From Laguna Seca Raceway, California 

-A summary of the third round of the 2010 America Le Mans Series season.

     It is difficult to find a better place in the USA to race cars than Laguna Seca Raceway. For starts, the entire Monterey Bay area is simply gorgeous. Once the capital of California, this fishing town hasn’t lost any of its charm, rewarding visitors with a wealth of activities, including its world famous aquarium.

     We were fortunate to host our guests at the Intercontinental Hotel “Le Clement”, a beautifully renovated  property right on the water along Cannery Row.

      The track itself is nested nearby in rolling hills and provides plenty of elevations changes, culminating with
the one of a kind “corkscrew”, a downhill left - right blind chicane that takes some experience to go
through with the right momentum. This track other particularity is its gravel traps. Having been designed
for Moto GP racing, they are extremely deep. If you get off into one of these, your session or your race is
pretty much over, but the benefit is a very high level of safety.

     This part of the California coast greeted us on Friday morning with bright sunshine and a strong breeze
which combined with 42 degrees in the morning made for a chilly environment. Good for racing but hard
for the fans!

 

And the forecast was for the temperatures to drop even further on Saturday.

     We know this track quite well, and still hold the race lap record in a Ferrari Challenge F430. And we have
been on the podium every time we raced here regardless of the car we drove. So expectations were set
high! From the beginning of the season, we knew that the team had the pace to win races, but technical
problems and unlucky fate had robbed us so far of a podium finish.

     Thus, we were determined to deliver on the promise this weekend in front of the largest group of
customers and partners we ever hosted at a race event. Over 180 guests were cheering us from the Red
Bull Center, perched on the hill right across the start finish line, with 180 degrees view of the track.
Friday test sessions were uneventful for us, but punctuated by many red flags, caused by cars getting
stuck in the gravel traps. We were struggling with a lack of rear grip and a car less responsive that we
would like it to be, but made progress thru the day, not enough though to get us on pole, Andy finishing
3rd in the short qualifying session. Given the length of this race, that wasn’t an issue in itself but did
demonstrate that we had more work to do on the car handling.

     Although Saturday started under beautiful skies, we knew that we would have to endure the sub 50
degrees wind shear all day! As usual, the morning flew by quickly between practicing driver changes, the
morning warm up, the autograph session with the fans and the visit to our suite to meet and greet our
guests and sponsors. We were welcoming new partners to the team this week end: Green Hills Software
and Facecake. Joining Future Electronics, Freescale and Hitachi Global Storage, we now enjoy a solid
line up of sponsors enhancing our best in class B2B platform.

     One of the fun moments in the American Le Mans Series is the pre race walkabout by the fans on the
front straight, where all the cars and crews are lined up. Like the two previous events, this race was very
well attended and we enjoyed the interactions with the large public. After the traditional Star Spangled
Banner anthem had finished echoing in the Laguna Seca rolling hills, the grid was formed and the green
flag was dropped precisely at 2.30 pm for a six hour enduro.

    Andy immediately took over P2 in Turn 2 and started chasing the class leader. After about 25 minutes, a
first double yellow handed the team an opportunity to put me in the car and I rejoined the race ready for a
double stint. Traffic was very heavy at times, and our spotters, posted strategically around the track were
doing a superb job at calling the passes and keeping us out of harm’s way of the faster prototypes and
GT2 cars. My stint was punctuated with several race incidents, and we took advantage of this to do
another refueling and tire change under yellow. The car felt great and I was able to put down competitive
lap times throughout my stint, handing over an unscathed car to Rene, except for a little elbow rubbing
with a Corvette into Turn 2 that made for a good show right in front of our guests. At this point we were
running P4 but with a tactical advantage on fuel and tires.

     Rene drove a perfect double stint and turned back the car to Andy when another double yellow opened
the window for that last driver change. At that point, we were in a position to win the race with our direct
competitor in the same lap but everyone else out of range. Andy started to put the hammer down and
delivered fast lap after fast lap, with our competitor responding tit for tat. With less than 45 minutes left in
the race, an unfavorable double yellow handed back the tactical advantage to our competitor. At that
point, with almost a lap down, but well ahead of the car in P3, all we could hope for was a last race
incident handing over back to us the lead. But it wasn’t to be and we finished a solid second, the only car
on the lead lap of our opponent.

     This first podium after the disappointing results in Sebring and Long Beach was a sweet reward for the
team. It firmed up our ambitions for this first ALMS season. We have the pace to win every race going
forward and to finish in the Top 3 in the championship. To achieve this, we need to continue to improve
our setup and work on the relative lack of rear end grip on our car.

     We have many people to thank for this great weekend. First, we want to address a very special thank you
to our sponsors: Freescale Semiconductors, Future Electronics, Green Hills Software, Hitachi Global
Storage and Facecake. Without their support, none of this would be possible. And we are proud to dedicate to them this podium.  We also need to express our gratitude to the Freescale events team for a flawless organization throughout the week end, despite a largely overbooked event.

     TRG, our racing team partner, led by its CEO Kevin Buckler, and his world class crew, ran an impeccable race strategy, sometimes beating the competition by over 10 seconds during pit stops. Our co-drivers, Rene Villeneuve and Andy Lally, brought a very special blend of track knowledge and car knowledge that made the week end a success for the entire team.

     And lastly, our gratitude goes to our guests and friends who despite the freezing breeze stayed into the
late hours to cheer us on the podium.

See you in Salt Lake City in a month!