In a repeat of the drama filled finish to the Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta, Dindo Capello held off the challenge of Romain Dumas to give Audi victory in the final round of the American Le Mans Series season at Laguna Seca.
After a battle through the closing half hour of the race, Capello held on to secure victory over the LMP2 Penske Porsche by just four tenths of a second, with the second Audi of Mike Rockenfeller and Marco Werner.
Capello and Dumas waged back and forth in the final stages in an unbelievable battle for the final win of the year. Capello took the lead on the fifth restart of the race, and the duo traded the lead on the front-stretch with 12 minutes to go with Capello using the torque and power of the Audi to pull away and holding off the more nimble LMP2 Porsche – taking what was a record-breaking ninth LMP1 win of the season.
"I would rate this race as even better than Petit," the Italian said. "At least there we had an advantage on the long straight, which we don't have here. It was not easy in the last 15 minutes and it only got harder. Every lap I could have been overtaken. I tried to brake as late as possible but not too late so as to not make a mistake."
Dumas and Timo Bernhard won their eighth P2 race and sixth straight to close the season. Having wrapped up the class championship at Road Atlanta, they won P2 by 21.503 seconds over the sister car of Ryan Briscoe and Sascha Maassen which came home fourth overall.
"It was a great race," Dumas reflected. "Atlanta was a little bit disappointing because the safety car killed my gap back to the Audi. But tonight it was just a great race. I pushed my best and I think we overtook so many times. It was all the time fair and I didn't want to have an accident or contact. We won the class and that was the target."
Fifth went to the Lowe's Fernandez Acura of Luis Diaz and Adrian Fernandez with Bryan Herta and Tony Kanaan sixth for AGR. Seventh placed Guy Smith and Chris Dyson were the final cars running on the lead lap at the finish.
![Audi star Allan McNish puts the R10 TDI he shares with Dindo Capello through its paces in qualifying for the 2007 ALMS finale at Laguna Seca [pic credit: Audi Communication Motorsport]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/391924.jpg)
