Road Racing fans have a pair of excellent races to watch this Saturday: Round Six of the World Endurance Championship in Bahrain and The last race of the 2012 Grand Am Rolex season at Lime Rock.
Toyota and Audi Meet Again in Bahrain
The Six Hours of Bahrain will be Toyota’s fourth race against Audi; the German manufacturer leads 3–1 but the Japanese factory has had the faster car all season, and the last race in Sao Paulo showed it had a handle on fuel consumption as well.
The race will use Sakhir’s Endurance course, a technical 3.9-mile, 23-turn track with three long, and one very long, straightaways. Though it has a few tight corners, the track is wide and grippy and should offer some great racing.
The course might favor Toyota—the tighter corners suit the TS030’s hybrid system and the long straights give the car a chance to use its speed. Audi is bringing a pair of R18 e-tron quattros, possibly thinking the all-wheel-drive boost off the corners will outweigh the R18 Ultra’s slightly greater top speed.
Sakhir is a driver’s course, and how the drivers manage traffic and maintain momentum could make more difference than slight differences in vehicle performance.
The race starts at 9 am EST. Streaming video and Timing and Scoring can be found at www.fiawec.com/.
Rolex Championships at Lime Rock
The Grand Am Rolex season finale on Lime Rock’s tight 1.5-mile, seven-turn road course will decide a host of titles. Daytona Prototype is a tight fight for both drivers’ and team championship between Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas in the No. 01 Telmex Riley-BMW and Ryan Dalziel in the No. 8 Starworks Riley-Ford.
Dalziel trails by 13 points, and even if he wins, he needs the Telmex car to finish tenth or worse. Otherwise Pruett and Rojas will win their sixth and fourth Rolex titles, and the sixth for Telmex-Ganassi. Darren Law in the No. 5 Action Express Coyote-Chevrolet, 36 points back, will be fighting for second.
In GT, Emil Assentato and Jeff Segal in the No. 69 AIM Autosport FXDD Ferrari lead Robin Liddell’s No. 57 Stevenson Camaro by a comfortable 39 points. The Ferrari drivers seem likely to take the title, Segals’ second. If so Ferrari should win its first Rolex manufacturer’s title as well.
The race will be televised in Speed-TV starting a 3 pm EST. Live Timing and Scoring is available through Grand-Am.com.
