Honda Car Forum

The debut of the No. 66 Panasonic
ELS Sound de Ferran Motorsports Acura ARX-01b
gave the American Le Mans Series spectators, competitors and media a thrill
Sunday in the Utah Grand Prix at the
Miller Motorsports Park.

Led by former Indy 500 champion Gil de Ferran, the
new Acura racing effort left a strong impression in the
highly-competitive North American sports-car campaign with an overall third-place
finish as de Ferran and young
French star Simon Pagenaud put on a sensational performance.

After qualifying
second Saturday, the de Ferran team was forced to the back of the starting
grid after ex-
changing its qualifying tires for new Michelin rubber. De Ferran's spin
in qualifying left the tires unusable and the
team made the decision to start from the rear of the field.

But de Ferran,
in his first competition since October, 12, 2003, when he won an IRL race at
Texas, wasted
little time carving his way through the field to sixth by the 12th lap. After
a first-turn incident that took out Scott
Sharp in the No. 9 Patrón Highcroft Acura and Christian Fittipaldi in
the No. 26 XM Satellite Radio AGR Acura, de
Ferran avoided the mishap to take second behind the No. 15 Lowe's Fernandez
Acura of Luis Diaz at Lap 17.

Diaz was spectacular in his stint Sunday, posting
a four-second lead overall before handing off his mount
to team owner Adrian Fernandez. Fernandez' charge to the front was halted
when the No. 16 Dyson Porsche ran
into the No. 15 Lowe's Acura on Lap 46. A broken front wing hurt the Mexican's
chance for a podium finish. He
came back to place fifth overall.

Pagenaud, a past Formula Atlantic champion,
drove a sensational race from fifth to the overall lead by Lap
70. A pit stop for fuel and tires on Lap 74 put the de Ferran machine back
to fifth with 22 laps remaining. More than
a minute behind the leading Penske car, the 24-year-old French driver cut the
Penske margin to 26.8 seconds and
took third overall in the team's initial ALMS event.

Bryan Herta brought
the AGR Acura back to seventh in the LMP2 division in the XM Acura, while Long
Beach winner David Brabham finished the No. 9 Patrón Highcroft Acura
ninth in LMP2 despite a lengthy repair of
the car's rear suspension from the Turn One incident involving Sharp.

The four Acura sports-car operations will now go through a round of tests
before the next ALMS event on
Saturday, July 12, at Lime Rock Park in Lakeville, Conn. It is the fifth stop
on the 11-race tour.

Utah Grand Prix ALMS Race (LMP2)

1. Penske Porsche No. 7

2. Penske Porsche No. 6

3. DE FERRAN PANASONIC ACURA ARX-01b No. 66

5. LOWE'S FERNANDEZ ACURA ARX-01b
No. 15

7. ANDRETTI GREEN XM ACURA ARX-01b No. 26

9. PATRÓN HIGHCROFT ACURA ARX-01b
No. 9

UPCOMING ALMS RACE:

Event: Northeast Grand Prix


Track: Lime Rock Park,
Lakeville, CT (1.54 miles)

Date: Saturday, July 12, 2008
2 p.m. (EDT)

Distance: 2 hours, 45 minutes


TV: SPEED, July 12, 2 p.m. EDT

ACURA QUOTES: GIL DE FERRAN (#66
Panasonic ELS de Ferran
Motorsports Acura ARX-01b): "The Acura car was fantastic today. I
ran a little conservatively and watched the traffic pretty closely. It feels
great to get back behind the wheel again. I had to run off the racing
line several times to pass the slower cars and that was a little different
after racing open-wheel cars for so many years. The car was coming
back to me in the later stages of my stint. I was able to close up on
[Luis] Diaz before my pit stop. I told everyone that Simon was a tre-
mendous driver and he proved it today. He made up great amount of
time to close in on the Penske cars at the finish. We got a little unlucky
with the yellow flags today. but I felt great. It was my first time in a car
in nearly five years and, to finish on the podium is a
tremendous feeling."

SIMON PAGENAUD (#66 Panasonic ELS de Ferran Motorsports
Acura ARX-01b): "At
the beginning of my run, I had the
in-car radio come out and fall in my lap. So I tucked it under my seat belts
and drove like that. But the Acura was an incredi-
ble car today. It was so much fun out there. I had to get through the slower
traffic but I was able to get to the lead. That felt
great. We knew we had to pit late and I just drove as hard as I could. But
this is a great start for the de Ferran team. It was
exciting to race with a legend like Gil. I think we have a good starting
point and we'll be ready for the next race."

SCOTT SHARP (#9
Patrón Highcroft Racing Acura ARX-01b): "What
a shame. We just had a just a great car. We had a
little electrical problem at the start of the race. The car wouldn't
accelerate properly, especially coming out of the low-speed
corners. But we made a few adjustments in the cockpit, changed some switches
and we were able to get it running normally.
I slid down underneath the Dyson car on the restart. Everything was fine.
Then, all of a sudden, 'snap.' I think I had a little
help there. Then Christian [Fittipaldi] came around, and I was hoping he
was going to miss me, but he happened to hit me at
an angle that just clobbered the rear suspension. It's a real shame.
The guys have done an amazing hustle job all week. So,
even though we were relegated to just running for points, thanks to their
efforts, at least we were be able to score some."

DAVID BRABHAM (#9
Patrón Highcroft Racing Acura ARX-01b): "Obviously,
we're all disappointed today, and probably
no one more than Scott. Even though we sustained significant damage to the
rear suspension, the team burned it up getting
us back out there. At the beginning of my run, I had a problem with the rear
of the car due to the oil on Turns One and Two.
The car just felt odd, so I was very careful. But the team said we had to
push more to get to the required 70 per cent of the
race distance. The car responded beautifully and just kept getting better
and better. We were doing pretty good lap times in
the end and achieved our objective - which was to get points."

LUIS
DIAZ (#15 Lowe's Fernandez Racing Acura ARX-01b): "I have
mixed emotions today. The team gave us a great car
but this series can be very tough because you have the mix of the different
classes and the traffic. On one side, I am happy because the car was unbe-
lievable - really unbelievable. On the other, I think the team deserved
a
better result. It was not in our hands today but I am optimistic. I cannot
wait
until the next race."

ADRIAN FERNANDEZ (#15 Lowe's Fernandez Racing
Acura ARX-01b):" I think we had the car to win today. Luis proved it and I was out there
run-
ning pretty easily. Traffic in this series can be very frustrating - very
unpre-
dictable - and you just never know what is going to happen. One of the
Dyson cars went off and came back on track and suddenly just turned into
the corner in front of me. I never expected it. He was coming very slow and
when you are that slow, you don't jump onto the racing line. I was at
least
40 miles an hour quicker than him. Once we damaged the dive plane, we
had a lot of push in the car. Luis did a tremendous job. We just have to
keep doing this and one day we will get our race. It was a frustrating end."

BRYAN
HERTA (#26 XM Satellite Radio AGR Acura ARX-01b): "It was
tough to start in the back due to changing our qualifying tires, but Christian
do a great job driving the car to the front. He got us a good position early
in
the race. But when the Highcroft car spun, he couldn't avoid it and we got
some damage to our XM Acura. We finished the race with some suspen-
sion damage but, at least, we finished today. This new Acura has a lot of
potential and we'll be in the hunt very soon with the car. We just need
a
little luck to put the XM car back on the podium."

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI
(#26 XM Satellite Radio AGR Acura ARX-01b):" I got a good start and moved up to fifth in the first ten laps or so.
Then, on
the restart, I saw Scott [Sharp] spin and I tried to avoid him. But I couldn't
dodge all of the action and my car's rear hit his car. We had some damage
on the rear end, but I kept racing as best I could today. Bryan did a good
job bringing home the car. I feel badly because we have a good car and
we just can't get any luck. We can be a contender with this XM Acura."