by Chris Hayes
Dirk Müller held his ground in a dramatic climax to the GT2 ALMS race after doggedly fending off the Porsches of Wolf Henzler and Patrick Pilet to clinch Tafel Racing's second consecutive GT2 victory.
The German found himself leading the race in the dying laps with the Flying Lizard Porsches hunting him down at a rapid rate after a daring decision from technical director Tony Dowe not to change tyres had catapulted the Tafel
Ferrari F430 GT to the front, albeit on deteriorating Michelins.
"It was pretty intense. We were relying on Dirk to really hustle the car because he didn't have new tyres. Watching the last three laps it was so gut wrenching," explained Tafel Racing's team boss Jim Tafel.
It almost went terribly wrong for the team when Müller questioned whether or not he had one more lap to complete having seen race leader Marko Werner take the chequered flag behind him.
The German stayed hard on the throttle and, having received confirmation of the need to complete a further lap, went defensive in the face of an onslaught from Wolf Henzler's Porsche 911 GT3 RSR which had been joined by pole-sitter Patrick Pilet in the sister car.
The cars were nose-to-tail the entire final lap with Müller taking the chequered flag a by a mere 0.102 seconds, the gap marking the second closest finish in the history of American Le Mans Series and the tightest in GT2.
"The Porsches were right on my tail," explained Müller after the gruelling battle was over, "I positioned myself for the last lap and then all of a sudden I saw the chequered but they told me to keep going.
"I thought 'this is going to be so close'. I mean Wolf tried everything. It wasn't just close, it wasn't just playing around it was really close. Wolf was hoping for a mistake from me, I was hoping for a mistake from him so I could get away.
