It's been a while since the last American Le Mans Series round, all the way back to August and Detroit to be precise, so I am raring to get going again this weekend at Petit Le Mans.
The last outing, the first time in Detroit for either myself or the ALMS, was a fantastic event, it really was. Roger Penske was very much involved in upgrading the circuit and promoting the event and everything he does seems to go pretty well, doesn't it? It was the same for this event and they put on a great show.
Long Beach has a lot of tradition - it's a great circuit and a great event - but the Detroit event was pretty similar to that in terms of the track being pretty good, the location being nice and the organisation being very good. We certainly had a lot more room for the guys to put their trucks and spread the trailers wide to get all the cars in, so I think it was right up there with everyone else.
For Highcroft Racing and Acura, it was a pretty tough race in terms of getting hit several times, and losing quite a bit of front downforce with the dive planes being knocked off. We knew we weren't going to be the quickest after those episodes, so we just plugged away and ended up finishing third in our class, so we were pretty happy with that. It was great result.
LMP2 has definitely stolen the show in American Le Mans this year. When you go to the races, and watch the television coverage, the focus is on the P2 battle, especially because Audi are generally in the mix with all that at most circuits because its car is not as competitive as it is, say, at Le Mans. It's brought a lot of focus and attention onto P2, which hadn't really happened until last year, when Penske came in. They didn't have a lot of competition then, but now the competition has raised a lot and I can see it raising again in the future.
I don't know if it is the future of prototype racing, but it certainly is where the focus is at the moment. What happens in three or four years time, I'm not really sure but, at this moment, the P2 category, in the American series especially, is the big talking point.
