On one of America’s oldest and most beautiful race tracks, Porsche is eager to continue its success streak in the American Le Mans Series: After five overall victories in succession and six class wins so far this season, the RS Spyders fielded by Penske Motorsports and Dyson Racing line up Saturday on the legendary Road America race track to contest the eighth round of this race series featuring the world’s fastest sports cars.
For Sascha Maassen (Germany), the 6.510 kilometre circuit at Elkhart Lake in the US state of Wisconsin, where the American Le Mans Series runs alongside the equally as popular ChampCar Series, is very much to his taste – not least due to its 14 corners, several of which are extremely fast. “Some of these corners are so quick that you have to take good aim not to miss the turn-in point and come out safely on the other side,” says the title defender who celebrated a class victory with the RS Spyder last year. For Romain Dumas (France), who at his double overall victory recently at Mid-Ohio turned the quickest race lap of all competitors, Road America reminds him of many passages on the Grand Prix circuit at Spa-Francorchamps. “The circuit is quick, bumpy and very demanding, a real challenge for us drivers. If you don’t get a corner right you lose a lot of time and once this happens it’s difficult to catch up.”
Four RS Spyders compete in the extremely competitive and very popular LMP2 class for Porsche at Elkhart Lake, where spectators are traditionally given breathtaking action. Sharing the #6 cockpit are the overall winners from Salt Lake City and Lime Rock, Sascha Maassen and Ryan Briscoe (Australia). Manning the #7 RS Spyder are points leaders Timo Bernhard (Germany) and Romain Dumas, who with their overall victories in Long Beach, Houston and Mid-Ohio not only conquered their LMP2 rivals but also the almost 200 hp more powerful LMP1 vehicles. Penske Motorsports run both cars. The US privateer team Dyson Racing also competes with two of the Weissach developed and built sports prototypes: Andy Wallace (Great Britain) and Butch Leitzinger (USA) share the #16 RS Spyder, with the #20 vehicle occupied by Chris Dyson (USA) and Guy Smith (Great Britain).
With six class victories this season, Porsche holds a comfortable lead in the LMP2 class championship and is on an clear course to claim the title. In Road America the aim is to defend this top position with another class win. Hartmut Kristen: “The four hour race duration gives us extra strategic possibilities which we want to utilise to our advantage.”
In the GT2 class for modified production sports cars, title defender Joerg Bergmeister (Germany) and Johannes van Overbeek (USA) recently celebrated their second consecutive victory. With the 911 GT3 RSR run by Flying Lizard Motorsports they are keen to increase their championship lead in Elkhart Lake with another win. Other Porsche drivers with good chances for top placings are Wolf Henzler (Germany) and Robin Liddell (Great Britain) in a Tafel Racing 911 GT3 RSR, as well as Ralf Kelleners (Germany) and Tom Milner (USA), sharing driving duties in the 911 GT3 RSR fielded by Rahal Lettermann Racing.
The race in Elkhart Lake starts on Saturday, 11 August 2007, at 16.00 hours local time (23.00 hrs CEST) and runs over 4:00 hours.