Allan McNish and Dindo Capello made it lucky 13 for Audi in California, by resisting the challenge of the lighter LMP2 Porsches to seal the 13th outright victory of the R10 TDI's 21-race career, and the Ingolstadt marque's seventh triumph from eight starts at Laguna Seca.
Having begun the four-hour race from fifth on the grid, it took McNish just 15 minutes to move to the head of the field. Despite regularly dropping back behind the Penske Porsche of Romain Dumas and Timo Bernhard during the pit-stops, the #1 Audi was always able to re-pass its rival, and a particularly thrilling last 30 minutes saw a determined Capello repeatedly defending the lead from an attacking Dumas. Though the Frenchman twice got by the Audi in traffic, Capello re-asserted his authority to take the chequered flag by a mere 0.410s in a photo-finish to the final race on the 2007 American Le Mans Series calendar.
It was very tough throughout my two-hour stint, the Italian admitted afterwards. I had little grip from the front tyres, which caused me to struggle. I was really afraid I would make a mistake because I was having to push very hard all the time I could always see the Porsche in my mirrors. Perhaps sometimes age and experience helps in these tense situations, though, and this race win is even better than the one at Road Atlanta two weeks ago.
This victory is a superb way to end the season, added McNish. We pulled a rabbit out of the hat to achieve this win. We came out on top of a hard fight against both Penske Porsches which lasted the entire four-hour duration. We always managed to get back ahead of them after the pit-stop sequences and control the race, and that was the difference in finishing first or second. I'm very proud of the entire Audi team.
