Pirro in a Joest Audi R8 took victory at Mosport after 115 exciting laps, ahead
of the Panoz which had won at Portland. The race was decided just 15 minutes
before the end when Johnny Herbert went off the track in the Champion Audi R8
and into the tire barrier at the bottom of the very fast downhill Turn Two.
Before that, the former Formula One driver had led stages of the race together
with his partner Andy Wallace (who handed the R8 over to Herbert in second place),
and had closed the gap on race leader Emanuele Pirro to just 2.6 seconds from
over 18 seconds in the fifteen minutes prior to his crash.
Herbert, who relieved Wallace at about the one-hour point in the race, was charging
after Pirro, who he'd already passed once with a thrilling move at the last
corner at the restart after a full-course caution. Herbert was setting his fastest
laps of the race just prior to his shunt. Pirro took the lead by a narrow margin
after his final pit stop, when the Joest team opted not to change tires at their
final stop. The Champion squad had changed just the left-front at their last
pit stop, a move that gave Herbert the grip needed to push the race leader hard
in the race's closing stages.
Like last year, torrential rain caused a lot of action at Mosport. In the early
stages of the race the former Canadian Grand Prix circuit was extremely slippery.
On the opening lap Rinaldo Capello and Andy Wallace spun off with their R8 sportscars
with one of the Panoz. While Wallace was lucky not to hit anything hard, the
repairs to Capello´s Infineon R8 lasted seven laps. The car finally retired
shortly after the driver change, when Tom Kristensen came onto the wet part
of the track on his slick tyres while passing a slower car, crashing heavily
into the barriers.
The colorful Champion Audi sustained right front corner bodywork and suspension
damage in Herbert's crash, and Brad Kettler's ace crew has their work cut out
for them with just a handful of days before action begins at Mid-Ohio, prior
to Saturday's debut ALMS race at the famous midwest circuit.
Johnny Herbert: "I needed to get past two back-markers so that I could
keep the pressure on Emanuele who was only 2.6 seconds ahead. But we went into
Turn 2 three abreast and I got on to the rubber, lost grip, slid on to the grass
and hit the tyre wall hard. A great shame, Andy had driven very well and the
Audi was running superbly and I felt confident I could have beaten Pirro."
Andy Wallace: "Johnny and I drove as hard as we could in what was an
incredibly dramatic race from start to finish. The Champion Audi team should
be proud of what was achieved despite what ultimately occurred. We will win
an ALMS race, rest assured."
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Monday at Mosport...cleaning up after a hard race