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Grand Prix Americas, Miami USA 2003 |
The hometown team walked away as winners
in the 2003 Miami Grand Prix Americas race. Johnny Herbert and JJ Lehto took their 3rd ALMS win of the season when they
drove the Champion Racing Audi R8 to victory on the street circuit in downtown Miami.
The win was extra sweet for Champion team owner Dave Maraj, who bases the team in nearby Pompano Beach, Fla. at the Champion Audi/Porsche auto dealership. The primary team sponsor is ADT, also headquartered in the Miami area. The winning car finished ahead of the silver Team Joest Audi R8 of Frank Biela and Marco Werner. The JML Panoz LMP01 of Olivier Beretta and David Saelens finished third. The Audi cars ran the two-hour, 45-minute race on one fuel stop. The teams planned a race strategy based on the assumption of numerous yellow-flag laps on the tight, bumpy city street circuit. They guessed right. Only 36 of the 157 race laps were run under yellow, but the flags were spaced out just right for the strategy to work. Statistically, the second-place finish gives Biela and Werner the LMP 900 class driving title for the 2003 season. JJ Lehto has a small chance to unseating them at the season-ending Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta. Oct. 18, 2003. The American LeMans Series pictures are below. View other images from the 2003 Miami Grand Prix Americas weekend. Click these links to see pictures from the CART ChampCars and the Trans-Am series. A gallery of other race weekend images is available at the Miami event home page. The Dyson Racing Lola EX257-MG of Chris Dyson and Andy Wallace won the LMP 675 class. They took the lead near the end of the race after their team car driven by James Weaver and Butch Leitzinger went out with drivetrain problems while leading the LMP 675 field. Even with the stumble, Weaver / Leitzinger still finished 2nd in class. They were two laps behind Dyson / Wallace in the standings but far enough ahead to hold the spot on the podium. The Dyson Racing win and the 4th place class finish of challengers Duncan Dayton and Jon Field, moves Dyson / Wallace closer to winning the LMP 675 class driving championship at the Petit LeMans too. It was a great day for Ferrari in Miami. The prancing horse took all three top spots in the GTS class. That was a 1st for Ferrari in ALMS history. The Prodrive Ferrari 550 Maranello of David Brabham and Darren Turner took the class win. This win was the third straight for Brabham in GTS. Turner was substituting for Jan Magnussen as Brabham's teammate and scored his first career ALMS win. The other red Prodrive of Tomas Enge and Peter Kox were 1.778 seconds behind for 2nd. The Green GTS of Mimmo Schiattarella and Emanuele Naspetti rounded out the all Ferrari podium for the Florida-based Olive Garden restaurant sponsored team. Ron Fellows and Johnny O'Connell finished 4th in GTS at the Miami Grand Prix Americas after a spectrum of problems pestered the yellow Corvette during the race. No sad faces though, The points were enough to locked up the 2003 GTS class driving title for Fellows / O'Connell. Sascha Maassen and Lucas Luhr won the Miami Grand Prix GT class in an Alex Job Racing Porsche 911 GT3 RS. It was Maassen's 20th win in ALMS competition and an early 34th birthday present for the German driver. Race day quickly became a battle between the two Alex Job Porsches. Maassen and Luhr won after Jorg Bergmeister clipped a wall while leading near the end of the race. Apparently the rear end went away on Jorg and a wiggle put him in the apex wall which threw away a possible win. Luhr was right behind Bergmeister when he crashed and couldn't believe the luck, but "that’s racing". Finishing second in the GT class at the Miami Grand Prix Americas was the Risi Competzione Ferrari 360 Modena of Anthony Lazzaro and Ralf Kelleners, with third going to the PK Sport Porsche of Robin Liddell and Alex Caffi. One of the biggest challenges ALMS drivers and teams faced at the 2003 Miami Grand Prix Americas was managing to get the car over or around the huge bump leading onto the front straight of this year circuit layout. It sent cars airborne all weekend, requiring steering corrections in the air to avoid going straight into the wall on landing. See an image of this problem in the ChampCar section of this photo galley. Suspension integrity was tested too, as the GT and GTS cars had their rear ends so compressed that bodywork scraped the ground on each lap. The 2003 Miami Grand Prix Americas race through the streets of downtown presented virtually every challenge possible including extreme heat, rain off and on, a narrow track with unforgiving barrier walls and a lot of traffic. |
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