Bill Auberlen and Dirk Werner in the #25 BMW Team RLL Z4 GTLM won their class in the dramatic 100-minute Tudor United SportsCar Championship race at Long Beach. Their teammates Lucas Luhr and John Edwards finished fifth.
Auberlen started the #25 car from the pole with a record 1:17.26 minute lap. It was his first pole since the Baltimore street race in 2013 and the first for the team since Road America in 2014, when John Edwards put the #56 Z4 on the pole. Edwards started second on the grid at Long Beach in the #24 Z4.
Giancarlo Fisichella, who started third in the Risi Competizione Ferrari 458 Italia, found his way by both BMWs at the start and took a lead that he held for the rest of his stint. When Auberlen came in to hand over to Werner the #25 car lost time because of a fueling problem. As a result, Pierre Kaffer, who took over the Ferrari, was able to pull away. Luhr moved up to second in #24, and Werner fell back. But the #25 car recovered, and the Ferrari’s handling went away, possibly as the result of brake problems. Werner regained the lead with about eleven minutes remaining and held on for the win.
Luhr, whose car developed brake problems, went off and fell back to fifth. The Corvette of Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia finished third and the #911 Porsche driven by Patrick Pilet and Frederick Makiowiecki finished fourth.
It was BMW’s third win at Long Beach; in 2013 Auberlen and Maxime Martin won in the first year of the Z4 program. It was also the team's first win since the 2013 Lime Rock race.
Auberlen said, “This is a special win as it has been a long time for our team. On top of that it is my home race. Between Dirk and myself we pretty much checked off every box this weekend. We won, we had pole and the lap record in qualifying and Dirk brought it home with the win and a new lap record in the race. You can’t do much better than that. When it came to the race the extent of my lead was on the pace lap. I wanted to get a really strong jump off the hairpin but Fisichella in the Ferrari passed John Edwards in the sister car and then it went by me. I was thinking there was nothing I could do. I then just hunted him down and stayed with him and we were really close. He made no mistakes and I was waiting for one. So then we went off strategy as when he stayed out I came in and we had a little issue in the pits with a long fueling. We saw our lead go away, but you never give up in racing and Dirk proved that with his stint."
TUSC competition resumes at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca on May 3.—Brian S. Morgan
