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ALMS: BMW in the Penultimate Race of the American Le Mans Series

5 October 1999

A Score to Settle in Laguna Seca


Munich. "One of the most difficult but beautiful race tracks" is how
BMW driver JJ Lehto describes the Laguna Seca Raceway in
Monterey, California. On Sunday, October 10, the Finn will be
taking turns at the wheel of the BMW V12 Le Mans Roadster with
his English colleague Steve Soper in the 7th and penultimate race
of the American Le Mans Series (ALMS). BMW's second open
sportscar will be driven by Bill Auberlen (USA) and Joachim
Winkelhock (Ger) in this 2-hour 45-minute race.

Featuring 11 bends, this 3.6-km race track winds its way through
the hilly countryside two hours by car from San Francisco. The
most famous combination of bends is Corkscrew, where the cars
literally fly over a crest, then taking a hard left immediately followed
by a right turn before roaring on down a steep slope.

In 1997 Lehto and Soper were hot contenders for the FIA GT
Championship in Laguna Seca, but then had to retire and finished
the season in second place. "So with this in mind", says Charly
Lamm, BMW's Team Manager back then and today, "we still have
a score to settle here." And in the words of Motorsport Director
Gerhard Berger: "Since we just missed victory in Atlanta last
month, we are here to win this time."

So far BMW has scored two wins in four ALMS races. At the
recent 1,000 mile race in Atlanta, Auberlen, Soper and Winkelhock
finished second ahead of Lehto and J”rg Mller.  Bill Auberlen has
fond memories not just of Atlanta, but also of Laguna Seca where,
in 1998, he scored the first victory for BMW's V8 racing engine,
which was still new at the time.

BMW Team PTG ranked No 1 in the GT Class

With Hans-Joachim Stuck and his team-mate Boris Said finishing
second in Atlanta, BMW Team PTG is currently No 1 in the ranking
of GT Class teams, where Tom Milner's team is competing with
three BMW M3s as the defending champion.

Race Time: 12:00 noon until 2:45.