Muscle Milk and BMW take ALMS wins

Date published : 17 Apr 2011 - 01:35:07

The Muscle Milk Lola-Aston Martin was a dominant overall winner of the American Le Mans Series' two-hour Long Beach race, while Joey Hand and Dirk Muller came out on top for the Rahal Letterman Lanigan-run BMW squad in the ultra-competitive GT field.Lucas Luhr attacked and passed the polesitting Dyson Lola-Mazda during the opening lap, and although Chris Dyson stayed on the Aston-powered car's tail at first, Muscle Milk was soon striding away, with Luhr able to hand over to team-mate Klaus Graf with a comfortable lead, which Graf extended to a minute before the race ended under yellow following a GTC crash.In GT, Hand made an early break by passing a couple of LMPC tailenders to give himself a buffer over the chasing pack. But this disappeared when Paul Gentilozzi crashed his Jaguar to bring out the first caution of the event five minutes in.Shortly after the restart, Bill Auberlen in the second BMW lost third in class to Patrick Long's Flying Lizard Porsche, and was passed by several more cars while wrong-footed. As he tried to regain momentum, Auberlen tangled with Tommy Milner's Corvette and spun in the fountain section. It took a painfully long time to get the car turned and ready to resume - and just as he pulled away, Auberlen inadvertently badly blocked his class-leading team-mate, who was about to put him a lap down.That allowed Corvette's Oliver Gavin and Long's Porsche to pass the BMW, but Hand reclaimed the lead shortly afterwards with an amazing third-to-first move as the leaders lapped the GTC traffic.Long struck back a few laps later, repassing the BMW, only to then slide into the wall while dicing with Scott Sharp's Extreme Speed Ferrari, which had just pitted.With Long's Porsche too badly damaged to continue, Muller was left with a relatively peaceful run to the finish ahead of the Gavin/Jan Magnussen Corvette. Jaime Melo and Toni Vilander brought the Risi Ferrari through to third from the back of the grid after a qualifying incident. Further back, Bruno Junqueira and Cristiano da Matta achieved a breakthrough sixth in the RSR Jaguar.Gunnar Jeanette and Ricardo Gonzalez (Core) defeated Intersport's Tomy Drissi and Kyle Marcelli to take LMPC honours and third overall. The Black Swan car of Jeroen Bleekemolen and Bill Pappas clinched the GTC win again.Results - 83 laps:Pos Cl Drivers Team/Car Time/Gap 1. P1 Luhr/Graf Muscle Milk Lola-Aston 2h01m23.764s 2. P1 Dyson/Smith Dyson Lola-Mazda + 24.624s 3. PC Jeannette/Gonzalez Core ORECA + 2 laps 4. PC Marcelli/Drissi Intersport ORECA + 2 laps 5. GT Muller/Hand BMW + 2 laps 6. GT Gavin/Magnussen Corvette + 2 laps 7. GT Melo/Vilander Risi Ferrari + 2 laps 8. GT Henzler/Sellers Falken Porsche + 3 laps 9. PC Lux/Julian Genoa ORECA + 3 laps10. GT Beretta/Milner Corvette + 3 laps11. PC Bennett/Montecalvo Core ORECA + 4 laps12. GT Junqueira/da Matta RSR Jaguar + 4 laps13. GT Auberlen/Werner BMW + 4 laps14. GT Law/Neiman Flying Lizard Porsche + 5 laps15. GTC Pappas/Bleekemolen Black Swan Porsche + 6 laps16. GT Brown/Cosmo Extreme Speed Ferrari + 6 laps17. GTC Sweedler/Keen Alex Job Porsche + 6 laps18. PC Figge/Maroney PR1 Mathiasen ORECA + 6 laps19. GTC Potter/Stanton Magnus Porsche + 7 laps20. GT Pastorelli/Schwager West Lamborghini + 8 laps21. GTC Ham/Blackett JDX Porsche + 12 lapsRetirements: GT Sharp/van Overbeek Extreme Speed Ferrari 70 laps GTC von Moltke/Gaughan TRG Porsche 70 laps GT Miller/Maassen Miller Porsche 68 laps P2 Tucker/Bouchut Level 5 Lola-Honda 45 laps GTC Ende/Pumpelly TRG Porsche 36 laps GT Bergmeister/Long Flying Lizard Porsche 31 laps GT Jones/Gentilozzi RSR Jaguar 2 laps GTC Curtis/Sofronas GMG Porsche 2 laps P2 Tucker/Diaz Level 5 Lola-Honda 0 laps PC Nicolosi/Boon Performance Tech ORECA 0 laps