Flying Lizard Motorsport continued its solid start to the American Le Mans Series campaign with a double podium finish in the third round of the year at Long Beach.
In a hotly-contested race, that saw the GT2 lead pack running nose to tail across the finish line, the #45 Lizard Porsche of Jorg Bergmeister and Wolf Henzler finished second, with the #46 Lizard Porsche of Johannes van Overbeek and Patrick Pilet finishing third.
In the closest ever GT2 finish in series history, the #45 finished just 0.10secs behind the winner, the #71 Tafel Racing
Ferrari, while the #46 finished just 0.33secs further back. The #44 Lizard Porsche of Seth Neiman and Lonnie Pechnik finished seventh in the 14-car GT2 field.
In the #46, van Overbeek started on the pole with the #45 in second with Bergmeister behind the wheel. Neiman in the #44 started in eighth. For the first ten minutes of the race, the top several GT2 cars ran in a close pack, with the #45, the #62 Ferrari and the #71 Ferrari all looking for an opportunity to make a breakout pass and take the lead, but all were held at bay by the #46. Over the next 15 minutes, a steady flow of prototype traffic threading through the GT2 field began to break up the pack, giving the Lizard pair some breathing space from the chasing Ferraris.
Meanwhile, the #44 Porsche was staying out of trouble until a spin sent Neiman into the tyre wall 30 minutes into the race. He was able to continue through the rest of his stint with minimal damage, turning the car over to Lonnie Pechnik.
Back at the front of the GT2 field, Bergmeister was running a slightly faster pace than van Overbeek, and the team strategists worked on a plan to let the pair change positions - a difficult challenge on a narrow track with so much traffic.
