AMERICAN LE MANS SERIES NEWS - LAGUNA SECA 19 OCTOBER 2008
BEST RESULT OF THE YEAR IN CLASSIC LAGUNA SECA 4-HOURS

The Drayson-Barwell American Le Mans Series team contested the final round of the championship yesterday at the stunning Laguna Seca track in California. Its Aston Martin Vantage GT2 was in the hunt for class points from the early stages of an incident-packed race, and we were delighted that Paul Drayson and Jonny Cocker brought the car home in 8th place on the road in GT2 to score more points in the season finale. When the third-placed Porsche was excluded from the results for a technical infringement in post-race scrutineering, however, we then moved up to claim a season-best 7th position.

Having mixed it with the front-runners last time out in the Petit Le Mans classic at Road Atlanta, the team was hopeful of another strong showing at Laguna Seca. Annoyingly the pre-event practice sessions were badly interrupted by accidents and stoppages, restricting the amount of time our engineers had to dial in a set-up for the car. As usual it was a new track for Paul and Jonny to learn, and they also had precious little time to get to grips with the daunting Californian circuit. Laguna Seca has probably the biggest elevation changes of any race track in the world, with the famous ‘Corkscrew' corner at the top of the hill then plunging the cars back down the slope as if they were on a rollercoaster ride.

The team were able to make good strides forward with the car during the final practice session on Friday, however, and both Paul and Jonny put in some very competitive times. Jonny then took the car by the scruff of the neck for qualifying and posted the 10th fastest time in GT2, just over two seconds shy of the record-breaking pole position Porsche – which was nearly half a second clear of the rest.

Paul started the 4-hour ‘Race into Darkness', which then featured an extraordinary first hour with incidents occurring virtually every other lap, causing a multitude of full course yellow caution periods behind the safety car. Paul kept his cool during this frustrating period, however, and avoided any on-track incidents whilst many cars were spinning off and crashing in all of the Prototype and GT classes. The race settled down during the second hour, and great strategy and pit stops from the crew combined with superb driving performances from Paul and Jonny moved our Vantage GT2 higher and higher up the order, as we ran a strong sixth place for 1½ hours.

During the third hour of the race, Jonny reported in that he had a low battery voltage reading on the dashboard. With concerns over the battery losing more power we made the decision to switch off the inner headlights and turn off the air conditioning unit.

As the race went into its final 30 minutes in the darkness of the evening, the track conditions were treacherous with sand and gravel spread all over the circuit. Paul was now at the wheel, and unfortunately for him he had to drive at night with only half the headlight power available to him!

To make matters even more challenging Paul was also involved in a nerve-wracking dog fight with the JMB Ferrari and one of new GT2 Champion team Flying Lizards' Porsches. Despite the lack of headlights he got the car home safely and very nearly held on for seventh place. Shortly after the race we then found out that in reality we had been battling for one place higher up the order, with the exclusion of the Porsche.

This result was just rewards for our hardworking crew and drivers, and a great testament to the significant development work we have done with the Aston Martin Vantage GT2 car this year.