Pagenaud And Brabham Victorious In Thriller At Long Beach
by Joe Jennings
4/17/2010

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Long Beach, Calif. - In a thrilling conclusion to a high-intensity race, Simon Pagenaud wowed the shirt-sleeved crowd with a last lap victory for his team and co-driver David Brabham. The pair expertly drove the Patron Highcroft Racing Honda Performance Development ARX-01c to the triumph.

The 67-lap race through the 1.938-mile street course in Long Beach marked the second Tequila Patron American LeMans Series event of the season.

Pagenaud claimed his sixth career ALMS victory and Brabham scored for the 20th time.

As the race neared conclusion, Pagenaud was dogging leader Adrian Fernandez, who seemed to be having difficulties. Sensing opportunity knocking, Pagenaud applied pressure and when the leader slipped, the French driver scooted by in turn 5, winning the season's shortest race by .353 seconds for the fourth closest finish in ALMS history.

"The pass (for the lead) was a hairy one," Pagenaud said of his second consecutive win at Long Beach. "I could see Adrian (Fernandez) was having issues. Until then, I was willing to settle for second and the points, but the race driver in me said to keep pressing him into making a mistake."

Brabham started the race and traded the lead with Harold Primat, who co-drives the Aston Martin Racing Lola B09 60 with Fernandez. Primat led the first 13 stanzas before Brabham got around him for 24 laps. In between, Jon Field's Intersport Lola led 24 circuits.

Forty minutes into the race, Brabham made contact with Primat, causing the latter to spin. Officials assessed Brabham with a stop-and-go penalty for avoidable contact. Said Brabham of the mishap, "I had caught up to him and when he missed the apex of a turn, I put the power down, we touched and he spun. It was very, very close, and I apologized to Primat's team."

Regarding the victory, Brabham stated, "To come back from the penalty was something special. Our pit stops were critical, and our team did a great job. It was great fight to the end."

Primat and Fernandez salvaged second place for their team.

Third went to Klaus Graf and Greg Pickett, who drove a Porsche RS Spyder to second place, nine seconds behind the victors.

Fourth overall and only other car completing 67 laps was the Dyson Racing Lola B09 86 Mazda.

In the LMP Challenge class Gunnar Jeannette and Elton Julian took the win in their Green Earth Technologies Oreca FLM09. They completed 66 laps and finished fifth overall.

Jorg Bergmeister and Patrick Long powered their Flying Lizard Porsche 911 GT3 RSR to the GT class victory, running down a pair of BMW Me's in the closing laps. "We were pushing all the way," Long said. "Everybody had fresh tires and was going very hard. At the end it was a battle of pit stops, and our new guys were spot on."

Long won his 16th ALMS race and Bergmeister claimed his 30th triumph.

The GTC class victory went to Butch Leitzinger and Juan Gonzalez, who co-drove the Alex Job Racing Porsche 911 GT3 Cup entry.





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