Jarez Mifkin

That was an intense last 30 laps. phew

adrial

Wow that was a great finish! Way more exciting than any other endurance racing I've ever seen.

The Michelin man after the finish is hillarious ...

AlpharettaRK

Did they ever tell us how the car got turned around in 12 with no headlights on the restart?

race911

McNish should have deflated the Michelin Man............think that will go down as one of the true great drives, period?

ew928

Intersport Lola got turned around. Car #30, I believe.
Forgot driver's name but he walked to the medical car.
Amazing after a punt like that.

DrJupeman

I suppose we'll need MTosi to tell us where it ranks all-time. It probably can't compare to the old days because McNish had the advantage of downforce and traction control.

Ritter v4.0

Yes but so did the Peugeot. And the 908 was faster to boot.
Apples to apples he flat out drove Klien.
That was a very inspired drive. After all the yellows it made for a very exciting finish.

If only the 45 Lizard could have caught the Ferrari (it would have in about 10 more laps) the way Joerg was reeling in Salo.

DrJupeman

You might need to do some searches on prior MTosi threads because I think you missed my point.

At any rate, my perspective: McNish made up 2 laps, some with luck (early yellow), others with skill in an inferior car vs. his opponent's. It was a superior performance.

I think Peugeot might have made a mistake leaving Klien in the car. His lack of experience showed in the last restart for sure.

In general, the Peugeot's driver lineup showed their inexperience in ALMS racing the entire 10 hours. They were very timid in traffic vs. the Audis and that all added up over 10 hours.

Spyderidol

The 45 car suffered from under-steering through out the race. That is why the Ferrari was able to come from a lap down and catch it.
Joerg said that they changed the gearbox before the race and were having problems with the differential.

The Penske cars were outstanding!

DrJupeman

Yes. I was thinking about this and you have to give the Porsche factory drivers some serious props over the past few years. You simply do not see the Spyders in big shunts. We can praise McNish for his terrific comeback drive yesterday, but the fact is he was an idiot and destroyed the car on a warm-up outlap. You have not seen the Porsche factory drivers make these mistakes. Another example: Luhr's foot slipping off the brake and him crashing at Detroit...

Jarez Mifkin

That's a really good point Jupe. However, what does it say about Castroneves and Briscoe? They had an absolute awesome day, sure hope it's not Castroneves last hurah though...

Cory M

Great race. But the ALMS seriously needs to figure out how to flag a restart. I noticed it a bit last year, and on several occasions this year. They make absolutely no effort to bunch up the cars before throwing the green. The lead car can go 100% a half a lap before crossing the start finish and no one seems to care. McNish drove an amazing race towards the end, but pulling out 4.8 seconds on the restart before turn one is ridiculous and made the end of the race pretty boring too. If I tried that at my club race they would yellow flag the start, and I'm just out there for fun with no real sponsors or $$ on the line! While I am not a fan of Nascar and GrandAM "competition" yellows, they really need to have the cars grouped up properly before throwing the green or why bother with the pace car at all?

I wonder what will come of the fuel protest, probably nothing since it's the ALMS and not the FIA... Kind of sad to see the Acura teams implode like that. I was very surprised to see them let Scott Sharp try to fix the car. I'm just a fan and I knew about the 10 meter rule, you would think a professional driver on a championship caliber team would know better.

Big bummer that the Lola coupe never took the green. I think it's a beautiful car and the Aston Lola coupe was very quick at Lemans. BK has had to fix a lot of heavy crash damage this year, and that brand new tub looked like it was done when it was briefly on TV...

They said Mika Salo was trying to get into Nascar???

ew928

Nascar must pays good moneys.


Wonder how long they'll mull on the Penske fuel before ruling.

A.Wayne

Driving RA for the first time at night is what defeated Klien and after his off while battling with McNish the Peugeot pace was down and they did seem more interesting in securing second after the incident ...

Very exciting race nonetheless .

stuttgart46

McNish is the man. It may be selfish on my part but I'm glad he left F1. He was born to race sportscars.
I wonder if the rear diffuser was damaged after Klein's wide track out. That car was out of it after that off.