehicles must compete with air intake restrictors that are five percent smaller. In effect, this reduces the performance of the RS Spyder by five percent to 478 hp, and substantially decreases the chances for further overall victories against the more powerful LMP1 vehicles.
“We’re very unhappy about these changes half way through the season and as far as exciting competition for the spectators is concerned we regard this step as detrimental,” says Porsche’s head of motorsport Hartmut Kristen. Yet, the goals for the second full season of Porsche as title defender remain unchanged: “Our paramount aim this season is and always was to win the driver, manufacturer, team and engine classifications in the fiercely-contested LMP2 class. We will continue to concentrate on this goal against strong competition from Acura and Mazda.”
At Lime Rock the RS Spyders compete for the first time with E10 fuel. With the obligation for all teams to add ten percent ethanol to race fuel, the American Le Mans Series wants to make the general public more aware of sustainable energy and help promote acceptance of environmentally sound technology in motorsport. The ethanol additive causes no loss of power.
As the most successful Porsche team in the GT2 class, title defender Joerg Bergmeister (Germany) and Johannes van Overbeek (USA) are eager to claim their first class victory this season at Lime Rock with their 911 GT3 RSR run by Flying Lizard Motorsports. Also holding title chances are their team mates Seth Neiman (USA) and Darren Law (USA) as well as Wolf Henzler (Germany) and Robin Liddell (Great Britain) with their Tafel Racing 911 GT3 RSR.
The race in Lime Rock takes off on Saturday, 7th July 2007 at 15.00 hours local time (21.00 hours CET) and runs over 2:45 hours.