Jonny Cocker didn’t have to wait too long for his first American Le Mans Series victory after all as, along with Paul Drayson, he steered the Drayson Racing Lola-Judd to first place in yesterday’s ALMS race at Road America. It was a dominant display from the Yorkshireman who was running in fourth place when the race entered its closing stages. A crowd-thrilling drive to the front then gave Jonny and Drayson Racing their first victory in the American Le Mans Series.
Jonny had already sent out a message to all the other competitors by qualifying on pole position – his second ALMS pole in a row – with a lap time that was 1.3 seconds faster than the closest challenger.
Paul Drayson started the race and did a brilliant job to stay on the lead lap throughout his run. This meant that when Jonny joined the race under yellows he could immediately challenge the frontrunners. It was at a restart around an hour before the end of the race that Jonny made his first bold move. He blasted through from third to the lead and set off at a furious pace, pulling out a large gap to the rest of the field.
Jonny’s final pit stop meant that he dropped to fourth behind Klaus Graf, David Brabham and Guy Smith. He made light work of the Lola-Mazda and HPD of Smith and Brabham then set off again after the race leader.
Grabbing the lead on the final lap will be a moment that Jonny remembers for a long time to come.
“It’s ace!” he said. “This is a fantastic result for the team. We’ve been improving throughout the year and we were disappointed that we didn’t manage to get the result at Mid Ohio. This weekend we were fastest in all the practice sessions, took pole, won the race and won the Michelin Green X Challenge so we maxed out! Paul did a good solid job today and placed the car perfectly for me to take over. Everyone on the team thoroughly deserves this result. It was a lot of fun and we’d like to do it again soon!”
With his first ALMS pole position just two weeks ago and now another pole position and the first outright win, this is definitely Jonny Cocker’s moment. And it’s his birthday tomorrow too!
Source : Jonny Cocker press release