Saturday, December 15, 2007

Acura stepping up ALMS campaign

While Honda currently is the sole supplier to Tony G’s ‘lil ol racin’ series, the Japanese auto giant is currently upgrading its two other major racing programs, Formula 1 and the American Le Mans Series.

Obviously the verdict is still out on its beleaguered Formula 1 team’s recent signing of ex-Ferrari stalwart Ross Brawn as their new Team Principal, but hopefully Brawn can turn things around for “Jense’s” sake.

Meanwhile in the American Le Mans Series, which is a somewhat forgotten entity, as Sports cars have also been struggling along under a divided category, pitting the “High Tech” ALMS vs. the “Racin’ is rubbin’ UGLY Duckling” Grand Am Rolex series…

Andretti Green Racing has just announced the signing of ex-Formula 1 pilot Christian Fittipaldi to its 2008 American Le Mans LMP2 driver’s line-up. Fittipaldi made 40 F1 starts for back markers Arrows and Minardi before moving to Champ Car and ultimately Endurance racing. Fittipaldi has won both the Rolex 24 (Daytona 24hrs) and 24 Hours of Spa, as well as competing in the 24 Heurs du Mans. Last year he drove an Aston Martin DBR9 for Team Modena. Fittipaldi will partner Bryan “High Speed Hurdles” Herta for the 2008 season.

And Adrian Fernandez will now campaign an Acura ARX-01b chassis for his sophomore season in the ALMS LMP2 category in 2008. Fernandez joins AGR and Highcroft Racing whom campaigned the chassis this season, with AGR scoring a class victory in its debut at the 12 hours of Sebring. These moves are in hopes of getting onto equal footing with the currently dominant Porsche Spyder’s, which have been scoring multiple overall victories in the ALMS series…