American Le Mans Series Grand Prix of Portland

THE AMERICAN LE MANS SERIES
The Grand Prix of Portland
PIT NOTES: Page 5
SUNDAY AUGUST 5, 2001

Race day at the Portland International Raceway begins with clear skies and a current temperature of 67 degrees. The forecast for today calls for partly cloudy skies, high of 80°F, low of 59°F. Unlike yesterday, the threat of rain should not come into play. Today’s schedule includes a one-half hour warm-up at 11:30 am, followed by the 2 hour 45 minute Grand Prix of Portland at 1:00 pm PDT.

Twenty-one cars make up the starting grid with stiff competition expected in all classes. At the last race in Sears Point, all the winning teams stopped only twice. Last year several GT teams stopped only once during this race. A driver is only allowed to be in the car up to 75 percent of the time of the race, so a driver change is required. Cars must start on three of the four tires they qualified on, or they are forced to the back of the grid for their class. During pit stops, no work can be done on the car during fueling, except the other driver can start assisting the current driver out of the car. Penalties for violations can range from stop-and-go to 10, 20, or 30-seconds. In the festival corners at the end of the front straight, a car that short-cuts the turn is required to stop and wait for the corner official to give them a signal to continue (after 10 seconds). Failure to stop will result in non-scoring of that lap.

Update: Driver Tom Weickardt (#44-GTS Dodge Viper GTS-R) was treated and released last night from Legacy Emanuel Hospital and will be starting the car this afternoon. Because of the driver change, the #44-GTS car will go to the back of the grid.

ALMS Combined Morning Warmup:
At 11:30, track temperature 111 degrees (Michelin engineers)
At 11:30, green flag.
At 12:00, checkered flag. All 21 cars practiced.

Fastest cars in each class: #1-P Audi R8 (Capello)– 1:05.601; #26-GTS Saleen S7R (Konrad) - 1:12.670; #11-P675 Lola B2K/40/Judd (Knight) – 1:13.023; #42-GT BMW M3 GTR (Müller) – 1:13.913.

ALMS: Grand Prix of Portland

Note: Cars #15-GT Porsche 911 GT3-R and #69-GT Porsche 911 GT3-R did not join the grid on time and will start from pit lane. As a result they will start the race one lap behind. Car #51-P Panoz LMP1 Roadster S moves the the back of the grid for not starting on the qualifying tires.

At 12:56, the command to start engines.
At 1:02, green flag. Temperature is 78 degrees with clear skies.
At 1:02, car #1-P Audi R8 (Kristensen) beats pole sitter #50-P Panoz LMP1 Roadster S (Brabham) going into the first turn.
At 1:04, at the end of the first lap, car #51-P Panoz LMP1 Roadster S (Graf) has already moved up to fifth place overall, 4.329 seconds behind the leader. Car #1-P Audi R8 (Kristensen) leads overall. GT Class pole sitter #6-GT BMW M3 GTR (Stuck) has dropped to sixth in class, with #10-GT BMW M3 GTR (Jonsson) leading in class. Ron Fellows leads in the GTS class in the #3-GTS Chevrolet Corvette C5-R.

At 1:08, at the end of 5 laps, car #1-P Audi R8 has a 4.246 second advantage over the #50-P Panoz LMP1 Roadster S.
At 1:14, car #38-P Audi R8 (Herbert) has moved up to third overall after passing #2-P Audi in traffic.
At 1:15, car #50-P Panoz LMP1 Roadster S (Brabham) takes the overall lead after 11 laps passing #1-P Audi R8 (Kristensen)
At 1:17, the overall leader (#50-P) has lapped all the GT and GTS cars after 13 laps.
At 1:20, full course yellow for debris on the race track.
Top three in class: #50-P (Brabham), #1-P (Kristensen), #38-P (Herbert); #3-GTS (Fellows), #26-GTS (Konrad), #4-GTS (Pilgrim); #57-P675 (de Radigues), #11-P675 (Hawkins); #10-GT (Jonsson), #23-GT (Maassen), #42-GT (Lehto)