I read that the Acura LMP2 cars that tested last week on the Homestead roadcourse were 2 full seconds a lap faster than the IRL's official test at the beginning of last year. That is going to be pretty embarrassing next year for IRL when they share 3 events with ALMS. I looked up lap times for the Mid-Ohio race: All times are 2006 unless otherwise noted.
CART(2001) Gil de Ferran 1:05.442
CART(2003) Paul Tracy 1:07.058
LMP2 Porsche Spyder Bernhard/Dumas 1:12.378 (no R10 yet)
Atlantic(2003) A.J. Allmendinger 1:15.338
Atlantic(2005 runoffs) Graham Rahal 1:16.996
Star Mazda Ryan Justice 1:18.300
Ford Riley DP Colin Braun 1:20.202
Formula BMW David Garza 1:26.430
Porsche had the ALMS pole last year, but that was against the R8. Next year P2 cars will have there times adjusted so that they are at least 7% behind the fastest P1 car in qualifying. This season the Lola has been as fast or faster than the 2001/2002 seasons mostly due to tires. So de Ferran's record is representative of the current Lola's speed. Supposedly, the Panoz will add a couple seconds to that. Speaking of the Panoz, Champ Car teams will be very eager to knock down Toyota F1's record at Laguna this spring when they test there.
Speaking of Mid-Ohio, the weekend is $50 for GA and $13 for paddock.
Loads of good pictures/stories at lmsr.net. Dyson teaming up with Howard motorsports. Cool Banner Pontiac, really cool looking black forest mustang with no decals yet.
Rahal broke the track record at MSR (CC has tested there for ~ 1 year). Pizzonia will be in GP2 next year.
Risi has a couple new Ferraris for G12.
Pirelli will not be back with Aston Martin in GT1... not good.
Roberto Moreno was at Zhuhai China showing off the Panoz... which should start being sent to teams any day now.
Paul
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