Lola LMP cars celebrated more wins at the latest round of the 2011 American Le Mans Series at Road America in Wisconsin last weekend. The Muscle Milk Racing Lola-Aston Martin team finished just 0.112 ahead of the #16 Dyson Racing Lola-Mazda in the closest ever ALMS finish. In a thrilling end to the four hour race, Klaus Graf held off a charging Guy Smith to head home an impressive Lola 1-2-3, with the Autocon Lola-AER 3rd in LMP1 to round out a clean sweep of the podium.

Summing up the superb performance by Lola LMP products at the weekend, Stephen Charsley, Vice-President of Lola Cars North America said: "All of our entries had terrific races today. The finish of the race was one of the best in IMSA history and certainly the closest, very exciting. The Lola's were racing hard and fair and it is a credit to all the teams and drivers that they once again produced outstanding performances. It was great to see the clean hard racing and the reliability and performance of our cars once again second to none. Everyone of our Lola teams are doing a tremendous job with their car preparation, thank you to them as the results are shining through."

Earlier in the event, the Oryx Racing Lola-Mazda, run by Dyson Racing, led the race convincingly with Steven Kane doing a fantastic job to overtake Lucas Luhr in the Lola Aston Martin. The Mazda powered Lola of Kane led until just after the hour when a lengthy pit stop and an accident for Kane's team mate, Humaid Al Masaood ended the Oryx Racing Lola-Mazda's race. Greg Pickett, team principal for the MuscleMilk team commented that, “Steven Kane is a very exciting driver and is proving to be a welcome addition to the ALMS series."

Racing into the final stages, Smith caught Graf and on many occasions looked to make a move for the lead, even taking to the grass on a few occasions. However, Graf held on to take the chequered flag but was delighted with the way his Huntingdon designed and constructed LMP car had performed. “The Lola was awesome at the end,” recounted Smith. “The last set of Dunlop tyres were fantastic. A couple of times Klaus would get really good breaks in traffic and we would drop five or six seconds back but I kept charging and would catch up again, only to have to repeat it again as we went through traffic. I am disappointed because it was so close, but it shows that even after four hours of hard racing, how strong the Lola-Mazda is.” Also tasting champagne on the podium in LMP1 was Autocon, with Tony Burgess and Chris McMurray having their best race of the year to take a comfortable 3rd in LMP1.

Finishing in 5th place overall and taking the LMP2 victory was Level 5 Motorsports with Scott Tucker, Luis Diaz and Christophe Bouchut enjoying a trouble free race with the open cockpit Lola B11/40-HPD.

Lola will be in action next at the Baltimore Grand Prix on September 3rd.

Results

Pos Cl Drivers Team/Car Time/Gap
1. P1 Luhr/Graf Muscle Milk Lola-Aston 4h01m47.255s
2. P1 Dyson/Smith Dyson Lola-Mazda + 0.112s
3. PC Junco/Leitzinger PR1 Mathiasen FLM + 3 laps
4. PC Lux/Zugel/Julian Genoa FLM + 3 laps
5. P2 Tucker/Bouchut/Diaz Level 5 Lola-Honda + 4 laps
6. PC Bennett/Montecalvo CORE FLM + 4 laps
7. P1 Burgess/McMurry Autocon Lola-AER + 4 laps
8. PC Field/Ducote/Ducote Intersport FLM + 5 laps
9. PC Jeannette/Gonzalez CORE FLM + 5 laps
10. GT Melo/Vilander Risi Ferrari + 6 laps
11. GT Auberlen/Werner BMW + 6 laps
12. GT Muller/Hand BMW + 6 laps
13. GT Bergmeister/Long Flying Lizard Porsche + 6 laps
14. GT Gavin/Magnussen Corvette + 6 laps
15. GT Henzler/Sellers Falken Porsche + 6 laps
16. PC Nicolosi/Boon/Marcelli Performance Tech FLM + 6 laps
17. GT Miller/Maassen Miller Porsche + 6 laps
18. GT Sharp/van Overbeek Extreme Speed Ferrari + 6 laps
19. GT Neiman/Holzer Flying Lizard Porsche + 7 laps
20. GT Murry/Lazzaro Robertson Doran Ford + 7 laps
21. GT Brown/Cosmo Extreme Speed Ferrari + 7 laps
22. GT Robertson/Snow Robertson Doran Ford + 10 laps
23. GTC Pappas/Bleekemolen Black Swan Porsche + 11 laps
24. GTC Ende/Pumpelly TRG Porsche + 11 laps
25. GTC Edwards/Kauffmann/Cisneros NGT Porsche + 11 laps
26. GTC Sofronas/Welch GMG Porsche + 12 laps
27. GTC LeSaffre/van Lagen Black Swan Porsche + 14 laps
28. GTC von Moltke/di Guida TRG Porsche + 15 laps
29. GTC Hansson/Farnbacher Napleton Porsche + 16 laps

Retirements:

PC Field/French/Marsal Intersport FLM 89 laps
GT Jones/Moran RSR Jaguar 83 laps
GT Beretta/Milner Corvette 77 laps
P1 Al Masaood/Kane Dyson Lola-Mazda 62 laps
GTC Ham/Thompson Porsche 60 laps
GT Junqueira/Wilden RSR Jaguar 9 laps
GTC Sweedler/Wong Porsche 2 laps

All pictures americanlemans.com.