The ALMS race teams certainly have to be at the top of their game when it comes to competing on the very short, 1.968 miles, which makes up the 11-turn Long Beach street circuit. With just one 2-hour practice session prior to qualifying, there is so little time to find a good balance and get the best set-up, but driving the #552 Level 5 Motorsports HPD ARX-03b LMP2 car this weekend with co-driver and team owner, Scott Tucker, Marino Franchitti quickly got into his stride.
Barely had the sun risen when at 7.30am the only practice session got underway here yesterday morning and Marino was very quickly into his stride, in fact at the point he handed the car over to Scott Tucker to finish out the session, he had put the #552 Siemens/Alpina HPD car in the lead of the LMP2 class.
It was Scott Tucker whose opportunity it was to qualify the #552 HPD car around the Long Beach streets in the short 15 minute session, and his best lap time of 1:19.711 was good enough for fourth in the LMP2 class and a 22nd overall grid position.
Under the bright Californian sunshine it was Marino who started the race in front of a big crowd here this evening. On a mission to quickly get the #552 car up to the front of the race, no sooner had the green flag been waved than he was doing just that. On the first lap he overtook the Extreme Speed LMP2 car to move to third in class and by lap nine Marino was already holding the quickest time in class and had moved up from 22nd to 9th place overall and was battling for the lead in LMP2, but just four laps later the first yellow caution was to halt Marino’s first charge. On the restart he was hit from behind by the #18 LMPC car causing him to spin and dropping him back to 17th overall.
Marino charged again making up a further couple of places before handing over to Scott Tucker just six laps later, but on lap 39 Scott grazed the wall at Turn 6 and had to pit for suspension damage. Fortunately the Level 5 Motorsports team, on top of their game as always, quickly made the necessary repairs and Scott was able to return to the race with just sufficient time to complete the 70% race distance in order to earn valuable Championship points.
The #551 sister car of Ryan Briscoe and double-duty Scott Tucker was also to endure a difficult day having to serve a penalty, picking up a puncture, and being tagged by another car which also necessitated repairs.
But Marino was philosophical after the race, “It was a tough day for the whole Level 5 team and certainly not the result we wanted, but thanks to the hard work of the crew we managed to get back on track and do enough to score some valuable points. It was a lot fun coming through the field and it was so disappointing to get spun out after passing so many cars. The day went from bad to worse from there for us really, but we never gave up and we’ll come back fighting at Laguna.”
Source : Marino Franchitti