Johnny Herbert and JJ Lehto scored their third American Le Mans Series win of the season by driving the ADT Champion Racing Audi R8 to victory in the Grand Prix Americas presented by
Sportsbook.com on the streets of downtown Miami.
The win, while valuable for the Finn's championship chances, was extra sweet for Champion team owner Dave Maraj, who bases the team in nearby Pompano Beach, and for team sponsor ADT, also headquartered in the Miami area.
"The track was very slippery at the start, but I didn't have any real problems," Lehto said, "It's been a perfect
weekend for Team ADT Champion Racing. We started from
outright pole for the first time this season, won
our 'local' race, set the fastest race lap and have moved
closer in the championship. We were on the pace from the
start and deserved our third win of the season - perfect!"
The winning car finished 40.642secs ahead of the Infineon Team Joest Audi R8 of Frank Biela and Marco Werner although, with their second-place finish, the two Germans moved closer to winning the LMP 900 title. Only Lehto has any chance of unseating them in the season-ending Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta next month, but must win that race too.
The first and second-place cars ran the two-hour, 45-minute race on one fuel stop, each planning its race strategy on the high likelihood of numerous yellow flag laps on the tight 1.15-mile street circuit. In the end, only 36 of the 157 race laps were run under caution, but the yellows were spaced far enough apart for the strategies to work.
"We did plan it that way, and it worked in our favour," said Herbert, who drove nearly two hours of the race, "We still had to save fuel in the last part of the race, so we had to back off a bit. That saved so much fuel that we could finish. It was perfect for us. We had some fuel in the end - I got the final warning light about one lap from the finish.
![JJ Lehto vaults his ADT Champion Audi R8 over a bump on the Miami street circuit [pic credit: ALMS/Rick Dole]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/65860.jpg )
