Champion Racing and
Lehto lie second and third in the Driver’s and Manufacturers’
standings respectively with just one race remaining after Saturday’s
165-minute Miami race in the nine-event North American sportscar
endurance series.
With a deficit of
18-points in both championships and with 20 and 26-points on offer to
the Miami and the final 1,000-mile Petit Le Mans Road Atlanta race
winners, Herbert, Lehto and Team ADT Champion Racing face a difficult
but not impossible task to snatch title honors.
For Team ADT
Champion Racing, the Miami race is very much a “home” event, the
Pompano Beach outfit based less than 40-miles north up the I- 95 from
the Downtown 1.211-mile, 13-turn Miami street circuit that has been
slightly revised since last year.
With average lap
speeds of between 75-80mph expected, the fastest cars like the ADT
Champion Audi R8 will clock up around 200-miles around the very narrow
and incredibly tight, temporary street circuit.
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Stefan Johansson
at last year's Grand Prix Americas |
Sports car racing
returned to the streets of Downtown Miami with the running of the
Grand Prix of the Americas last year in which Herbert and Stefan
Johansson finished a disappointing fifth after having to serve a
stop-go penalty for a pit infringement.
Once the home of
some of the world's most successful street racing events, Miami had
not hosted racing since 1995. The 2002 event marked the first time
that ALMS and the CART FedEx Championship Series had raced together on
the same weekend and that scenario is repeated for this year’s "Blast
by the Bay."
Johnny Herbert:
“I stayed out longer
than the ‘factory’ Audis before pitting for fuel in last year’s Miami
race hoping for a yellow caution period which thankfully came after
I’d managed to build up a lead advantage. I pitted and handed over to
Stefan [Johansson] in the lead after 80 minutes but an air hose became
tangled around our Audi’s rear wing as he left our pit resulting in a
stop-go penalty. I’ve driven on a number of temporary street circuits
in my career but Miami is extremely narrow featuring very few
overtaking opportunities making it tough to stay out of trouble when
frequently lapping backmarkers.“
JJ Lehto:
“Last year’s Miami race was my best ALMS event of the year finishing
second, just 14-seconds behind the winning ‘factory’ Audi of Frank
Biela/Emanuele Pirro. To be in with any hope of keeping our
championship hopes alive Johnny and I must win and hope that our title
rivals, the similar Joest-run Audi R8 of Frank [Biela] and Marco
[Werner] have a bad race and fail to collect many LMP900 points. To
keep the championship open until Road Atlanta next month we must
finish no lower than third in class should Joest win - fourth place
and it’s game over for us - it’s as simple as that.”
Brad Kettler.
Champion Racing, Technical Director:
