zeusoftexas

Portland – After 12 races of Corvette yellow at the head of the American Le Mans Series' GT1 field, there's a new color out front – Aston Martin Racing green. The British marque is riding a two-race winning streak heading into the Portland Grand Prix presented by Les Schwab.

The last two rounds of the Series schedule has seen one of the team's Aston Martin DBR9s on the top step of the class podium. That includes a 1-2 finish at last weekend's Utah Grand Prix, the first such finish for the team since entering the American Le Mans Series at Sebring last year.

After seeing the Corvettes dominate in 2005 and through the first three races of this season (and at the 24 Hours of Le Mans), Aston Martin is the team streaking now. First it was Pedro Lamy and Stephane Sarrazin winning at Lime Rock Park at the start of the month. At the new Miller Motorsports Park, Darren Turner and Tomas Enge both earned their third career Series victories.

"We had a brilliant set up. Brilliant tires, as well," Enge said. "They were working right from the beginning to the end."


Aston Martin Racing is riding a two-race win streak heading into the Portland Grand Prix.
The Utah win proved a couple of things to the Aston Martin team and the other teams in the Series. For one, the team's Pirelli tires held up well under the intense heat on the fresh Miller asphalt. Secondly, the Aston Martin pit crew averted disaster by quickly changing an alternator belt during a late-race yellow flag pit stop. In a Series where races are routinely won in the pits, the Aston Martin team performed when it needed.

"Fantastic result. A special mention should go to Richard Luxton who managed to change the alternator belt on the 007 race-winning car in record time," said team principal George Howard-Chappell. "Again, a superb effort from the whole team. The drivers were very consistent which is what we needed to get the life out of the tires. (Pirelli) gave us an excellent compound for this new circuit. Great job all round."

Another similar performance from the team and tires will be in order this weekend in Portland. Temperatures are expected to rise into the 90s on Thursday and Friday and eclipse the 100-degree mark for the race.

The Portland Grand Prix presented by Les Schwab, the sixth race of the 2006 American Le Mans Series season, is scheduled for 6 p.m. PDT on Saturday, July 22. CBS Sports will broadcast the race from 3 to 5 p.m. EDT on Sunday, July 23. Qualifying is set for 3:35 p.m. PDT on Friday, July 21. American Le Mans Radio will have live coverage at americanlemans.com, which also will feature IMSA Live Timing & Scoring.

Lancer033

I really do wish Aston Martin the best, and there needs to be some competition for the vettes, but all they did was restrict the vettes until someone else could pull their head out and start winning. I want to see two fast cars battle it out for a win, not the ALMS picking a winner based on who has won races in the past.

sailohio

The AM has been a tiny bit faster all along. But they kept breaking. So ALMS adds penalties to the Corvette to make it even slower. Now the AMs have a race when they just break a little and the slower Vettes still get beat. I'd like to hear ALMS justification for the restrictor plate is the Vettes. Why would you make a slower car slower to make for better competition? I've been a big ALMS fan, but...............

vader86

Kudos to Prodrive for having a good pit crew that can fix problems quickly, but I wouldnt be bragging about winning a race thats handed to me.

BrianCunningham

Well, it was getting kinda boring, Corvettes winning all the time.
They changed the rules to make it more exciting, and it has, and they're just trying to reap the promotion benifits. Which is good for the series, which should also be good for all the teams.

96CollectorSport

Something needed to be done to get the AM's able to win, they already made them faster, aparently not fast enough because they really had to slow down the C6R to give the AM's a victory.

So far this year AM's have been faster everywere but Texas (C6R by a tenth of a second), otherwise they have been faster and when the Aston is faster they are faster by .5 sec or more. So it's nice that they won but now we should level the playing field.

I think what has happened is that Perelli is finally making a tire close or maybe better than the Michelin or the extra weight of the C6R is wearing them out quicker, either way they should start to square things up.

If I was Pro-Drive I'm not sure I would feel to proud of this "winning streak" they needed to make a race of it but there is such a thing as going overboard. Now that they are reliable lets get things even again.

I'm not sure if this is "good" news but Panoz and Porsche are both in the process of building a GT1 car, if that's true I hope they give the C6R it's ***** back before these other guys get on board or it could get really ugly for us.

Porsche GT1 car
http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dl...THISWEEKSISSUE

Kschwamy

If you heard the interview with Thomas Enge he was stating that since he had a lap in hand on the Corvette there was plenty of time for the pit crew to change the belt. One lap up with no mechanical issues on the vettes that I am aware of does not relate in my book to an equal distribution. The Ferrari (GY2) at the end was running faster than the Corvette.

I personally thought the race for GT1 was boring while the P1 and P2 battle was really entertaining.

Coc5

In that race, two Mules beat two lame Horses.

93Polo

When the C5Rs first switched from a 5.7 to the 427s the production car still had a 346, other teams said that the Corvettes were given HP to compete and the other cars ran a factory displacement engine. In a sense the same thing happened to the Astons they were given something to compete. What goes around comes around.

When the C5R did win did they mention that they had changed from the 5.7 used in 99 to a 7.0 427 or the wider car for better suspension geometry after winning PLM in '00 or "After racing nearly 1,000 miles and a little over 9 hours, it took a daring pass of the #92 Dodge Viper by Andy Pilgrim in the #4 Corvette C5-R to claim the victory."

http://www.corvetteactioncenter.com/.../10022000.html

freefall

I always thought it strange to penalize cars that win class when the other makes in their class break down, handing the victory to them. I'll be curious to see how long it takes to revise the vette's accumulated penalties.

rcolling

Might as well skip the Portland race this weekend too.
The Corvettes are handed such huge restrictions they cannot compete and will helplessly trail the AMs around the course.
Penalties the Corvettes are running with.
1) 199lbs Extra weight
2) 10 liters less fuel
3) Restrictor decrease by 2 sizes.


IMO the only reason the Pirellis appeared to be better this past weekend is that the Corvettes were so slowed they couldn't make the AMs push their tires. They were driving to conserve the tires the entire race.

Rob Willis

I posted this over at the ALMS site, but here it is again:

"Here are my .02 cents:

This isn't SPEED World Challenge!

There shouldn't be ANY adjustments.

This series is about "WORLD CLASS", its right in the logo. This series was never really designed for cheap privateers (not saying I don't like seeing them). This series was about the best of the best. This series is about rewarding people for being innovative and imaginative. This series was about bringing the best you can and running it. So AUDI and CORVETTE dominate? Well, the rules (minus any adjustments) are out there in black/white [ACO], build a car that matches them. Audi, Corvette, and Porsche have built their cars within the rules and are the best, DEAL WITH IT.

We have got away from this. WHY? Because the car counts. Without the current and future adjustments the series car counts would be terribly low. And, we all know how much you guys/gals complain about low car counts.

WHY do we have low car counts? The economy and the all-mighty green money. You see companies like GM and other huge corporations once thought to be untouchable dropping pensions, filing bankruptcy, and gasping for life. Sponsorship money for racing or building teams has always been hard to come by, but nowadays (minus NASCAR), it is a HUGE part of the equation.

So, do you stay true to the series and risk loosing more cars and possibly even the series itself? That is the question you have to ask yourself, and as AGAINST the adjustments as I am, I'd hate to lose the ALMS all-together.

Hmph?!.......

PS: I've said this before, but even though my forum name is "Corvette Racing Fan" I've come to love the Aston Martin DBR9s almost, if not more then the Corvettes. I was actually finding myself rooting for the green cars at LeMans this year. That being said, the win for them at Utah just didn't feel right."

93Polo

as an ALMS and Corvette fan. It is an interesting dilema and very well said.

The series does not have the needed sponsorship money to run as the top series it was intended. Teams dominating a class do nothing to help the situation.

I was rooting for the S7 as well at LM. If they finished well I had hoped it would help them get funding the rejoin the ALMS.

gonzalezfj

I respectfully disagree strongly. I don't see what is proven by emasculating the winners until the also-rans can beat them.

In my opinion the organizer should write the rules (done!), put them into effect (done!) and let the best car (or team) win. If the series organizer doesn't like the results then change the rules or start another series altogether.

Penalizing the winner until others win is in my book. How long do you think GM will be interested in pouring money into the ALMS if the penalties do not allow them to win?

YMMV.

Frank Gonzalez

93Polo

How long will GM be interested if their only competion packs their bags? How long did the Oreca Vipers race with no competition?

There are only 2 teams in the class at this time, it is a fine balancing act. Pro Drive can leave for the FIA GT at any time but, Pro Drive is racing in the US to sell customer cars as they have done in the FIA GT with the 550M and DBR9.

micro

That article was a press release by the ALMS, not Aston Martin.

http://www.americanlemans.com/news/Article.aspx?ID=2313

Why would Prodrive do that? They have four DBR9s in the FIA GT Championship.

vader86

I can see that.

93Polo

All customer cars and how likey are US customers to buy the car when even they can not beat the C6Rs.

AU N EGL

The Corvette C6-Rs had the following three restrictions in Utah:

- 1 mm smaller intake air restrictors (34 less hp)

- 10 liter smaller fuel tank

- 199 more pounds than the non-factory Aston Martin DBR9s

"The restrictions added to the Corvette C6.Rs at SLC [Salt Lake City] have been rescinded. The Corvettes will race under the same rules as they had at Lime Rock, which means a greater fuel capacity and a larger diameter on its air restrictor.

Gasoline powered LMP1 cars will now be allowed to run with 860KG minimum weight, previously the minimum was 900KG."

fhturner

I've never understood this either. I can certainly understand wanting good competition in a series, but the rules ought to be set such that each team can work to make their car(s) the best they can be. If one team does a better job of that, why penalize them? And, if you've just gotta increase the competitiveness of other teams, why do so with negative rules changes for the front-runners? At the very least, give the laggards the opportunity to improve, rather than negating the hard work the winners have done. Give the slower cars a chance to catch up, instead of pushing the faster cars back to them...