Audi R10 wins Atlanta Petit Le Mans

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ALMS: Capello, McNish, Audi Reign at Petit Le Mans
Written by: ALMS Media
Braselton, Ga. – 10/6/2007
http://www.americanlemans.com/News/Article.aspx?ID=3729

GT1: Oliver Gavin and Olivier Beretta wrapped up their third straight GT1 championship with a class victory in the No. 4 Corvette C6.R with Max Papis.

GT2: Flying Lizard Motorsports led a Porsche parade in GT2 as Jörg Bergmeister, Johannes van Overbeek and Marc Lieb drove the No. 45 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR to a three-lap victory over the Tafel Racing entry of Dominik Farnbacher and Wolf Henzler.



LMP1/LMP2: After 1,000 miles and 394 laps, it came down to just 0.923 seconds between the premier teams in sports car racing. This time, the moment belonged to Dindo Capello and Allan McNish as Audi remained unbeaten at Petit Le Mans with diesel power.

Capello passed Penske Racing's Romain Dumas at the nine-hour mark down the backstretch and used the torque and power of the Audi R10 TDI to win the 10th running of the American Le Mans Series cornerstone event at Road Atlanta. McNish and Capello captured the first overall victory for Audi since St. Petersburg in March and completed another Audi sweep of the world's premier endurance events: Sebring, Le Mans and Petit Le Mans.

Capello's drive also was a championship-winning one as he and McNish claimed their second straight LMP1 drivers title. Audi now has won 21 consecutive races in class.

Dumas, Timo Bernhard and Patrick Long won in LMP2 but it could have been a landmark win for a Penske and Porsche effort that had taken the previous eight overall wins. The margin of victory was the closest in the race's 10 years.

Capello made the winning move shortly after a restart with a half-hour remaining. The two drivers had to dice and weave through four classes of cars in the darkness to the checkered flag.

Dumas drove the last hour on a single set of tires and tank of fuel in a heroic effort that also clinched the P2 championship for himself and Bernhard. It is the first for Dumas and second for Bernhard.

Dumas finished eight laps up on the No. 20 Dyson Racing Porsche of Chris Dyson and Guy Smith, who recorded their best finish of the season. Third in class and fourth overall was the factory Zytek No. 5 of Jan Charouz, Stefan Mucke and Danny Watts.

Next was the No. 88 Creation Autosportif entry of Jamie Campbell-Walter, Harold Primat and Christophe Tinseau, which finished second in P1.

Oliver Gavin and Olivier Beretta wrapped up their third straight GT1 championship with a class victory in the No. 4 Corvette C6.R with Max Papis. The trio survived the carnage as both the No. 3 Corvette and Lista Doran Racing's pole-sitting Maserati MC12 went out of the race with accidents.

Gavin, Beretta and Papis repeated their 12-hour win at Sebring with a smooth and consistent run. Their only scary moment was a tap by the No. 2 Audi going through the Esses which sent the Audi off track and into the outside wall.

Flying Lizard Motorsports led a Porsche parade in GT2 as Jörg Bergmeister, Johannes van Overbeek and Marc Lieb drove the No. 45 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR to a three-lap victory over the Tafel Racing entry of Dominik Farnbacher and Wolf Henzler.

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