June 27, 2011 – Back from the 24 Heures du Mans and a sixth place GTE Pro class finish for the No. 80 Porsche, Flying Lizard returns to their North American racing season at the Northeast Grand Prix on July 9. The driver lineup is Joerg Bergmeister and Patrick Long in the No. 45 Porsche and Seth Neiman and Marco Holzer in the No. 44. (Holzer will trade-off with Darren Law as Neiman’s co-driver for the remainder of the ALMS season in the No. 44.)

It has been a challenging start to the ALMS season for the Lizards. At Sebring, the No. 45 finished sixth and the No. 44 seventh. At Long Beach, the No. 44 finished eighth but the No. 45 was retired following an early-race accident (the No. 45 was in the lead at the time). Heading into the third of nine ALMS races, Bergmeister and Long are tenth in the drivers’ championship; Law and Neiman are ninth and Holzer is eleventh. Flying Lizard is fourth in the team championship.

Flying Lizard chief strategist Thomas Blam gave his perspective, “We aren’t where we’d like to be in the standings, but we’ve been through rough season starts like this in the past; we have to keep focused on the big picture and create our own momentum at this point.”

He explained, “We’ve had our one DNF for the season; we can’t afford anything outside of a top five GT finish from here on out. BMW has won the first two races and has a large points lead. Historically we’ve been very strong at Lime Rock: Joerg has won here with the Lizards four years in a row, the last two with Patrick, who was on the pole in 2010. We need to keep the Lime Rock streak going and build from there. There are six races to go, including three long races (Road America, Laguna Seca, and Petit) – a lot can still happen.”

Follow the Race
The Northeast Grand Prix will get the green flag at 2:05 pm ET on Saturday July 9. The race will be broadcast on ESPN2 on Sunday July 10, starting at 1 pm ET. Qualifying and the race will be broadcast live on ESPN3.com. The race will also be broadcast live on MotorsTV in Europe and Fox in the Middle East and Latin America. Flying Lizard will broadcast the team radio live during the race; read the team race blog for frequent team updates at www.lizardms.com

About Flying Lizard Motorsports
Flying Lizard Motorsports has competed in the American Le Mans Series GT class since 2004. The team has finished in the top three in the ALMS GT drivers’ and team championships every year since 2004. In 2010, Flying Lizard No. 45 drivers Joerg Bergmeister and Patrick Long won a hard-fought battle for the GT drivers’ championship. In 2009 and 2008, the team swept all ALMS GT titles: drivers’ championship (Bergmeister and Long in 2009, Bergmeister and Wolf Henzler in 2008); Flying Lizard won the team championship; and Porsche won the manufacturer championship. In 2009, the Flying Lizard No. 44 Porsche also won the Michelin Green X Challenge championship.

Flying Lizard has also competed in the 24 Heures du Mans from 2005 through 2011, finishing third in 2005, fourth in 2006, sixth in 2008, and sixth in 2011.

The team is sponsored in the ALMS by Openwave Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: OPWV), a global software innovator delivering context-aware mediation and messaging solutions for communication service providers and eSilicon, a semiconductor company.

Visit the team website at www.lizardms.com. For the latest team racing apparel and Porsche gear visit the Flying Lizard stores online and in the paddock. The privateer team is based in Sonoma, California.

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