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Sebring - FL (March 18th,
2006) Multimatic Motorsports Team Panoz has dominated the
opening round of 2006 American Le Mans Series, the #50
Panoz Esperante GTLM of David Brabham, Scott Maxwell and
Sebastien Bourdais winning the GT2 class in the Mobil 1
Twelve Hours of Sebring.
Despite tough challenges from the Ferrari, Porsche and BMW
opposition, the #50 Panoz Esperante led 178 of the 320
laps completed – spending seven hours and 22 minutes in
the race lead.
Two-time Champ Car World Series champion Sebastien
Bourdais battled a late-race gearbox issue as he completed
the final stint, finishing 5.365 seconds ahead of the
Porsche of Mark Lieb, Jon Fogarty and Johannes van
Overbeek.
The Ferrari 430 GT Berllinetta of Anthony Lazarro, Ralf
Kelleners and Jamie Melo finished third.
Brabham led the race for the opening 69 minutes before the
first round of pit stops. The new Ferrari loomed as the
toughest opposition for the Panoz squad as the lead
changed repeatedly during the pit stop cycle for the
opening seven and half hours of the race.
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The Panoz began to assert its authority in the late
afternoon when Bourdais passed the Ferrari after seven
hours and 36 minutes.
From that point on, the Toronto-based Multimatic Panoz
squad dominated the event – spending stints of 52, 56, 57
and 52 minutes in the lead – only losing top spot during
each round of pit stops.
Panoz veteran David Brabham spent a total of 78 laps in
the race lead, followed by Bourdais with 55 and Maxwell
with 45. The victory was Brabham's eleventh class victory
in the history of the American Le Mans Series, the second
for Maxwell and Bourdais's first.
Brabham's GT2 victory today was his third Sebring Twelve
Hour success – backing up his GT1 win with Aston Martin
from last year and the 1998 Panoz GT prototype victory.
"This is an outstanding start for this program, I am just
so proud of everybody involved," Multimatic Vice President
and Motorsports Technical Director, Larry Holt said.
"Don and Danny Panoz have entrusted us with this program
and to start the season with a victory – especially at
such a tough race like Sebring is outstanding.
"I was confident we had the speed, but the
reliability the car showed today is a real credit to our
guys on the crew. David, Scott and Sebastien did a
brilliant job all day and it feels great to be leading the
championship after the opening round.
"We had a great battle today against Porsche, Ferrari and
BMW but the Panoz Esperante again showed it is an
outstanding car both on the road and on the track."
For Multimatic, the win joins the 2000 P2 24 Hours of Le
Mans victory and the 2003 Daytona Prototype, Rolex 24 at
Daytona successes as major highlights for the Canadian
squad.
Today's Sebring success was the second ever American Le
Mans Series round victory for the Panoz Esperante and the
second Twelve Hours of Sebring class win for the brand.
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