PORSCHE vs FERRARI

For the first two years of the American Le Mans Series’ appearances at Miller Motorsports Park, the
cars ran the full course, which was a 24-turn, 4.5-mile race circuit – the longest on the 11-race
schedule.  Other configurations include breaking up the full course into two 2.24 mile circuits, each with
their own challenges, but for the ALMS feature race this Sunday, the teams will use the fourth choice –
a 15-turn, 3.048-mile course which goes around the outer section of the full course, eliminating all of
the infield turns.

Sunday’s event, known as The Larry H. Miller Dealerships Utah Grand Prix presented by The Grand and
Little America Hotels will start at 3:05 PM EDT, and will be carried live nationally on SPEED channel
(3:00 PM – 6:00 PM EDT).  All track sessions starting Friday morning will be scored live on
www.americanlemans.com, and qualifying and race action will be broadcast on American Le Mans
radio, also at www.americanlemans.com.  Photos and race stories on the Porsche competitors will be
filed at www.porschemotorsport.com (click on motorsports news).  

Despite the shortened version of the track, the twisty circuit is still regarded as one of the most
demanding on the calendar.  

“It has actually become more difficult to find the optimal set-up,” says Sascha Maassen (Germany), who
secured overall victory with the Penske Porsche RS Spyder last year after claiming an LMP2 class win
at the debt on this track in 2006.  

With his team mate Patrick Long (USA) he tested here in Salt Lake City last month as the engineers
tried to find the best possible set-up for the 476 hp sports prototype from Weissach for this new
challenge.  

His impressions: “A great track. Despite the shortening of the circuit there are still a lot of corners that
suit us very well. But you also drive on the long straight more often and that is certainly not to our
advantage.”

Patrick Long agrees with this assessment but is equally as optimistic:  
“We don’t have to take a back seat. In the past we have found solutions to tougher problems than this.”

Penske Racing, based in Mooresville, North Carolina, will field two RS Spyder at Miller - Sascha Maassen
and Patrick Long will drive the #6 RS Spyder, with their teammates Timo Bernhard (Germany) and
Romain Dumas (France) in the matching #7 car. The Bernhard/Dumas tandem are first in the LMP2
class point standings after the first three races of the season, with an overall win (Sebring) and two
class wins (Sebring and St. Petersburg).  Porsche in the also first manufacturers chassis and engine
points and Penske Racing leads the teams championship.  

The Poughkeepsie, New York-based Dyson Racing has also entered two Porsche RS
Spyders – one for Chris Dyson (USA) and Guy Smith (Great Britain), and the other for Butch Leitzinger
(USA) and Marino Franchitti (Great Britain).

After two street races in St. Petersburg and Long Beach, the series now returns to a permanent race
track in Salt Lake City, which is the first of five straight races on traditional course (Salt Lake City, Lime
Rock, Mid-Ohio, Road America and Mosport). Sascha Maassen explains the greatest difference.  

“On a city circuit you are more mentally stressed because you know exactly where you must not make a
mistake otherwise you end up in the wall. As a contrast you’ve got a lot of corners on this circuit with
correspondingly high lateral acceleration. It doesn’t matter how well you have trained – after a couple of
corners your neck hurts,” said Maassen.

After testing last month, Maassen added that the car should be ready to go, but the team will still have
to work hard in practice on Friday to sort out final details.

In the GT2 class for modified production sports cars, the Sebring winner Joerg Bergmeister from
Germany and his compatriot Wolf Henzler are looking for their second victory of the season to vault
them back into the points lead. With the Porsche 911 GT3 RSR fielded by Flying Lizard Motorsports,
they were narrowly beaten by a tenth of a second by the Ferrari 430 in Long Beach to cross the finish
line second.  

Flying Lizard team mates Johannes van Overbeek (USA) and Patrick Pilet (France), and Darren Law
(USA) and Seth Neiman (USA) will field the other two cars entered by the Sonoma, California-based
team.  The Lizards trail the Tafel Ferrari team by a two points in the team championship, and  
Bergmeister/Henzler are only six points behind Tafel’s Mueller/Farnbacher in the driver points.  Ferrari
leads Porsche in GT2 manufacturers championship by a single point.

Farnbacher Loles Racing, with offices in Danbury, Connecticut and facilities at Road Atlanta in Braselton,
Georgia, has entered a Porsche 911 GT3 RSR for German drivers Dirk Werner and Marc Basseng, who
have a third-place finish to their credit from St. Petersburg.

VICI Racing, with race shops in Germany and Miami, Florida, will have Americans Craig Stanton and
Nathan Swartzbaugh at the helm for its Porsche 911 GT3 RSR.

The American Le Mans Series continues on its upward trend in 2008: An average of 106,000
spectators came to the first three races of the season, marking an increase of 3.2 percent over last
year. The number of television viewers in the USA rose by 37 percent, bolstered by flag-to-flag
coverage by SPEED at Sebring and two races on ABC-TV.

Tags: ALMS, Porsche