Again at the second round of the American Le Mans Series, the Porsche 911 GT3 RSR was the vehicle with the best overall efficiency. On the street circuit in California’s Long Beach, title defenders Joerg Bergmeister (Germany) and Patrick Long (USA) celebrated their first victory in the GT class this season with the sports car from Weissach and won the environmental award, the Michelin Green X Challenge. The Porsche RS Spyder was the vehicle with the best combination of performance and energy efficiency in the sports prototype LMP class.
“The key to our success was our sensational pit stop. It put us within striking distance of the front-runners, even though we had to fit four new tyres while the leading BMW had only changed their driver at this time,” said Joerg Bergmeister. The winner from last year drove a tactically clever race and kept out of any scuffles on the narrow track edged by walls and fences. Bergmeister handed the Flying Lizard Motorsports 911 GT3 RSR over to his works driver colleague Patrick Long who, with a spirited effort, then snatched the lead and held on to it until the chequered flag of the 100 minute race came out. Joerg Bergmeister said: “Patrick put our competitors under huge pressure and made them pay for not putting on new tyres earlier.” With this win, the title defenders now lead the points.
Wolf Henzler (Germany) had the best start in the GT class. Taking up the race from second with his Falken Tire 911 GT3 RSR, he moved into the lead and proceeded to pull away from his rivals. “We had an excellent set-up today and had we not lost so much time in the pits we would have maintained our front position and no one would have caught us,” said the Porsche works driver. However, the pit stop to change drivers during a safety car phase took too long, not least due to the heavy traffic, and cost them their entire advantage. Bryan Sellers (USA) finally saw the flag in sixth. Wolf Henzler: “What a shame. We could have won today. Our new team has made huge leaps forward in the last weeks. We are further ahead than we had hoped. Now we want to turn that into good race results as soon as possible.”
In the LMP class, in which sports prototypes from the former LMP1 and LMP2 classes were classified together for the first time in Long Beach, the Porsche RS Spyder fielded by the Muscle Milk Cytosport underlined its excellent performance from the season-opener in Sebring. After their class victory on the airfield circuit in Florida, Klaus Graf (Germany) and Greg Pickett (USA) secured third place and claimed the Michelin Green X Challenge for the first time.
Round 3 of the American Le Mans Series takes place on 22 May in Laguna Seca, California.
Source : Porsche