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| Long Beach Preview Notes: Allan McNish |
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Double American Le Mans Series champion Allan McNish contests the third round of this year's series in Long Beach on Saturday (14 Apr) aiming to take the championship lead.
McNish, 37, unexpectedly swept his diesel-powered Audi R10 TDI to victory in the previous race at St Petersburg (Florida) along with co-driver Dindo Capello, of Italy, last month (31 Mar).
Audi's 10th win for the R10 TDI was not predicted because the race, like the forthcoming one at Long Beach in Los Angeles, was staged on a temporary street circuit.
After our victory at St Petersburg, we will start the Long Beach race with a slightly different perspective, confirmed 2000 & '06 ALMS champion McNish.
We now know that we can adapt the R10 TDI, designed primarily for the long, fast straights at Le Mans, for the tight, slower street circuits. However, we also know that the smaller and lighter LM P2 category cars like the Porsche and Acura Hondas will be very competitive on the Long Beach street track and will be a thorn in our sides.
The Porsche Spyder's race pace in St Petersburg, including setting the outright fastest race lap, proved their potential on this type of track. But I believe we now have more understanding of what we need to do with our car to achieve a top result at Long Beach.
The 12-race ALMS championship is visiting the waterside 1.968-mile Long Beach track for the first time but unusually the sportscar endurance race featuring four classes of car, lasts just 100 minutes.
Allan added: An ALMS race normally lasts 165 minutes with two or three races of longer duration but this will be the shortest race distance in the championship's short history and this will also be a major factor.
It throws in so many variables which no one has ever previously faced. It means the team and drivers will need to adapt to this sprint' race and think on their feet a lot more to take advantage of all situations as they arise at anytime during the race which could easily effect fuel strategies.
St Petersburg used closed public roads for its temporary race track as does Long Beach but the configurations will be quite different. Long Beach features a long straight but it's also bumpy, an aspect we didn't experience in St Petersburg. This in itself could play a major influence in terms of car set-up and tyre choice.
McNish will take to the race track for the very first time on Friday with just one 45mins practice session before handing over the Audi to Capello whose turn it is to qualify later that day.
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