Audi wins 1-2 in Lime Rock Park

Lakeville, July 4, 2005

JJ Lehto and Marco Werner returned to the top step of the podium in the American Le Mans Series on Monday, winning the New England Grand Prix at Lime Rock Park for their third victory in four races this season. Their No. 1 Champion Racing Audi R8 survived a packed track to win at Lime Rock for the second year in a row.

Champion Racing continued its momentum following an overall victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans last month with another 1-2 ALMS finish, its third of the year. Frank Biela and Emanuele Pirro ran less than a second behind the No. 1 car for the last hour.

The race was decided when the race went green and a car could not avoid a slow Panoz at the restart, which had gear selection problem, the Pirro Audi R8 was caught in that race incident too. The No.2 Audi, at that time in the lead, drove through the pits to have the team visually check if any repair was necessary and returned on the track just after JJ Letho, with a very long yellow the Pirro/Biela Audi did not get the chance in the last laps to get the lead back. It was a very hard battle, JJ Letho even forced the No. 2 Audi onto the green.

The next race for the American Le Mans Series is the Infineon Technologies Grand Prix of Sonoma presented by Ravenswood Winery, set for 11 a.m. PDT on July 17 at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif.

Results and points

1. Marco Werner/JJ Lehto	Audi R8	165
2. Frank Biela/Emanuele Pirro	Audi R8	165
3. Olivier Beretta/Oliver Gavin	Corvette C6-R	159
4. Ron Fellows/Johnny O`Connell	Corvette C6-R	157
5. Terry Borcheller/Johnny Mowlem	Saleen S7R	156
6. Andrea Bertolini/Fabio Babini	Maserati MC12	156
7. Alex Figge/Ryan Dalziel	Corvette C5-R	155

8. Romain Dumas/Timo Bernhard

Porsche 911 GT3154

9. Jeff Bucknum/Chris McMurry

Courage C-65

154

10. Patrick Long/Jorg Bergmeister	Porsche 911 GT3153
11. van Overbeek/Jon Fogarty	Porsche 911 GT3152
12. Butch Leitzinger/James Weaver	Lola EX257 AER 151
13. Ian Baas/Randy Pobst	Porsche 911 GT3151
14. Justin Jackson/Tim Sudgen	Porsche 911 GT3150
15. Marino Franchitti/Bryan Sellers	Panoz Esperante 150
16. Ben Devlin/Gunnar Van der Steur	Lola B2K/40 AER 148
17. Seth Neiman/Lonnie Pechnik	Porsche 911 GT3148

18. Bill Auberlen/Robin Liddell

Panoz Esperante

148

19. Mike Rockenfeller/Wolf Henzler

Porsche 911 GT3141

20. Andy Wallace/Chris Dyson	Lola EX257 AER	121
21. Guy Cosmo/Jamie Bach	Courage Mazda	114
22. Michele Rugulo/Tom Weickardt	Dodge Viper	11

Positions after 4 of 10 rounds

1 Marco Werner & JJ Lehto	74
3 Emanuele Pirro & Frank Biela	64
5 James Weaver & Butch Leitzinger	62
6 Andy Wallace	61
7 Chris Dyson	58
8 Tom Kristensen	26
9 Allan McNish	22
10 Guy Smith	16
11 Tom Chilton	10
12 Hayanari Shimoda	10