2009 Petit Le Mans
The 2009 Petit Le Mans powered by Mazda6 was the twelfth running of the Petit Le Mans and the ninth round of the 2009 American Le Mans Series season. It took place at the Road Atlanta circuit in Braselton, Georgia on September 26, 2009. Originally schedule to run for a distance 1,000 miles (1,600 km) or a time of ten hours, the race was stopped after four hours due to heavy rains. The race was not restarted and the results were determined from the final lap prior to the stoppage.[1]
When race officials decided to not restart the event Nicolas Minassian and Stéphane Sarrazin of the #08 Peugeot were declared the winners, leading their team car #07. Audi, who had won this race every year since 2000, finished in third and fourth places. This race was the first time Audi lost at Petit Le Mans since its first run since 2000. This was also the first time that neither of the Volkswagen Group marques (Audi and Porsche) winning (or finishing even the top two, in all cases) its classes. In the LMP2 category Dyson Racing Team won their second race of the season with the #20 Lola-Mazda of Marino Franchitti, Ben Devlin, and Butch Leitzinger ranking 13th overall and 29 laps ahead of their nearest class competitor. The GT2 category was won by Risi Competizione Ferrari leading the Rahal Letterman Racing BMW and Farnbacher-Loles Porsche on the podium.
During Thursday practice on September 24, which took place in dry, sunny conditions, Scott Sharp had a violent crash in the Acura ARX-02a exiting turn one after making contact with the Farnbacher-Loles Porsche entry, which was leaving the pits. Sharp's car turned on its left side, hit the fence, then barrel-rolled three-and-a-half times before landing right-side up.[2] Sharp walked away from the incident. On Friday, September 25, at 9:30 AM Eastern Daylight Time, a new tub arrived from the Honda Performance Development Center in Los Angeles.[2] The Highcroft Racing team then spent the next 24 hours rebuilding the car, getting some assistance from archrival de Ferran Motorsports.[2] The team only used 10 percent of the parts from the original car,[2] and were forced to start the race from pit road.[2]
Report
Qualifying
Qualifying result
Pole position winners in each class are marked in bold.[3]
| Pos | Class | Team | Qualifying Driver | Lap Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | LMP1 | #07 Team Peugeot Total | Nicolas Minassian | 1:06.937 |
| 2 | LMP1 | #08 Team Peugeot Total | Franck Montagny | 1:07.160 |
| 3 | LMP1 | #2 Audi Sport Team Joest | Rinaldo Capello | 1:08.200 |
| 4 | LMP1 | #1 Audi Sport North America | Lucas Luhr | 1:08.228 |
| 5 | LMP1 | #66 de Ferran Motorsports | Simon Pagenaud | 1:08.348 |
| 6 | LMP1 | #7 Team Oreca Matmut AIM | Nicolas Lapierre | 1:09.566 |
| 7 | LMP1 | #37 Intersport Racing | Jon Field | 1:09.685 |
| 8 | LMP2 | #20 Dyson Racing Team | Marino Franchitti | 1:10.152 |
| 9 | LMP1 | #88 Drayson Racing | Jonny Cocker | 1:10.552 |
| 10 | LMP2 | #6 Team Cytosport | Klaus Graf | 1:11.405 |
| 11 | LMP2 | #15 Lowe's Fernández Racing | Adrian Fernández | 1:11.758 |
| 12 | LMP1 | #12 Autocon Motorsports | Chris McMurry | 1:12.676 |
| 13 | GT2 | #40 Robertson Racing | David Murry | 1:20.819 |
| 14 | GT2 | #28 LG Motorsports | Tom Sutherland | 1:20.877 |
| 15 | GT2 | #4 Corvette Racing | Olivier Beretta | 1:20.912 |
| 16 | GT2 | #92 BMW Rahal Letterman Racing | Dirk Müller | 1:20.981 |
| 17 | GT2 | #90 BMW Rahal Letterman Racing | Joey Hand | 1:21.219 |
| 18 | GT2 | #45 Flying Lizard Motorsports | Patrick Long | 1:21.299 |
| 19 | GT2 | #3 Corvette Racing | Johnny O'Connell | 1:21.491 |
| 20 | GT2 | #21 Panoz Team PTG | Dominik Farnbacher | 1:21.648 |
| 21 | GT2 | #87 Farnbacher-Loles Racing | Wolf Henzler | 1:21.760 |
| 22 | GT2 | #62 Risi Competizione | Jaime Melo | 1:22.718 |
| 23 | GT2 | #17 Team Falken Tires | Bryan Sellers | 1:23.081 |
| 24 | GT2 | #11 Primetime Race Group | Chris Hall | 1:23.121 |
| 25 | GT2 | #44 Flying Lizard Motorsports | Seth Neiman | 1:25.601 |
| – | LMP1 | #9 Patrón Highcroft Racing | Did Not Participate | |
| – | LMP1 | #10 ECO Racing | Did Not Participate | |
| – | UNC | #16 Dyson Racing Team | Did Not Participate | |
| – | LMP2 | #19 van der Steur Racing | Did Not Participate | |
Race
Race result
Class winners are marked in bold. Cars failing to complete 70% of winner's distance are marked as Not Classified (NC).[4]
References
- ^ "Peugeot wins a wet Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta". American Le Mans Series. 2009-09-26. Archived from the original on September 30, 2009. Retrieved 2009-09-26.
{{cite news}}: Unknown parameter|deadurl=ignored (|url-status=suggested) (help) - ^ a b c d e – Scott Sharp Incredible Wreck Petit Le Mans 9-24-09
- ^ "ALMS Qualifying Result" (PDF). International Motor Sports Association. 2009-09-25. Retrieved 2009-09-25. [dead link]
- ^ "ALMS Final Race Results" (PDF). International Motor Sports Association. 2009-09-26. Retrieved 2009-09-28.