Mid-Ohio: Series warm-up report

DUMAS KEEPS PENSKE, PORSCHE AT THE TOP

The No. 7 Penske Motorsports finished in a familiar place after Saturday's warmup for the Acura Sports Car Challenge - first place. Romain Dumas placed the No. 7 Porsche at the top of the chart with a lap of 1:10.166, 0.139 seconds ahead of the Lowe's Fernandez Racing Lola, the best of the hometown Acura-powered entries.

Dumas and Timo Bernhard will start from pole position this afternoon and are in search of their third overall win of the season. They lead the LMP2 championship by 9 points over Sascha Maassen and Ryan Briscoe, who were third in the warmup.

Emanuele Pirro was the quickest driver in LMP1 and sat fourth overall in the Audi R10 TDI he is sharing with Marco Werner. The reigning Sebring and 24 Hours of Le Mans champions held a 0.151-second edge over teammates Rinaldo Capello and Allan McNish, defending class winners and Series champions.

Audi is searching for its first overall win since St. Petersburg, having fallen to the lighter and more nimble P2s on the shorter venues on the Series schedule.

Jan Magnussen was fastest in GT1 for Corvette Racing in the No. 3 Corvette C6.R. Teammate Johnny O'Connell had put the car on the class pole Friday before it failed post-qualifying technical inspections (stall test) to put the sister car of Olivier Beretta and Oliver Gavin on pole.

Beretta and Gavin won last year at Mid-Ohio and have won the last two class championships. They were 0.314 seconds behind the Magnussen's time.

Risi Competizione's No. 62 Ferrari F430 GT was fastest in GT2 with Mika Salo's time of 1:21.104. It was a highly competitive session with four different entries - the Risi Ferrari, Panoz Team PTG's Panoz Esperante and Porsches from Rahal Letterman and Flying Lizard Motorsports - taking turns on top of the class.

The top six cars in class ended 0.758 seconds apart.

-credit: alms