- Street circuit, 2nd of three in 2008
- 1 hour 40 minutes: shortest race of year
- 1-stop race possible
- Tight turns, no run off, few passing opps
- Narrow point spread in championships
- Porsches strong pace at Sebring, St. Pete (Pole -- Henzler, No. 45)
Patrick Long and Darren Law: 2007
Race Dynamics
- Thursday test day, addition practice time helpful
- Pechnik, Neiman Pilet -- first race here
- Pit strategy on street circuits
- Lizards leading in championship, but narrow margin
"One street course down, two to go. Long Beach is the shortest race we have this year and, and like St. Pete, is on a temporary circuit. From a strategy perpective, it's possible to have a one stop race: if all goes smoothly we stop once for tires and fuel and that's it. Just like St. Pete, there is absolutely zero room for error at Long Beach. Plus we have a very large field of prototypes this year, who need room to pass, and a lot of new players in GT2 who are grappling with street circuits for the first time. We saw what that can mean at St. Pete, in which 20% of the starting cars didn't finish the race.
So far this year, we've been pleased with the pace of the Porsches: the pole at St. Pete by Wolf Henzler in the No. 45 was a good example of how strong the cars can be. In 2007, we did well here in the No. 44 Porsche - Darren Law and Patrick Long finished second - and we expect to see the Porsches overall perform well here again this year."
Johannes van Overbeek, driver No. 46 Porsche
"At Long Beach, several factors come together: the field is close in
championship points; the race is really short; and the circuit is narrow
with no run off area. Combine that intensity with the pace of these cars,
and the desire of each driver to be at the front as early as possible and
you have a very challening situation. Racing on a street circuit requires a
cooperative effort from all drivers in all classes: if anyone gets it wrong,
the consequences are so high. The key is to get to the right mix of
aggressiveness so you don't get run over, and patience so you can navigate
traffic and get safely around the track."
Eric Ingraham, Team Manager and Strategist, No. 46 Porsche
"At Long Beach we a test day on Thursday and 1 more hour of practice time
than we had at St. Pete. That will definitely help with setup. Long Beach is
a slightly longer course than St. Pete and has a hairpin turn and some
sections with some good bumps in them. So what we learned at Sebring and St.
Pete in terms of setup should apply here. Lonnie, Seth, and Patrick haven't
driven here yet so Thursday's test day will be really helpful.
In terms of pit strategy, there are two things which make street courses difficult: 1)the relative difficulty of passing and 2) the length of the lap, especially with regards to pit strategy. With regards to passing, it's critical to decide on changing tires and what it will cost in terms of track position and whether or not you can make up positions if you spend time in the pits. With regards to the length of the lap, you can go one lap down at a short track with one green flag pit stop, so stopping under yellow makes a lot more sense. There are also a few things at Long Beach which are unusual: the way that the pits are set up, we cannot see the pit entry from our pit stalls and it's a very long pit lane so that means that stopping under green has a larger time implication than normal.
This is our third race of the season. Each car so far has had its share of challenges - the No. 46 at Sebring (hour long pit stop for repairs); the No. 45 at St. Pete (finishing the race in the pits). We are leading right now in the team championship, but by a small margin, just 6 points over Tafel. With such a competitive field, consistently high finishes are the only way to pull out a championship. It's really still wide open at this point."