After finishing a strong third at Lime Rock, the entire Highcroft Racing team was really looking forward to racing at Mid-Ohio.

The track is tough and technical as it has a lot of different corners to it. I like it a lot, as you have to drive the car like it is a qualifying lap every lap to get the times out of it. We tested there a month ago and we were well under the lap record, but we heard the Penske Porsches were as well when they tested.

First practice went really well as we were quickest. I jumped into the car with ten minutes to go and, on my last lap, I put the quickest time down. The car felt in the ballpark, but we needed to get the balance a little better. The track had picked up a lot of grip since last year, as everyone - including the IRL, who we were sharing the weekend with - were well under the lap records.

We made some changes to the car for the next practice and I went out of the pits to start the run. I got to turn three, which they call the Keyhole, and saw a Ferrari coming up behind me, so I kept left to give him room for the corner. As I turned in, I thought I would give him a little extra room and then BANG, the Ferrari lost control under braking and hit the side of the car hard, before going into the wall. I got on the radio to the team and said 'you are not going to believe this, but..!

I got out of the car, which was badly damaged, to talk with the driver to find out what the hell happened. The driver was an Italian Gianmaria Bruni.... and he said he couldn't stop and he had a problem with his brakes. Okay, I thought, that sounded all right as he hit me pretty hard, so something like that could have happened. Then I heard later he was trying to blame me - and then he said something else happened. The poor bloke had his first race in the ALMS, shunts, and then can't keep the same story. I felt for the Risi team as they have had such a bad run with damage to their beautiful Ferraris over the last two years, but I am not sure it works for them to have so many different drivers in the cars. The ALMS is not a playground, it is pretty serious environment.

We lost the morning session as a result of the incident, but the team did a great job to get the car fixed in time for the next session. This was the first bit of damage the car has ever had.... which is down to the skill of its drivers of course!

Stefan did the qualifying and he struggled with the car a bit, qualifying sixth. Losing a session is not good as the times were really close and getting the car right around here is very important.

We made some changes to the car for the race, but we still felt confident of a good showing. Stefan made a great start and was up to fourth, but he got tangled with Dindo Capello in the Audi and they went into the wall together. They both got going, but we were 40 seconds behind.

Stefan was pushing to catch back up when he got a black flag for dropping oil. He came into the pits to get it checked out and, to our dismay, there was no oil, but we had lost two laps to the leader by then...!

After that, it was a case of just pushing hard to the end of the race and see what happened. I got in and drove as if I was qualifying and was one of the fastest on the track. I got fastest lap and passed the leading Porsche and pulled away from him, so we clearly had a good race car. On the last lap of the race, the leading Porsche got the fastest lap, but it showed our pace.

It was one of those races that we could say 'What if.....'.

Elkhart Lake is next, so I am already looking forward to going to the best track in the USA.

DB