With more than 150 Porsche owners and their families watching from Lime Rock Park’s “Porsche Platz, ” the Penske Motorsports Porsche RS Spyders finished 1-2 overall and claimed a LMP2 Class win in Saturday’s American Le Mans Series Northeast Grand Prix.
The No. 6 team car, driven by Australian’s Ryan Briscoe and Germany’s Sascha Maassen, took the lead from the No. 7 Penske Porsche of France’s Romain Dumas and Germany’s Timo Bernhard when Briscoe passed Bernhard with only 25 minutes left in the action-packed, 2-hour 45-minute event.
Dumas put his Porsche on the pole with a fast practice time after qualifying was rained out, and he led the race for the first hour before handing the car over to Bernhard during the first of several yellow flags. Bernhard continued to lead with Briscoe running second until the final pit stops ¿ again under yellow ¿ when Briscoe’s car received fresh tires and Bernhard stopped for fuel only.
“It was a good call by Roger Penske, as it gave Timo a quick pit stop to maintain the lead, but gave us fresh tires in case something happened and we had to battle the Acuras at the finish, ” said Briscoe, who has now won two straight races overall - Salt Lake City and Lime Rock - with Maassen. “There were no team orders, other than we better avoid running into each other, so with fresh tires and a good run on Timo down the straightaway, I was able to get by him cleanly. “
Bernhard and Dumas still lead the LMP2 points chase after six events with 107 points. They won overall at Long Beach and Houston. Maassen and Briscoe are second in the standings with 98 points.
Porsche also leads the engine manufacturers’ points over Acura, 119-86.
The American Le Mans Northeast Grand Prix will be telecast Sunday at 1 p. m. EDT on CBS.
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