The Lizards head to the heartland this week for Saturday’s Mid-Ohio Sports Car Challenge, the sixth event on the 10-race ALMS schedule. The driver lineup for the race is Joerg Bergmeister and Patrick Long in the No. 45 Flying Lizard Porsche 911 GT3 RSR and Marco Holzer and Seth Neiman in the No. 44.

After a disappointing final result following the No. 45′s first-place finish at Mosport. Bergmeister and Long are now sixth in the 2012 ALMS GT drivers’ championship with 39 points. Antonio Garcia and Jan Magnussen of the No. 3 Corvette lead with 80 points. The Lizards are fourth in the team championship with 50 points; Corvette Racing leads with 94 points. There are 108 points possible left in the season.

Flying Lizard chief engineer Craig Watkins discussed the unique setup challenges of the 2.258 mile, 13-turn Mid-Ohio road course, “Mid-Ohio is a complex track in terms of race setup. It’s all about transitions and tires: there are a lot of tight radius turns, some of them right/left and some left/right combinations. It’s crucial to have a balanced racecar that can handle fast transitions but still optimize tire wear. There’s only one significantly fast straight at Mid-Ohio, and that leads directly into a Serpentine ‘S’ of four consecutive slower turns. The cars need to be engineered to get through there quickly, and then be ready for the higher speed turns that lead to the Carousel. One additional factor is the 2012 aero package: we haven’t yet tested it here, but we expect that the increase in downforce will definitely help the car in the turns.”

Source : Flying Lizard Motorsport