Michelin Wins ALMS Tire Championship
* Michelin Wins ALMS LMP900 Tire Championship - With its victory today at the hands of Frank Biela and Emanuele Pirro in a Michelin-shod Audi, Michelin secured its second consecutive American Le Mans Series (ALMS) Tire Championship. By winning all five ALMS races to date this season, Michelin has scored 130 championship points compared to Goodyear's 49 in the LMP900 category. Though three races remain, Goodyear cannot mathematically catch Michelin.
"We had three goals at the start of the season," said Herb Johnson, Director of Motorsports, Michelin North America. "We wanted to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the 12 Hours of Sebring and the ALMS Tire Championship. To do all of that for the second consecutive year is a tremendous accomplishment. This is the pay-back for all of the hard work that our engineers have invested in designing and building the best tires in the ALMS.
"We've got great partners in Audi and Panoz," continued Johnson. "The Audi R8 is one of the all-time great sports cars and we are honored that Audi have chosen to race it exclusively on Michelin tires. And we are just as honored to have Michelin tires on Audi street cars as we are the race cars."
This is the first ALMS manufacturer championship to be clinched this season.
* Quotes From Michelin Drivers Regarding The Championship - "Congratulations to everyone at Michelin," said Emanuele Pirro, who won today's race in an Audi R8. "There was never any doubt that Michelin was going to win the tire championship, but it is good that they did it today because our Michelin tires gave us a big advantage today...once we changed to dry tires, we didn't have to change again. And that gave us the lead. So, I am very happy to have Michelin tires and I am very happy that they won the championship today."
"Congratulations to Michelin," said Panoz driver Jan Magnussen, who led the first half of today's race. "Michelin has made the biggest difference of anything for us, certainly in the time that I have been with the team. We work very well with (Michelin tire engineer) Donnie Wilson and they always give us the very best racing tires possible."
* Race Details - Biela and Pirro started the race on maximum wet rain tires, switched to intermediate tires, then with more than half of the race remaining to dry-weather tires. They went on to finish the race without changing tires, which allowed them to gain significant track position and take the lead over the Champion Audi driven by Johnny Herbert in the final hour of the race. Herbert was chasing the winning Audi late in the race, but crashed and was unable to continue.
Michelin-shod cars placed second and third as well. David Brabham and Jan Magnussen, who led much of the early part of the race, drove their Panoz to second while Emmanuel Collard and Christophe Tinseau in a Cadillac finished third, Cadillac's best-ever ALMS finish. In fact, Cadillac also did not have to change tires once they switched to the dry-weather rubber on Lap 22 of 115. Michelin cars led every lap and also recorded the race's fastest lap.
* Michelin Wins GT Category - In Michelin-shod BMWs, JJ Lehto and Jorg Muller won the GT category while teammates Fredrik Ekblom and Dirk Muller finished second. Boris Said and Hans Stuck, driving a Yokahoma-shod BMW, finished third.
* GT Tire Championship Still Undecided - In the GT category, Michelin has 126 points, ahead of Yokohama (106), Dunlop (46) and Goodyear (11). Michelin's partners include BMWs from BMW Motorsport and Porsches from Alex Job Racing and Peterson Motorsports.