Herbert started the 165-minute race in
hot Californian sunshine from third place on the 34-car grid behind
the pole-sitting Joest Audi of Frank Biela/Marco Werner and the
LMP675 Lola-MG of James Weaver/Butch Leitzinger.
The ADT Champion Audi, which had
sections of its wiring loom replaced after an electrical “short”
caused a brief fire during the morning warm-up, moved up to second
place when Johnny went around the outside of Weaver at Turn 2
following the start.
Biela led Herbert by just 2.9secs after
15mins (9 laps completed) but moments later a circuit breaker that
regulates the turbo boost popped out, causing the Team ADT Champion
Racing Audi R8 to lose power.
Johnny reached down inside the cockpit
to push the offending item back into place but dropped to third
place and 10secs behind leader Biela. With 30 minutes run (21
laps), Biela led Weaver by 9.9secs with Herbert a further 1.6secs
adrift as Johnny, now back up to full speed, desperately tried to
reclaim second place.
But any hopes of victory were dashed
when Herbert reported a strange noise from the gearbox shortly
before the hour mark. Johnny pitted on 54mins, re-fuelled and
took on a new set of tires before driving through the paddock and
into the pit garage where the crew changed the complete rear section
which includes the gearbox.
Lehto re-entered the race on 63mins in
24th position overall (fifth in LMP900), seven laps down
on leader Biela. A determined drive saw Lehto enter the final
hour placed eighth overall, fifth in class as the “Flying Finn” made
up ground to keep alive his and Champion Racing’s championship title
hopes.
JJ pitted from fourth place overall
(third in class) for fuel and front tires with 38mins remaining.
Despite being far and away the fastest on the track in the closing
stages, Lehto was unable to reduce the over two-lap deficit to the
third-placed Panoz of Olivier Beretta/David Saelens after a
fantastic recovery.
Johnny Herbert:
“I lost second place when a circuit
breaker popped out - a problem connected to our electrical warm-up
problem earlier in the day. I couldn’t see the breaker box and
had to reach down inside the cockpit and push it back in to place by
feel but I’d dropped to third place by then. Shortly before
the hour mark the gearbox started making a very odd noise. It
wasn’t affecting the performance but the team felt it wise to change
the gearbox.”
JJ Lehto:
“We could have done without this today obviously as it does us no
favors in terms of the championship. We really needed to beat
the Joest Audi today but while they had a faultless race, we lost
over eight minutes changing the rear section. Now we must win
in Miami and Road Atlanta and hope that Frank [Biela] and Marco
[Werner] have problems to have a chance of championship honors.”
2003 America Le Mans Series – Driver’s Standings (after 7 races)
1=
Frank Biela/Marco Werner, 135
3
JJ Lehto, 117
4
Johnny Herbert, 114
5
Olivier Beretta, 92
6 David
Saelens, 66
2003 America Le
Mans Series – Teams’ Standings (after 7 races)
1 Infineon Team Joest, 135
2
Team ADT Champion Racing, 117
3
JML Team Panoz, 95
