Honda Car Forum

Bryan Herta had the large crowd at the Lone Star Grand Prix
on its feet Saturday evening in a wild finish on the JAGFlo Speedway road course around the
famed Astrodome and
beautiful Reliant Stadium.

The California driver just missed taking the No.
26 XM Satellite Radio Acura ARX-01a sports car
to the overall victory on the tight 1.7-mile, 10-turn track many drivers called
one of the roughest circuits
on the 12-race American Le Mans Series tour. Herta came from 27 seconds behind
to close within .450
seconds at the checkered flag and take second overall to the No. 7 Penske Porsche
driven by Timo
Bernhard and Romain Dumas.

Marino Franchitti, Dario's younger brother,
started the race in the fifth position in No. 26 Acura
and fought through some heavy traffic to hand over the Andretti Green Racing
machine to Herta on lap
58. Herta quickly diced his way to the front of the field and raced wheel-to-wheel
with both Penske Por-
sches and the No. 1 Audi driven by Rinaldo Capelli.

The only full-course yellow
period came out on lap 111 and Herta drove into the pits for a fuel
stop only. Unlike the Porsche and Audi teams, Herta's crew did not add
four new Michelin tires. At the
restart, Herta drove in and out of traffic to close from a 3.7-second advantage
by Bernhard to less than a
second. The Houston crowd was standing and yelling for Herta to take the lead.

With one lap remaining in the two-hour, 45-minute race, Herta took his car
to the rear of the No.
7 Porsche driven by Bernhard, but he had to settle for the runner-up spot at
the checkered flag.

Pole sitter David Brabham was impressive in the No. 9 Highcroft Acura ARX-01a
and raced with
the leaders in the first hour of competition. A strange incident on the driver
exchange between Brabham
and Stefan Johansson knocked out the fuel system for over a minute and the
team had to settle for fifth
overall, fourth in the LMP2 class.

The No. 15 Lowe's Fernandez Acura
Lola, with drivers
Adrian Fernandez and Luis Diaz, started seventh and finished sev-
enth. The
Lowe's car never
handled well on
the bumpy Hous-
ton track but col-
lected valuable
points Saturday.

Lone Star Grand Prix Alms

LMP2 Class (TV, CBS-TV, April 29, 1-3 p.m.)

1. Penske Porsche No. 7

2. ANDRETTI GREEN ACURA ARX-01a No. 26

3. Penske Porsche No. 6

4. HIGHCROFT RACING ACURA ARX-01a No.


7. LOWE's FERNANDEZ ACURA Lola No. 15

Upcoming: Utah Grand Prix

Date: May 18-19, 2007

Location: Miller Motorsports
park

Track Type: 4.5-mile, 24-turn road circuit

Race: Round 5 of 12 Races,
5 p.m. American Le Mans Series

Distance: 2 hour, 45 minutes

Acura Quotes:

BRYAN HERTA (#26 XM Satellite Radio AGR Acura ARX-
01a): "That was lot of work out there. I was able to get close
to the Porsche (No. 7) for the lead. But getting close and
passing are two different things. The XM Acura was a very
good car today. We didn't change tires on the last pit stop
and the hot tires picked up some rubber on the yellow flag
laps. So I wasn't able to get a good restart. Finally when
the tires came back in, we had a rocket ship. The Michelins
had a lot of life left in them. The car was fast and we raced right to the
front. We fought our way back from starting
fifth and Marino had a lot of traffic to deal with early in the race. He did
a good job to get through the lapped cars.
Today's race was a good one for the XM Acura team. They knew we were
here in Houston."

MARINO FRANCHITTI (#26 XM Satellite Radio AGR Acura ARX-01a): "Our XM
car was fantastic today. It was
much better on our own rather than in traffic. But the Acura felt very good.
The grip level of the track was better but
the track is still very bumpy. You get knocked around inside the car so much
here. It is so physical on a driver.
The traffic didn't flow very good for me out there. I was right there
when the No. 61 spun and then with one of the
Panoz cars. I was able to get a rhythm in the middle of the stint and I was
able get back up towards the leaders.
Now we want to get Bryan [Herta] in position to race for the top position.
I think Bryan might have something for the
Porsches and Audis. Bryan ran a great race today. The XM machine was so good
all day and Bryan got into posi-
tion to race the Porsche heads up. The Porsches are fast on the straight but
our car really handles well. This is a
good race for our team as we lead into the summer months of racing."

DAVID BRABHAM (#9 Highcroft Racing Acura ARX-01a): "I couldn't
hold off Allan [McNish] at the start. He just
powered by me. For some reason, it takes us some time to get our tires up to
temperature. So we lost a little time
to the Audis and the Porsches. But I was pleased with the car when we got in
rhythm. The car was very consistent
and it felt good. Of course, this track is pretty bumpy and that unsettles
the car in the corner. Is it amazing that we
don't have any caution periods in the first half of the race? We usually
have a couple full course yellows. It is
strange on a circuit like this one. I couldn't figure out happened with
the car when I pitted. Everything was okay.
But something shut off in the driver exchange with Stefan and myself. I haven't
seen that happen before. It is easy
to do when you are trying switch drivers and buckle the belts. But that was
a shame because the car was good."

STEFAN JOHANSSON (#9 Highcroft Racing Acura ARX-01a): "It was very weird
on our pit stop. Somehow
when David jumped out of the car or when I jumped in or when they handed me
the drink bottle, we hit the fuel sys-
tem shutoff. So I tried to start the car and nothing happened. Then we finally
figured it out but we lost a lot of time.
David ran well, in the top three for his stint.
Our Acura was really good. It handled the
bumpy track well. We lost that lap and we
couldn't get it back. We were close but had
to settle for fifth overall, fourth in class. We
got some more points. That was good."

LUIS DIAZ: (#15 Lowe's Fernandez Acura
Lola B06/40): "The Lowe's Acura felt pretty
good in the early stages of the race. But I
was behind the Dyson car [No. 20] for so
long and he [Chris Dyson] seemed like he
was blocking me. We lost a lot of time fol-
lowing that car. I know he was blocking
Marino [Franchitti] too. Once I got by the
Dyson car, we were able to pull out and run
some good laps. I thought Adrian
[Fernandez] might get the car in contention."

ADRIAN FERNANDEZ (#15 Lowe's Fer-
nandez Acura Lola B06/40): "We just didn't
have the car today. When we run on bumpy
tracks the car slides around and we can't get
any grip. This car is made for the smooth
and fast circuit in Europe and we knew that
coming in. We have to continue to develop
the Lola for the American tracks. We are
going to smooth tracks now and I feel good
about our chances in the next couple of
races. It was just a tough race for us today."