by Chris Hayes
So tense was the climax to the third round of the American Le Mans Series at Long Beach that race winner Lucas Luhr was forced to look away as his Audi team-mate and German compatriot Marco Werner seized the lead from Romain Dumas' Porsche and stormed to unexpected race victory - Audi's second consecutive triumph on a street circuit and it's first at Long Beach.
Having started from sixth position on the grid in a qualifying session which saw the LMP2 runners get the jump on Audi, Luhr catapulted his #2 Audi R10 TDI up to fourth in the early laps.
However, team-mate Werner was forced to do things in the hard way after being held up at the first round-of pit stops and feeding back onto the track in ninth.
Then in the dying laps the yellow flags were brought out for the final time and this enabled Werner, who had carved his way up to second, to fly past Romain Dumas' Porsche RS Spyder on the straight and pull away using the torque and power of the R10 TDI. The move was almost identical to the one Luhr had pulled on the Penske driver a fortnight ago at St. Petersburg to take the victory.
"I could hardly watch at it – I had to turn away from the screens," revealed Luhr after the race.
"This was fantastic. Marco and myself both felt a bit sick in the stomach so victory feels even sweeter," the three-times ALMS champion added.
Fellow countryman Marco Werner concurred that it has been a particular special result given that Audi had been outpaced all weekend by the LMP2 class runners.
"It was a fantastic race for Audi. We have been very happy after last year's result," enthused the German.
"This is what we wanted although we didn't expect it. After qualifying, we knew that it would become very hard. But it was okay. Thanks to TDI power, we have set the pace on the straights and we managed to clinch position after position so we won the race."
