51st Sebring 12 Hours – Race Report
Another Sebring (ALMS) Heartbreaker For Champion?
© Tom Kjos
Sebring, Florida, USA – It was not the race of the century, nor even of a new millennia. In fact it didn’t even seem for most of it, and certainly once it was over, to be 2003. You know the result by now. Audi Sport North America – sorry, make that Infineon Team Joest – took the win from a chasing Champion Racing Audi R8, the latter piloted by one-time F1 driver and current CART team owner Stefan Johansson. The LMP 675 class, if there really is such a thing, was taken by Dyson Racing’s #20 when the expected challenge for overall honors failed to materialize.

The little prototypes showed their lack of sturdiness or their lack of development, or just plain bad luck, for as long as they ran, which in many cases wasn’t long. The challenge for overall honors was crippled early when James Weaver brought in the #16 car with an effectively terminal steering rack just eight minutes after the start and it went behind the wall for a four hour repair. Not dead yet, though, since fans will remember that it was not the ‘lead’ number 16 car that challenged the BMW LMR in ‘99 but the sister #20, with James as a last stint relief driver. That hopeful idea didn’t last long either – a little over thirty minutes, actually – because No. 20 limped in with a flat tire at 11:09, then went behind the wall with suspension problems. The Chris Dyson, Didier de Radigues, Chad Block car would return to win the class, but except for a couple more hours of quick laps from John Nielsen’s #15 DBA04-03S / Zytek, and then a good run with a significant hiccup (upright) for Jon Field’s Intersport Lola MG, the class was there for the taking of whatever wounded car could pile on the laps. In the end the Dyson car would come back to pile up 306, while Intersport got in 266 and none of the rest of the six-car field managed triple figures. It was somehow appropriate that Dyson The Younger could help bring his father considerable joy, after so much early misery. Son was the happier, we’d suggest: Dad’s was simple pride.

Meanwhile, Team Corvette jumped to the lead, then took control of the GTS class when at two hours into the race the three Ferrari 550 Maranellos all had problems in a span of thirty minutes. The Veloqx Prodrive #80 car was first, with and extended stop at 12:26 for cooling problems, one down. At 12:25, Johnny Albert Cecotto parked the Olive Garden Maranello at turn 3 with a terminal engine failure. Finally, the Prodrive sister car, #80, was delayed by brake problems at 1:00 pm. After the demise of the Graham Nash #83 Saleen S7-R about a third of the way in, Franz Konrad kept his Saleen in the third spot for much of the rest of the race, but the Corvettes continued from that point to run nearly flawlessly until the Gavin – Collns – Pilgrim #4 car failed late in the race. Win to the yellow #3 of Fellows, O’Connell, and Freon. It was a fitting send-off for the next stage of the Corvette program, since they announced on the weekend the extension of the racing effort through 2005, when they will introduce the new C6-R. For now, you should know that this win was not taken by the new C5-R, which will be introduced at Le Mans, but by a somewhat improved 2002 model. Those expecting the mantle to be taken up by Ferrari this season have at least gotten a “shot across the bow.” Corvette are on mean form. Adding Veloqx to the entrant brought some exceptional driving talent – to join more of the same – but no luck, yet.

The only excitement in this class (although O. Gavin might call his sudden retirement exciting) after early afternoon occurred over the last hour, when Carsport America’s #71 Dodge Viper GTS-R (the #17 Pagani Zonda was gone on the seventh lap of the race when its Mercedes engine failed on course), after hitting the wall in turn 3, made an excruciating half hour journey back to the pits with a badly damaged left rear suspension. With the wheel dragging sideways and sometimes digging in and taking him where he did not want to go, driver Jeff Altenburg crab-walked back to the pit where the damage was finally repaired with about twenty minutes left in the twelve hours. Why bother? The #4 Corvette was parked on course with 283 laps complete – but would take the place despite being halted, unless the Viper could surpass its lap total. At the time of its injury, the Viper had covered 276 and the third step on the podium, for a team that has rarely seen such heights (in its former incarnation as American Viperacing) would be a big deal. It wasn’t to be. After cutting the margin to just five laps, the Viper pulled over on course to deal with a minor but threatening under-chassis fire.

The Saleens didn’t figure in the lead battle: 2001 featured a Saleen, didn’t it?

In GT, Lucas Luhr and Sascha Maassen drove their McKenna Alex Job Porsche 911 GT3-RS to the win in another flawless performance. The only thing really different here was the number of the second AJR Porsche, changed this year from 22 to 24 in an effort to bring better luck.

The number changed, but the luck didn’t as the Bernhard – Bergmeister Porsche suffered a cracked heat exchanger at the two hour mark of the race. That left it to the White Lightning Petersen Motorsports Porsche to press the leading Maassen – Luhr car. And press them they did, in a reprise of previous races (particularly Mid-Ohio last year), remaining within a lap right until the end – and often much closer. The Johnny Mowlem, Nic Jonsson, Craig Stanton 911 is a car likely to continue to give the AJR squad fits wherever the latter races this season. Post Le Mans, they’ll all be in 2003 cars. Were there more flat six engine problems today than one would normally expect?

The Ferrari challenge? The 360 Modenas, like their big brothers in GTS, were out of this one fairly early, although the #34 car of Bennett, Franchitti, and McGarrity was third when it hit the wall in 17 at 7:42 PM, while in the hands of the last of these. Kevin was last reported taken to a Tampa hospital “for observation” with pain in a lower leg. The hard crash brought out the race’s first – and only – full course caution, with a bit less than three hours to go.

As has been the case before, a caution started a string of events that would change the outcome of the race. Although the Infineon Team Joest Audi had stayed within a lap, and the two seemed headed for one of the race’s closest finishes, Champion Racing’s JJ Lehto, Emanuele Pirro, and Stefan Johansson had seemingly been in control from early on, often able to pit without giving up the lead. This new combo certainly didn’t lead for 11 hours, and you couldn’t say they dominated the race, but they did hog the limelight for hour after hour.

The margin was thirty-four seconds when the yellow flag went out, and the #38 Audi was in for an under caution stop at 7:48, bringing in JJ for fuel, tires and a change of drivers to Pirro, who it appeared would anchor for the Champion team’s first ever overall ALMS win. This had been an out-of-sequence stop to begin with, since Lehto had been in on a fuel-only stop just twelve minutes earlier. The yellow was too early to go the distance, but of course provided the opportunity for a driver and tire change while the chasing #1 Audi was covering a slow lap behind the pace car. Infineon did the same, but the Joest team was either good or lucky because the lead melted from some twenty seconds to nearly zero - the race was now a practical dead heat. Marco Werner was now in the Joest, but in a head-up match we expected Pirro to be able to hold the lead, as he and Champion had done virtually all day. The green flag flew at 8:14, both cars would probably go the last 2:16 without driver or tire changes if the race stayed under green flag conditions. At 8:30, hour ten of the race, Pirro had established a small - but given the way these cars are matched – seemingly comfortable lead, of sixteen and a half seconds. Game over? No, a dose of Champion misfortune was due.

Surprise, and disaster. Emanuele Pirro pits the leading Audi at nine PM, just one and half hours from the finish, with painful calf cramps. Pirro later took responsibility for the problem, saying later “I did not have enough time in between my stints to recuperate sufficiently and would seem I possibly did not take in sufficient drink and food.” With JJ just out of the car a bit more than an hour earlier, Stefan Johansson took the wheel in a fuel (and tires - no sorry, Ed's error here...no tires) stop. The lead passed to Werner, who had taken over for Team Joest, fueled and replaced the tires exactly when Champion had, under the caution. The Joest car was in for fuel only five minutes later, and took a significant lead.

At the 11 hour mark (9:30), the #1 Audi held it at just under 19 seconds, as Werner had been able to match Johansson when the former was in traffic, with 1:54 and 1:55 laps, and was occasionally dipping into the 1:52s otherwise. Early on, Stefan managed no better that a 1:54.106. He was getting nowhere fast, and each car would have the same “splash and dash” now. Actually both would need a pretty good (full) load of fuel, but they were on duplicate stints – old tires included. In earlier stints, Stefan had not seemed to have the measure of Marco, so we think that Champion has one more shot here, to put a pretty healthy looking JJ Lehto in the car on the next stop and replace the tires…giving up ten extra seconds, but going with a younger and faster anchor and fresh tires. That would leave Team Joest with a decision – protect the lead in the pits with a fuel-only stop, or protect it on the track by taking new tires.

At 9:30, Johansson came in first and took fuel only; Champion will count on Stefan to win it by running down Marco on old tires – Marco’s were older. The lead is now over a minute, of course. Werner is in seven minutes later, and of course under these circumstances, Reinhold Joest opts for fuel only, figuring that Werner in a matched car and with the lead will not fall prey to a Johansson charge. When the Infineon car comes out, it has a 21.989 second lead. Johansson never makes any significant headway (we see it down to fifteen and change later, but there is not real challenge).

So Champion is bridesmaid to Team Joest again. Three classes are exactly (same cars, most of the same drivers) as in the 50th Anniversary running in 2002. And where were the Bentleys? A manufacturing error cost them the pole. They charged from the back to settle finally into third and fourth, but laps / time lost to early minor shunts with other cars (the Bentley Boys looked pretty aggressive all day) are never recovered to the smooth-running Audi teams, and there they sit to the end, three and four laps down. As quick over a lap but not over a stint, is that fair?

The surprise of the day is really the fifth place performance of Gunnar Jeannette, Olivier Berretta, Max Papis, who drove through trouble-free from a sixth on the grid. Two LMP 01s in the top nine, a great run for Doran-Lista (but for contact damage), speed and pit stop frustration for Bill Riley’s chargers, and all the rest of the Audi ‘misfortune’ to the UK car were the other significant features of the class. What a shame for the two novel British entries, Nasamax and Lister. Perhaps June will be kinder to them both.

Here is the question - that absent other mitigating information, such as did the last stops come a tad too early for a Lehto flat out charge? - will be debated for years to come. Do you send out Johansson on old tires with an hour to go to make up 22 seconds, or do you send out Lehto on fresh tires to make up 32 seconds over the same hour. I know how I‘d do it – what is your call? Or was it a lean-it-off stalemate anyway? Therefore Joest won it on better pit stops.

We hope that you have enjoyed our coverage of this race of...few surprises, but an abundance of hard racing. More tales next week.