Dyson Racing scored their second American Le Mans series win of the year at Mosport Park in Canada repeating their victory of a year ago on the challenging parkland track in Ontario. The win was especially memorable for James Weaver as it was his 100th career victory.
Weaver and Leitzinger doubled up on their 2005 win tally after mirroring their win at Mid Ohio back in May. Weaver had led early in the race after taking pole sitter Chris Dyson at the first corner, but came under massive pressure from Marco Werner in one of the Champion Audi’s.
The battle came to a head after 50 minutes when they came upon a slower GT2 car. The pair split either side of the backmarker with Werner electing for the pitlane side while Weaver got on to the marbles on the outside and went off gently in to a tyre barrier.
Despite only very minor damage and only losing one position, Weaver admitted at that stage that their chances of victory appeared to be, “Zero, until I saw Butch do about five or six laps. It was pretty obvious that as soon as he got in the car, he was going to dig us out of the hole. I was going to make that pass on the outside, but the Panoz went wide. As I went in to the corner, I was hot, and thought he was going to go in to pitlane but he came back. I thought that was the end of that but Butch dug us out.”
Leitzinger was indeed in tremendous form at Mosport and set by far the fastest lap of the race with a time of 1m08.596s. By the last scheduled pit stop Leitzinger’s AER powered Lola had a 40 second advantage over JJ Lehto’s Audi but still had a stop to make.
In a thrilling finale Leitzinger exited the pits just as Lehto bore down on him but the American held his nerve to take the chequered flag after two and half hours, the race being shortened by fifteen minutes due to a fuel shortage caused by the devastating Hurricane Katrina.
“As I was leaving the pits, they told me JJ is coming,” said Leitzinger. “It was all about getting in front of JJ. Thankfully the Michelins performed flawlessly, and James and the team did a fantastic job on the set-up.”
The sister Dyson Lola B01/60 AER, driven by Chris Dyson and Andy Wallace, finished fourth in the race after setting the pace in the qualifying session with Dyson himself setting a time of 1m07.682s over the 2.459 mile track, just over three tenths faster than the nearest Audi.
After relinquishing the lead to team mate Weaver at the start of the race, Dyson suffered with a slow puncture, which lost the Lola valuable time, meaning a 4th placed finish at the chequered flag.
In LMP2, Clint Field and Liz Halliday made sure that Lola came away with a double victory in Canada, as they beat the Miracle Courage, which led for much of the race, in their Intersport Lola B05/40 AER.
“It’s good to come to Mosport and win after a bad week at Road America,” explained Clint Field. “I think we have the car to beat, but the Miracle car is always pushing. Liz really held close to Jeff (Bucknam) and kept us close.”
Halliday has shared a victory with Clint Field this season (at Sears Point) and she once again impressed with some solid sportscar driving at Mosport.
“I was pleased with the stint, it was very consistent,” said the Californian. “The first time I saw the track was yesterday. Basically, I’ve been dealing with the learning curve and dealing with traffic.”
Van Der Steur Racing were looking to follow up their heroic podium visit at Road America two weeks ago with another good showing in Canada. Ben Devlin started the weekend well with a brilliant qualifying performance that saw the B2K/40 line up in 7th overall.
Sadly that promise was unable to be translated to the race as the turquoise car stopped in the pits after just a few laps of the race with a turbo problem. After fixing it, the rapid Devlin went back on to track and completed a further 20 laps but was too far behind to be classified.
The next round on the 2005 American Le Mans Series schedule is one of the jewels in the ALMS crown – Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta on October 2.
RACE RESULTS
Pos Drivers Make Class Laps1. Weaver/Leitzinger Lola EX257 AER P1 1272. Werner/Lehto Audi R8 P1 1273. Pirro/Biela Audi R8 P1 1264. Dyson/Wallace Lola EX257 AER P1 1255. Halliday/Field Lola B05/40/AER P2 1206. Beretta/Gavin Corvette C6-R GT1 1197. Fellows/O'Connell Corvette C6-R GT1 1198. Borcheller/Mowlem Saleen S7R GT1 1199. Bertolini/de Simone Maserati MC12 GT1 11810. Bucknum/McMurry Courage C-65 P2 11711. Bach/Cosmo Courage Mazda P2 11312. Weickardt/Rugulo/Belloc Dodge Viper GT1 11213. Bergmeister/Long Porsche 911 GT3 RSR GT2 11014. Law/Baas, Noblesville Porsche 911 GT3 RSR GT2 11015. Rockenfeller/Henzler Porsche 911 GT3 RSR GT2 10916. Neiman/Pechnik/Murry Porsche 911 GT3 RSR GT2 10917. Jackson/Sudgen Porsche 911 GT3 RSR GT2 10818. Dumas/Bernhard Porsche 911 GT3 RSR GT2 10819. Franchitti/Sellers Panoz Esperante eGTLM GT2 10720. Liddell/Auberlen Panoz Esperante eGTLM GT2 9121. van Overbeek/Fogarty Porsche 911 GT3 RSR GT2 6822. Devlin/Van der Steur Lola B2K/40 AER P2 26
Points standings
LMP1
Emanuele Pirro 137Frank Biela 137Andy Wallace 119Chris Dyson 116JJ Lehto 116Marco Werner 116Butch Leitzinger 113James Weaver 113
LMP2
Jeff Bucknum 98Chris McMurry 98Clint Field 96Jamie Bach 78Guy Cosmo 78Ben Devlin 45Liz Halliday 40Jon Field 36Gunnar van der Steur 32Ian James 26Gregor Fisken 20Erik van der Steur 13
