Racing News from the 2012 Season So Far.....
Sports Car Grand Prix of Argentina
Potreiro de los Funes Circuit, San Luis, Argentina
The first race of the WSC at the rebuilt, and stunningly beautiful, Potreiro de los Funes Circuit was a wild one from the word go, with event running into the evening and turning out to be a shootout between the Peugeot Sport Pescarolo Team and the Ford Panoz teams, the latter fresh off of a big win at the 24 Hours of Daytona. After 1000 kilometers and five hours and fourty-eight minutes of racing, the Peugeot of Pedro Lamy, Jacques Villeneuve and Alysha Valcartier coming out ahead of the Panoz of Colin Braun, Danny Sullivan, Josef Newgarden and Alon Day by just over twenty-two seconds at the end of the event, with the Chrysler of Donohue / Fittipaldi / Rossi landing in third, beating the BMW of Dirk Muller / Augusto Farfus Jr / Joey Hand by just over a minute, a lap down on the lead two. The P-GT class was a second successive win for the Corvette team, but this time the Al Unser Jr / Ron Fellows / Trevor Bayne car beat their teammates to the P-GT win. The P2 class was won by the AF-Pecom Corse Lola-Judd/BMW of Argentinians Matias Russo, Luis Perez Companc and Norberto Fontana, beating the Alex Job Racing Porsche RSV Spyder of Rene Rast, Alvin Joiner and Marc Hoover by a lap. The GT1 win went to the Team Lexus entry of Akira Iida, Michael Cooper, Christian Ledesma and Yasuyoshi Yamamoto, leading the Robertson Saleen S7-R of Boris Said, David Murry and Ben Keating across the line by about half a lap, with the Nissan GT-R of Ayrton Senna, Mauricio Gugelmin and Raul Boesel, their run slowed by handling issues and a problem with the turbocharger wastegate, finished third in class and three laps back. Paul Gentilozzi put up a spirited drive to take Jaguar's first GT2 victory, leading home the two Prototype Technology Group BMW M3s, them harried by the privately-entered Porsche 997 GT3-RSR of Mariano Werner, Fabian Yannantuoni and Emiliano Spataro.
12 Hours of Sebring
A big win for Chrysler, after the problems with overheating at Daytona were handled by the discovery that the SuperPatriot Abarth is a tougher car than thought, Chrysler stormed to victory, with the car driven by Robby Gordon, Scott Pruett and Oswaldo Negri getting the win, with the Panoz-Ford of Bryan Herta, Kristen Miller, Ali Naimi and Malcolm Strachan coming out with second place after Miller hustled through the last 90 minutes to catch, and then eventually pass, the second Chrysler of David Donohue, Christian Fittipaldi and Dan Clarke. Fourth was the P-GT winning Corvette, this time the car of Ron Fellows, Al Unser Jr. and Trevor Bayne beating out teammates Jan Magnussen, John Heinricy and Oliver Gavin. Only the battle in GT1 was anything like a battle at the end, with the West Yokohama Lamborghini of Nicky Pastorelli, Michael Mallinen and Jeff Kowalik, the Aston Martin Racing One-77 Gran Turismo of Stefan Mucke, Darren Turner and Jethro Bovingdon and the Sumo Power Nissan GT-R of Enrique Bernoldi, Warren Hughes and Ricardo Zonta. The class victory when to Bernoldi, Hughes and Zonta after a dramatic chase down in the dying moments culminating in a wild last-lap pass by Formula One veteran Zonta on British racer and journalist Jethro Bovingdon in the Aston Martin. The GT2 category was won by Stasis Engineering's Audi R8, showing tons of pace after a disappointing run in previous rounds.
OOC: I'll add to this later.
