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HONDA ST. PETE GRAND PRIX

Audi Sweeps Acura Challenge

By HOLLY CAIN Tribune correspondent

Published: Apr 1, 2007

ST. PETERSBURG - The inaugural American Le Mans Series visit to St. Petersburg Saturday evening featured thrilling side-by-side action and go-for-broke moves.

And that was before the Acura Sports Car Challenge race even started.

While there was plenty of race action among the sleek, sophisticated prototypes - including seven lead changes - the outcome was very familiar. Audi prevailed - again.

Rinaldo Capello drove the No. 1 Audi R10 TDI across the finish line - .426 seconds ahead of his teammate Emmanuele Pirro - to give the Audi Sport North America team a St. Pete sweep, its second overall win of the season and 10th in the last 11 ALMS races. It was Michelin tires' 75th series win.

A pair of Roger Penske-owned Porsche RS Spyders - paced by co-drivers Ryan Briscoe and Sascha Maassen - finished first and second, respectively, in the LMP2 class, and third and fourth overall, to cap an eventful day for all the top finishers.

Olivier Beretta and Oliver Gavin picked up the GT1 class win in the two-car field of factory Chevrolet Corvettes. Mika Salo and Jaime Melo won the GT2 class and finished 10th overall in a Ferrari 430 GT.

"Every win you have to work hard," said Capello's winning co-driver, Allan McNish. "Even an easy win with a big gap, you worked hard to earn that gap. This was not an easy win by any stretch."

The Penske Porsches actually rolled off the grid ahead of the Audis - out-qualifying the diesel-powered cars for only the second time in two seasons. But just as the 24-car field came upon the green flag, cars spread out three-wide. The winning Audi - then driven by McNish - moved inside to avoid the pole-winning Porsche driven by Romain Dumas but it created a mad scramble into the first turn.

Audi led the first lap. Dumas' Porsche suffered a punctured tire and from then on the field chased Audi. McNish was penalized for "jumping the start" but easily made his way back up through the field to retake the lead. Dumas, however, was still livid about the situation an hour into the race after turning the car over to his co-driver, Timo Bernhard.

"It makes no sense what he [McNish] did," said Dumas, whose car finished fourth overall. "We were side by side at the line so already something is already wrong. It is not fair."

It set the tone for the day.

The LMP2 class favorites essentially sorted things out themselves.

The winning Porsche, for example, had a brake problem, served two penalties (one for rough driving) and made a green flag pit stop.

"The start was a big mess, but perhaps I expected that," Maassen said. "I didn't think we'd finish where we did [after all the problems]. Toward the end when Roger [Penske] told me on the radio that I was first in class, I said, 'could you repeat that?'"

The Acura-powered LMP2 cars challenged the Porsches up front all day, but they had similar miscues.

The Andretti Green Racing No. 26 Acura LMP2, which finished second overall at Sebring two weeks ago, was knocked out of contention less than an hour into the race. It collided with the winning Porsche, then driven by Briscoe.

Another front-runner, the No. 15 Acura-powered LMP2 driven by Luis Diaz, was penalized for rough driving after contact with the Porsche driven by Chris Dyson. Diaz was running second overall - first in class - when he had to pit to serve the penalty.

"I must say, now we have eight or nine cars in the LMP2 with really great racing and I prefer that even if it means sometimes we have a crash," Maassen said.

The race was slowed in the final hour after a serious single-car crash involving veteran driver Tomas Enge of the Czech Republic. As Enge's GT2-class leading Ferrari exited the third turn, it hit the concrete wall head-on. A fire broke out as the car sat against the course's wall. Rescue workers had to pull Enge from the car and attended to him as he laid on the track. He was alert but transported to Bayfront Medical Center for observation.

Keyword: Auto Racing for an audio slideshow highlighting Saturday's IRL qualifying at the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg