Last weekend, it was David Brabham's Acura that ran down the #7 Penske Porsche with 90 seconds left to score a victory at Lime Rock Park, but the roles were reversed on Saturday in Mid-Ohio, with Romain Dumas holding off the Patron Highcroft Racing car to score Porsche's fourth win in six American Le Mans Series races.
Dumas, who felt constant pressure from Brabham for the last 30 minutes of the race, could pull away from the Acura when he had an open track, but he was slowed by traffic around the course, cutting his lead to less than a second several times.
In the end the final margin of the LMP2 victory for the #7 Penske Porsche RS Spyder was just six-tenths of a second.
“These races with the Acura have been very tight since the beginning of the year,” said Dumas, who, with Timo Bernhard, has won the LMP2 class for the third year in a row. “We started the race several positions back from the leaders, but never gave, and worked our way to the front.
“The Penske crew pulled off a great pit stop near the end to give us the lead, and we ran well to the end.”
The other three Porsche RS Spyders meanwhile finished fourth, fifth, and sixth in class, with the #6 Penske Porsche of Sascha Maassen and Patrick Long running as high as second in class late in the race, but traffic entanglements allowed two Acuras to get by them and they had to settle for P4.
The #16 Dyson Racing Porsche of Guy Smith and Chris Dyson was fifth in LMP2, while the #20 Dyson Porsche of Marino Franchitti and Butch Leitzinger, which had lost a lap to the field earlier in the event, stormed back to regain its lap and finish sixth.
“The Dyson team did a fantastic job after my massive accident at Lime Rock the previous Saturday. In addition to new bodywork, our car required a new tub, nose, front splitter, left hand side floor and wiring harness and engine, which was a heck of a lot of work. Chris and I struggled for overall pace in Saturday's race but I was happy just to be at Mid-Ohio after Lime Rock,” said Smith.
