Briton Herbert has
finished second to the Audi of Frank Biela (and Emanuele Pirro) for
the past two years - by a mere 1.602secs in 2001 with Andy Wallace and
25.7secs with Stefan Johansson last year after 165-minutes of hard
racing.
Eleven points
separate the championship leading Joest Audi pairing of Biela and
Marco Werner from Herbert’s Team ADT Champion Racing co-driver JJ
Lehto and the Anglo-Finnish pairing are fully aware that a second
consecutive ALMS victory is vital if they harbor thoughts on Driver or
Team title success.
Lehto along with
fellow ex-Formula One ace Herbert, who lies fourth in the
championship, earned Dave Maraj’s Florida-based Champion Racing squad
a deserved second ALMS victory with a dominant performance in the last
race at Road America, scoring Audi’s 30th overall ALMS
victory in the process.
The “Flying Finn” is
no stranger to success around the 2.238-mile, 11-turn course that
features the world-famous “corkscrew” section. JJ won the
corresponding ALMS race outright in 1999, netted a GT class victory in
2001 and finished third overall in 2000 and ’02. He has clocked up
over 1,000-miles of race action at the track.
Johnny Herbert:
“My first-ever
experience of Laguna was in 2001 when Andy [Wallace] and I finished a
very close second. I was given a 20-second penalty after contact with
Jan Magnussen’s Panoz otherwise I’m sure I’d have won on my Laguna
début. Last year we [Stefan Johansson] finished second again so I
would dearly like to think we’ll go one better on this occasion
especially considering how competitive we’ve been in recent races.”
JJ
Lehto:
“I raced at Laguna Seca for the first time in 1997, driving a McLaren
in a sportscar race and the following year in CART. But the
Californian track has been very kind to me over the past four years
and it’s very, very important that success continues this weekend.
Our Road America victory has brought us back in to the title race but
it’s still going to be very tough for us. If we win at Laguna and
also the last two races in Miami and Road Atlanta we can snatch the
Driver’s and Manufacturers’ series titles even if Joest finish second
in all three.”
