ALMS

Sears Point opening practice

SONOMA, Calif. (July 20, 2001) -- Rinaldo Capello, winner of the first two races of the 2001 American Le Mans Series season and the series point leader, turned the fastest lap of the day Friday as practice began for Sunday's The X-Factor ...

Edited: Apr 15, 2002, 11:45 PM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

SONOMA, Calif. (July 20, 2001) -- Rinaldo Capello, winner of the first two races of the 2001 American Le Mans Series season and the series point leader, turned the fastest lap of the day Friday as practice began for Sunday's The X-Factor Grand Prix of Sonoma at Sears Point Raceway.

Italy's Capello, driving an Audi R8, toured the 2.52-mile circuit at 110.710 mph (1:21.944) to lead the day of practice. Qualifying will be held Saturday to set the starting lineup for Sunday's two-hour, 45-minute sports car endurance race.

Capello will co-drive with Tom Kristensen of Denmark. The two drove to victory in the ALMS season opener at Texas Motor Speedway in March, and Capello also won the 12 Hours at Sebring two weeks later with co-drivers Laurent Aiello and the late Michele Alboreto. The ALMS has not held a race since the Mar. 17 Sebring event.

The Audi team car driven by Frank Biela and Emanuele Pirro was second-fastest on the day at 110.208 (1:22.317), followed by the Panoz LMP-1 of Franck Lagorce and Klaus Graf at 107.718 (1:24.220).

Dick Barbour Racing's Reynard 01Q-Judd driven by Didier de Radigues of Belgium led the LMP 675 class with a lap of 103.315 (1:27.809). De Radigues will co-drive with John Graham of Canada and with Milka Duno of Venezuela, the only female driver in the field.

The GTS class was led by the Saleen S7R of Terry Borcheller and Franz Konrad, which Borcheller drove to a lap of 98.511 (1:32.091). The two co-drove to victory with Oliver Gavin in the most recent ALMS race at Sebring. The Chevrolet Corvette of Ron Fellows and Johnny O'Connell, expected to battle with the Saleen in the race, ran only a handful of slow laps on Friday before breaking a half-shaft and missing the rest of the session.

Bill Auberlen of Hermosa Beach, Calif., drove a new BMW M3 GTR to the fastest lap of the day in the GT class, posting a speed of 97.123 (1:33.407). He will co-drive with Niclas Jonsson of Sweden in Sunday's race. The X-Factor Grand Prix of Sonoma will be televised live by NBC Sports beginning at 4 p.m. (EDT). Highlights will be shown one week later on Eurosport. The American Le Mans Series Radio Web will have live coverage online at www.americanlemans.com.

-ALMS

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Audi Sears Point preview

Next article APLMS: Malaysia to cap racing season

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Five key takeaways from F1's big African Grand Prix reveal in Rwanda

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1 32 min

Five key takeaways from F1's big African Grand Prix reveal in Rwanda

Niels Koolen makes switch to Abel Motorsports ahead of 2027 Indy NXT campaign

Indy NXT

IndL Indy NXT 1 h

Niels Koolen makes switch to Abel Motorsports ahead of 2027 Indy NXT campaign

GT World Challenge Portimao: All you need to know about season finale featuring Max Verstappen

GT World Challenge Europe Endurance

WCEE GT World Challenge Europe Endurance 2 h

GT World Challenge Portimao: All you need to know about season finale featuring Max Verstappen

13 Autosport retains unchanged lineup for 2027 IMSA campaign, eyes global expansion

IMSA

IMSA IMSA 2 h

13 Autosport retains unchanged lineup for 2027 IMSA campaign, eyes global expansion

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts