BOWNMANVILLE, Ontario August 26, 2007 – Dyson Racing moved back into second place in the American Le Mans Series P2 Team Championship with their fifth and seventh place class finishes at the Grand Prix of Mosport. It was a spirited sojourn north of the border with four different manufactures in the top six.
The top Dyson finishers of Chris Dyson and Guy Smith ran as high as third in class, and provided fans and TV viewers with a showcase of determined driving to the last turn of the race. Smith pressured Adrian Fernandez’s Acura for twenty laps, finally passing him spectacularly on the outside of turn two on lap 79 of the 125 lap race. Smith hounded Ben Devlin for the last twenty-five minutes and ended up having contact with Fernandez when Devlin went wide at turn nine. “Adrian and I came together as we were racing to the flag and I crossed the finish line crossed up, but it was good racing fun,” said Smith.
Andy Wallace and Butch Leitzinger in the #16 Porsche RS Spyder missed out on a potential class podium with confusion during the second of the event’s two cautions. “There was a muddle with the pace car picking up the race leader,” said Wallace. “And than IMSA said that pits are open and three cars – the two Penske (Porsches) and Fernandez pitted and than right after they stopped, they said no, the pits are closed and so we all had to go around again. I came in but could not pull into my pit cleanly because the car behind us was partly into our pit box. The fuel hose did not reach and we lost too much time reangling the car.” This mishap cost the 16 car a lap to the P2 leaders that they would later regain, but the loss in track position kept them from contending at the end.
“We hoped for a better race result, but we leave here in a stronger position in the team championship and we are more competitive for the run to the season’s end,” Chris Dyson said afterwards.
The American Le Mans series moves across the Great Lakes for the tenth of the twelve-race series next weekend at the Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix on Saturday, September 1.
Pos | Car# | Class | Drivers | Diff | Car Make |
1. | 7 | P2 | Dumas/Bernhard | 0 | Porsche RS Spyder |
2. | 1 | P1 | Capello/McNish | 19.576 | Audi R10 |
3. | 6 | P2 | Maassen/Briscoe | 30.598 | Porsche RS Spyder |
4. | 2 | P1 | Pirro/Werner | 33.892 | Audi R10 |
5. | 26 | P2 | Herta/Franchitti | 1:00.640 | Acura ARX |
6. | 8 | P2 | Bach/Devlin | 1 lap | Lola B07 |
7. | 20 | P2 | Dyson/Smith | 1 lap | Porsche RS Spyder |
8. | 15 | P2 | Fernandez/Diaz | 1 lap | Lola B06 |
9. | 16 | P2 | Wallace/Leitzinger | 1 lap | Porsche Spyder |
10. | 03 | GT1 | O’Connell/Magnussen | 9 laps | Corvette C6 |