Lola sports cars achieved more strong results at last weekend’s Utah Grand Prix at Miller Motorsports Park near Salt Lake City. Drayson Racing finished a close second place in the 4th round of the American Le Mans Series after leading a third of the 2hr45mins race. The green Drayson Racing Lola Judd also took the fastest race lap and the Michelin® Green X® Challenge which was a major objective for the environmentally aware team.
After securing a well earned 2nd place on the starting grid, young British talent Jonny Cocker captured the lead after 30 minutes, soon extending the lead to over half a minute with some excellent laps in the Lola designed and built LMP racer. Pitting just before the one hour mark, Cocker handed over to Emanuele Pirro who was deputising for the injured Paul Drayson for the weekend.
Pirro also led for a time, setting the overall fastest race lap of 1m36.291s before taking the chequered flag to score the teams best ever ALMS result.
"The Drayson Lola-Judd was really good,” said Jonny Cocker after the race.”No doubt that the car was capable. At the start we just bided our time really and I managed to get by for the lead in turn-five. I was able to pull a 20-second gap but we lost our advantage when the safety car came out and we gave back all we were able to manage on that first stint. Everyone at Drayson Racing did a great job and we really deserve this second-place."
Finishing in 4th place was the Intersport Racing team in their Lola-AER. The Ohio-based team enjoyed a familiar flying start to the race with Jon Field sprinting up from 5th on the grid to take the lead in to the first corner, making it a Lola 1-2-3-4 (Intersport, Drayson, Dyson, Autocon) on the opening lap. The father and son partnership of Jon and Clint Field eventually crossed the finishing line in 4th place to score their best result of the season so far.
Dyson Racing showed once again that they are potential winners in the ALMS with another strong display. Qualifying 3rd, Chris Dyson started the event well and the new Castrol liveried Lola was in a solid third position when he handed over the car to Guy Smith. Frustratingly for the team, the Mazda powered Lola stopped on track with 30mins to go whilst running in 4th place.
Autocon Motorsports finished 5th in the LMP division to claim more points in their AER powered Lola B06/10. Tony Burgess and Bryan Willman once again shared the driving duties and ran as high as 4th in the opening exchanges.
The next race on Lola’s global sports car schedule is the third round of the 2010 Le Mans Series at Portimao in the Algarve this weekend. Lola will be aiming to retain both the LMP1 and LMP2 constructor crowns that it won in 2009.
