Scott Tucker and Level 5 Motorsports took their fifth P2 win from six races in the 2012 American Le Mans Series at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course near Lexington, Ohio, and backed up the victory with a third place for Ricardo Gonzalez and Tucker in the teams sister car. The result is Tuckers 14th career ALMS class win, and Bouchuts 11th.
After a tremendously close-fought battle Christophe Bouchut took the checkered flag in the No.055 HPD ARX-03b with 7.1 seconds in hand over the second placed Conquest Endurance Morgan-Nissan, with the No.95 Level 5 HPD filling the class podium. Tucker and Bouchut maintain their lead in the championship standings, with three longer, higher-points-scoring events to come before the end of the season to further solidify their position.
In hot and humid temperatures of over 90 degrees, and a searing track temperature of over 110 degrees, Scott Tucker started the two hour 45 minute race in the No.055 HPD, with team newcomer Ricardo Gonzalez at the wheel of the No.95. Always in contact with the class-heading Conquest car, Gonzalez was well poised to take the P2 class lead when Heinemeier Hansson was called in for a stop/go penalty as the 1 hour 30 mark approached.
Shortly after that point, the first Level 5 Motorsports driver change took place and Tucker handed off to Bouchut in the No.055, while the Mexican driver remained in the car for a further 15 minutes in order to allow Kansas-resident Tucker a short amount of cooling/recovery time. With 45 minutes of the race to run, Gonzalez pitted from the class lead and, after a short but nail-biting delay due to a glitch in securing the drivers safety harnesses, Tucker departed in third place. Despite his very best efforts, Mid-Ohio is a circuit at which overtaking is not easy and Scott held the position to the finish.
Meanwhile, Bouchut profited from slower traffic to pass Plowman in the Conquest Morgan and despite contact with a GT car towards the end which dislodged a portion of the HPDs rear bodywork, the Frenchman held on to take the victory.
Scott Tucker said afterwards: At the end of the race, it's always greasy and this is a low grip track. Fortunately we had a really good setup and I was really happy that the tires came in as quickly as they did. At the start we got in to the GTC cars in traffic and I got in a bad spot and our competition was able to get around me. Luckily the team worked us back and Christophe could make a move to get us back in the lead. Its a great result for the team, always more so when you have to work for it as we did today.
The next round of the ALMS will be the Road Race Showcase at Road America, Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin on Saturday, August 18. The four-hour race will start at 3:30 pm ET and will be shown on ESPN2.
NEXT RACE:Road Race Showcase at Road AmericaAugust 18, 2012
TELEVISION BROADCAST:ESPN 2Sunday, August 19 at 2:00 p.m. EDT
LIVE Streaming: ESPN 3Saturday, August 18 at 3:15 p.m. EDTLIVE Qualifying: ESPN 3Friday, August 17 at 4:40 p.m. EDT
