ALMS: BMW Team PTG Petit Le Mans Race Report
19 September 1999
BMW Team PTG notes: race final Petit Le Mans, Road Atlanta race six, American Le Mans Series BMW Team PTG collected a hard-fought two-three-four finish in the GT class of the 1000-mile Petit Le Mans. The #6 BMW M3 of Boris Said and Hans Stuck was second in class behind the winning #23 Porsche. The #7 M3, driven by Peter Cunningham, Brian Simo and Brian Cunningham, edged past the #10 team car in the last half-hour of the nine-hour race for third. The #10 car, with drivers Darren Law, Mark Simo and Johannes van Overbeek, finished fourth, despite losing the car's anti-lock brakes early in the race. Hans Stuck led the crowd in singing happy birthday to Boris Said on the victory podium. Hans Stuck, driver, #6 BMW M3 "Second place was the maximum we could do with our car. The Porsches are the new generation [model]. I'm sorry I couldn't make my 'brother' a birthday present by giving him a win, but second place is better than third. We fought very hard today and we took the maximum out of the car. We drove everything out of it." Boris Said, driver, #6 BMW M3 "The BMW M3 is still the ultimate driving machine. We have the Porsches on handling and braking, but at Road Atlanta you have to get down the straightaway. We have some catching up to do, but we have a new car coming next year. It's good to get out of here with second place because the Porsches were so much faster than us in practice and qualifying. But we ran a great race, we got all three cars to the finish line, the team did a great job and we didn't make any mistakes. It was a good day." Peter Cunningham, driver, #7 BMW M3 "As it turned out, I did the first stint, a middle stint and the last stint. Both Darren [Law] and I had our own complaints with what our cars were doing. They didn't have ABS, we didn't have much left of a front splitter, the power steering was going on and off and then our radio wasn't working. Other than that, we were just flying. It's only third place, but it's been a tough year and it was a fun third place, so we'll take it." Johannes van Overbeek, driver, #10 BMW M3 "The race ended up being a lot more of a challenge without ABS because the cars were developed with ABS in mind. Without it, it's not an ideal setup. It's too bad P.D. [Cunningham] snuck by us at the end, but there's not much you can do without being able to push it in the corners. But it's a good result. We finished. A lot of people didn't." Tom Milner, team owner "I'm happy with the result. I think it shows the team can do the job. It's a monumental task to take three cars and make them equally fast and bring them all to the end. Second place sometimes can be a win, too. This is really a win because we don't run as an ACO car, we run as a SPORTS CAR and all of those penalties that have been put on us have never been taken off. Despite those handicaps, the team did a great job." ###