« Transsyberia 2007 Rally at Halfway Point | Main | Porsche Club of America Holds Open House »
Penske Porsche Claims Sixth Straight Overall Victory
August 12, 2007
After practice and qualifying, it seemed certain that Audi would claim the overall victory at Road America. But, a thunderstorm that put the race under a full caution for over an hour and differing pit strategies between the Penske Porsche and Audi in the final 30 minutes of the race gave the Penske Porsche team of Romain Dumas and Timo Bernhard the overall victory by just over a second.
With 30 minutes to go, Audi pitted and took on new tires and fuel, while Penske elected to only take on fuel.
“The handling of the car was very good and we had a very good setup for the race,” Bernhard said. “It was safe to drive the car and we could attack. When you overtook offline, the tyres didn’t have too much pickup. For us we didn’t think it was necessary to change tyres. We were in safe mode. The goal was never to win overall. But at the end it paid off.”
Audi took second and third, with the second Penske Porsche team of Briscoe and Sascha Maassen finishing fourth, over a minute behind the leader. The Dyson Porsche RS Spyders finished sixth and seventh.
In GT2, the Rahal Letterman Racing Porsche 911 GT3 RSR driven by Tom Milner and Ralf Kelleners finished second in class, just over a second behind the Ferrari F430 GT driven by Jaime Melo and Mika Salo.
Full results after the jump.
[source: Crash.net]
1. Bernhard/Dumas Penske Porsche RS Spyder
2. McNish/Capello ASNA Audi R10 TDI 96 laps
3. Pirro/Werner ASNA Audi R10 TDI 96 laps
4. Briscoe/Maassen Penske Porsche RS Spyder 96 laps *
5. Dayton/Brabham/Johansson Highcroft ARX-01a-Acura 94 laps *
6. Dyson/Smith Dyson Porsche RS Spyder 94 laps *
7. Wallace/Leitzinger Dyson Porsche RS Spyder 94 laps *
8. Fernandez/Diaz Lowe Lola B06/43-Acura 94 laps *
9. Franchitti/Herta AGR ARX-01a-Acura 94 laps *
10. Pickett/Graf Cytosport Lola B06/10 AER 91 laps
11. Bach/Devlin B-K Lola B07-40-Mazda 91 laps *
12. Gavin/Beretta Corvette Corvette C6-R 91 laps **
13. Magnussen/O’Connell Corvette Corvette C6-R 90 laps **
14. Theys/Leinhard Doran Maserati MC12 88 laps **
15. Salo/Melo Risi Ferrari 430 GT 87 laps ***
16. Kelleners/Milner RLR Porsche 911 GT3 RSR 87 laps ***
17. Muller/Dumbreck PWL Ferrari 430GT 87 laps ***
18. Henzler/Liddell Tafel Porsche 911 GT3 RSR 86 laps ***
19. van Overbeek/Bergmeister Flying Lizard Porsche 911 GT3 RSR 86 laps ***
20. Bruni/Helary Risi Ferrari 430 GT 86 laps ***
21. Pappas/Borcheller Team Trans Sport Porsche 911 GT3 RSR 85 laps ***
22. Tafel/Farnbacher/Swartzbaugh Tafel Porsche 911 GT3 RSR 83 laps ***
23. Law/Neiman Flying Lizard Porsche 911 GT3 RSR 81 laps ***
24. Lewis/McMurry/Willman Autocon Creation CA06H 76 laps
25. Auberlen/Hand PTG Multimatic Panoz Esperante GTLM 75 laps ***
26. Field/Berry/Field Intersport Creation CA06H 48 laps
Posted in 
