Westbrook robbed of ALMS win

Globetrotting Porsche racing addict Richard Westbrook was denied a maiden American Le Mans Series win at Mid-Ohio on Saturday.

The Londoner was leading the race in his Farnbacher Loles Racing Porsche 997 GT3-RSR when the pace car appeared to clean up some accident debris. Westbrook was called in to hand over to team mate Dirk Werner at completely the wrong time, leaving Werner one lap down and unable to recover to a better finish than fourth.

Westbrook had charged from second on the grid into the lead when he passed Jaime Melo’s Ferrari. “Me and Melo pulled away from the rest,” said Richard. “I got past him after 25 minutes and then got away from him. About an hour into the race the safety car came out when I was about three seconds in front.

“The safety car came out directly ALMS 19th July 2008 Ohio, USA behind me, so I got a full lap on everyone – it was just perfect timing. But there was a miscommunication with the team. They left me out for two laps and then brought me in just as I was about to get the wave to catch the queue up again. Then an airjack didn’t work, so we lost 30 seconds before Dirk rejoined a lap down.”

Team owner Gregory Loles admitted: “It was Christmas in Mid-Ohio and we gave it away. It was our race, and then a strategy blunder put us in a position where we were unable to deliver the potential that the cars and drivers had.” Works Porsche driver Westbrook added: “It was our race, and it was a great performance by the team in terms of pace. We’ve just got to get the little things right, because in the ALMS the competition is so strong that you’ve got no chance if anything goes wrong. There is so much ambition from within this team and we are all desperate for the first win, it’s remarkable we’re challenging regularly in our first season”

Westbrook now gets a week’s break before the next round of the FIA GT Championship, the prestigious Spa 24 Hours, which he will contest with Emmanuel Collard and Marc Lieb in his Prospeed Competition Porsche.

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