mixed emotions for the ADT/Champion Audi team, Johnny Herbert and Stefan Johansson
took second place honors in the mail2web.com Grand Prix of Mosport, at Mosport
International Raceway. ADT/Champion also won their sixth IMSA Cup of the season
as highest-finishing Privateer. The race was won by the #2 Joest Racing Audi of
Tom Kristensen and Rinaldo Capello.
The second-place finish for Herbert, combined with a DNF for the #1 Joest Audi
of Emanuelle Pirro and Frank Biela, moved Herbert up to third place in the American
Le Mans Series LMP-900 Drivers points with three races remaining in the season.
Pirro suffered a high-speed impact at turn eight in the closing stages of the
race, while battling with the Joest team car for the lead, but was examined and
released from a local hospital after the crash.
Stefan Johansson started the fifth race of this extended road trip (which began
in June at Mid-Ohio) from third on the grid, following Johnny Herbert's excellent
qualifying effort which just nipped JJ Lehto's Cadillac Northstar for the spot
in the closing stages of Qualifying on Saturday. Champion's race planners were
well aware that Lehto would be vying for the position soon after the start, and
as anticipated Lehto dove into third in the first corner after the start.
Once again, the team worked on race strategy, pitting Johansson for fuel when
an early full-course caution period was called just fifteen minutes into the race.
The high-speed Mosport circuit meant the team would need two full stops plus a
splash of fuel near the end, and decided to take the splash up front in case another
yellow didn't present itself later on. The ground Johansson lost during the stop
was quickly made up, and but for a whole spate of late-race caution periods the
tactic could well have met with success.
Another full-course caution near the race's one-hour mark allowed Johansson to
pit for the handover to Johnny Herbert, who rejoined the battle with four fresh
Michelins and a full load of fuel. Herbert quickly reeled-in the third-place Cadillac,
and once past, set off after the leading pair of factory Audis. But at about the
one hour, 30-minute point in the race the #0 Ferrari turned in on Herbert as the
pair went into Turn Ten, the resulting contact spinning the Ferrari, which was
able to continue undamaged. Despite this, Herbert was given a stop-and-go penalty
for "rough driving".
Johnny pitted to serve this questionable penalty just before the two-hour mark,
and then immediately pitted again for his final fuel stop (it is not allowed to
serve a penalty and perform service to the car in the same stop). He took fuel
only, but the combined two stops put Herbert a lap down to the factory cars. But
even as Herbert was being serviced came the big shunt that put Pirro's #1 Audi
out of the race. So although a lap down, the ADT/Champion Audi moved up to second
place.
A seventeen-minute caution period followed for the Pirro accident. Shortly after
the restart, Herbert passed leader Tom Kristensen to regain the lead lap, but
could not make substantial ground on the faster Joest Audi. As Herbert tried to
escape the pursuing Kristensen, two separate incidents involving a crashed Porsche
failed to bring out another caution flag. This was a big disappointment to the
Champion team, as a caution would have allowed Herbert to make up the nearly full
lap between himself and Kristensen, and allowed Johnny to battle for the outright
win.
But in yet another stroke of bad racing luck, still another crashing Porsche did
bring out the race's final full-course caution - just seconds after Kristensen
has repassed Herbert to put him back a lap down. Thus the caution was of no benefit
at all to Herbert, except to deprive him of any further opportunity to challenge
Kristensen. With just minutes remaining in the timed race and having a full lap
on the third-placed Cadillac, Herbert backed off the charge to bring the ADT/Champion
Audi R8 home safely to the team's second runner-up finish of the season, and the
first since Sebring in March. While the team are greatly disappointed at the way
the Mosport race played out, they will be pulling out all the stops to keep Herbert
third on Drivers points, which will not be an easy task.
With the next race at Laguna Seca a month off, the Champion Racing transport trucks
can finally come back home to south Florida after their extended two-month road
trip. The R8 and all of its components will be rebuilt and its bodywork given
fresh paint and graphics before the final run of three races, culminating with
the ALMS season finale at the Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta on October 12th.
1 - Rinaldo Capello/Tom Kristensen; Audi R8, 121 laps
2 - Stefan Johansson/Johnny Herbert; Audi R8, 120
3 - JJ Lehto/Max Angelelli; Cadillac Northstar LMP 02, 119
4 - David Brabham/Jan Magnussen; Panoz LMP-1, 118
5 - Bill Auberlen/Bryan Herta; Panoz LMP-1, 118
6 - Eric Bernard/Emmanuel Collard; Cadillac Northstar LMP 02, 118
|
Johnny and Stefan treat our young Canadian friend Cullen Lampman to some team goodies, as mom Susan looks on. Champion were proud to host 3 year-old race fan Cullen, who is fighting Luekemia