Corvette Racing's Oliver Gavin and Olivier Beretta led flag-to-flag for their second consecutive St. Petersburg victory in the #4 Corvette C6.R. Beretta qualified on the class pole position and never gave up his advantage as Gavin beat Jan Magnussen to the line by 4.754 seconds.
"Olivier had the harder job today," Gavin said. "I just had to keep the car in front and cruise around and keep the car out of trouble. It's been a very good weekend for Olivier and me. We were fast all weekend. We wanted to get back on our winning ways after a failure at Sebring."
That failure saw them finish eight laps behind the sister car of Johnny O'Connell and Magnussen. The Bell Motorsports Aston Martin DBR9 finished third in class but was retired after Terry Borcheller collided with the Joel Feinberg's Dodge Viper Competition Coupe.
Saturday also marked the first victory for cellulosic E85 in the American Le Mans Series as both Corvette factory cars are powered by the alternative fuel. Intersport's Lola and the Drayson-Barwell Aston Martin in GT2 also are competing on cellulosic E85.
"I think we demonstrated not only to our fellow competitors but also to the world of racing that E85R is a viable and powerful fuel," said Corvette Racing program manager Doug Fehan. "We're very pleased with how it turned out."
"The new fuel gave great performance and really good mileage," Beretta added. "It is really good for the environment too. It might not be the solution but it's a start."
Tafel Racing posted its first Series victory as Dirk Mueller and Dominik Farnbacher won in GT2. The duo stayed clean as electrical problems and contact sidelined the Risi Competizione
Ferrari F430 and the Sebring-winning Porsche from Flying Lizard Motorsports.
It was Mueller's first victory in the Series since 2000 and the first ever for Farnbacher. Mueller crossed the line by more than 13 seconds ahead of Flying Lizard's #46 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR of Johannes van Overbeek and Patrick Pilet.
