Miami: Panoz race notes

Panoz grab fourth in battle on the streets of Miami.

After a tough day in qualifying yesterday, Panoz Motor Sports bounced back to grab a fourth place finish for Jan Magnussen and David Brabham in the Cadillac ALMS Challenge at Miami's Grand Prix Americas today.

The result was a bitter-sweet day for Magnussen who was involved in contact with his team-mate Bill Auberlen on the opening laps of the event.

The contact between the two cars left Auberlen stranded and temporarily unable to restart the car. By the time he was able to get mobile again, the #51 car was a lap down and out of contention for a podium position.

"Brabs and I came away with a reasonable result, but I feel really bad about the contact with Bill," Magnussen said.

"It certainly wasn't on purpose, but it spoiled their race. It would have been nice to have two Panoz cars battling at the front of the field."

Magnussen completed the first stint before handing over to David Brabham who completed the last two thirds of the race. The team elected to put another set of Michelin tires on at the final pit-stop, a decision which paid dividends towards the finish.

"The car was really great towards the end and the fresh Michelins enabled me to chase down the Champion Audi for fourth," Brabham said.

"We ended up having the fastest car on the track at the end of the race." Auberlen and team-mate Bryan Herta battled on after their early misfortune to finish in 11th place outright and 8th in the LMP900 class.

"We tried to gamble on strategy after the early dramas to try to get our lap back, but it ended up misfiring on us and we lost another lap," Herta said.

"It was a risk we had to take. We certainly had nothing to lose at that point.

"We are pretty disappointed because the car was really strong throughout the day, but we have to put that behind us and concentrate on Petit Le Mans next week."

Practice for the season-closing American Le Mans finale begins next Wednesday at Road Atlanta with the 10 Hour/1000 mile event greeting the green flag at 11.30 on Saturday, October 12.

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