Laguna Seca: ADT Champion Racing race notes

Stefan Johansson, of Sweden and Britain's Johnny Herbert finished an excellent second in the latest round of the American Le Mans Series yesterday (SUN).

Johansson and Herbert steered their 2001-specification ADT Champion Racing Audi R8 home to second place at Laguna Seca under hot Californian sunshine.

Johansson started the 165-minute race from fifth place having qualified on the third row the previous day on the 31-car grid but Herbert took over from the Swede in third place after an hour's racing.

The "factory" Audis of Emanuele Pirro/Frank Biela and Rinaldo Capello/Tom Kristensen began the race from the front row of the grid and dominated the early stages but the second-placed Capello/Kristensen a lot of time making suspension repairs dropping them to eighth.

Herbert, who finished second in the corresponding race last year, thus inherited second and spectacularly reduced the gap to the leading Pirro/Biela Audi to 16secs with just 15 minutes remaining but took the chequered flag 25.7secs behind in front of the 50,000 crowd.

Stefan said: "The car was still suffering from understeer early in the race as it had done all weekend and the omens did not look good but we got lucky when we made our stop under a full course yellow. We began the race never expecting to finish second so we're all delighted."

"We pitted under a full course yellow caution period which saved us a lot of time," confirmed Herbert. "We'd suffered a handling imbalance throughout the weekend and so to finish second and close the gap in the title race on Tom is a bonus at this stage."

The Cadillac of J J Lehto/Max Angelelli completed the top-three with the recovering Capello/Kristensen Audi just 2.9secs behind in fourth. With just two races remaining in Miami and Atlanta next month, Kristensen is three points clear of Capello with Herbert still third but now 18-points behind Kristensen and two points ahead of Biela.

-audi uk-