ALMS Mid-Ohio Race Preview - BMW Motorsport

Next race beckons on Saturday

This Saturday will see series GT leader BMW contesting the sixth of eight American Le Mans Series races. It will take place at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in the green hills of Lexington, Ohio.

The 3.633-kilometre (2.258-mile) circuit offers everything a racing driver could desire: a great variety of turns, straights with passing zones, and plenty of hills. The first fast left-hander after the start/finish line leads onto a straight with opportunities for overtaking. At the end of this straight the driver has to jump on the brakes ahead of the sweeping downhill right-hander known as the Keyhole Turn - the crucial entry to the circuit's longest straight, a downhill stretch affording the next passing opportunity. There follows a handful of fairly tight uphill and downhill turns - the crowd's favourite stretch. From Turn Ten to the so-called Carousel, the roller coaster continues with faster and more challenging corners. It's essential to capture the racing line in the Carousel to pick up the throttle for the start/finish straight as soon as possible.

With JJ Lehto (FIN) and Fredrik Ekblom (S), each of the two Team BMW Motorsport driver duos can claim familiarity with the Mid-Ohio circuit. Lehto completed his first CART test there in 1997 before racing on the circuit in 1998. Mid-Ohio has been on the CART Series agenda since 1980. Ekblom has contested an IMSA sports car race here.  Lehto will drive the No. 42 BMW M3 GTR with Jörg Müller (D) and Ekblom will share the No. 43 BMW with Dirk Müller (D).

Taking deletable results into account - teams can replace an inferior ALMS result with a better result from either of the European races in Donington and Jarama - the rankings in the GT class are as follows, with three races to go:

    Driver                        Marque      Points
1. Sascha Maassen       Porsche         119
2. LucasLuhr                 Porsche         118
3. JörgMüller                 BMW             115
4. JJLehto                     BMW             114
5. Boris Said                 BMW             108
6. Hans-Joachim Stuck  BMW             106
7. Randy Pobst              Porsche          95
    Christian Menzel        Porsche          95
    Dirk Müller                 BMW              95
10. Fredrik Ekblom         BMW              94

The race takes place on Saturday, 25 August 2001, from 1.00 to 3.45 pm local time (7.00 to 9.45 pm CET).

Live information and radio broadcasts at www.americanlemans.com. NBC Sports will broadcast the race live. Eurosport will broadcast highlights of the race at Mosport on Sunday, 26 August, from 9.30 to 10.30 pm CET. The Mid-Ohio race will be shown on 9 September at 11:15 pm CET.

Photos:www.press.bmwgroup.com.

BMW Corporate Communications: Guido Stalmann, Tel +49 (0)89 382 23401, Fax +49 (0) 89 382 27563, E-mail: Guido.Stalmann@bmw.de