Dindo Capello (Italy) and Allan McNish (Scotland) recovered to earn Audi a sixth LM P1 class victory of the season when they swept their Audi R10 TDI to category honours and fifth overall in a incident packed "American Le Mans Northeast Grand Prix" at Lime Rock (US state of Connecticut).
The Capello/McNish Audi started from seventh on the 26-car grid and retained Audi’s 100% LM P1 class winning record in the sixth round of this year’s series in a turbulent race for both Audi Sport North America R10 TDI sports-prototypes on the turbo diesel-powered sportscar’s Lime Rock début.
McNish moved up to second place overall after 17mins but on 28mins spun approaching the first corner when attempting to overtake a slower car and dropped to fifth place – just ahead of the "sister" R10 TDI of Emanuele Pirro (Italy) and Marco Werner (Germany), Marco having started eighth. Ten minutes later at the same corner, McNish and the very same backmarker incredibly contacted each other as McNish dived down the inside in a repeat manoeuvre. The Scotsman resumed in eighth place but pitted to replace a damaged nose, dropping a further two places and losing three laps.
This drama allowed the #2 Audi of Werner to lead LM P1 but with almost one hour on the clock, Werner crashed at high speed at the last corner when a left rear tyre punctured – the R10 TDI impacting the guard rail heavily backwards and bringing out a full course yellow.
McNish handed over the now LM P1 class leading #1 Audi to Capello during the caution period caused by Werner on 62mins, the Italian keeping Audi’s 100% LM P1 record intact with a steady drive to the finish.
Meanwhile the Audi Sporty North America crew amazingly repaired the #2 Audi which returned to the race 54mins after its accident to finish fourth in LM P1 (23rd overall) after fantastic team work.
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