Here is a content recap of the eighth round of the 2010 American Le Mans Series season, the Grand Prix of Mosport from Mosport International Raceway in Bowmanville, Ontario, Canada, from the MichelinAlley.com staff.

SUNDAY

LMP – Muscle Milk Porsche and Michelin Master Mosport

GT – Flying Lizard Porsche, Risi Ferrari Secure Michelin 1-2 at Mosport

Mosport – Live Race Blog

Mosport Race Day – Pre-Grid

Salute to “MO-Sport”

Tire Insider – Dijyano – Mosport

SATURDAY

Graf Muscles to Mosport Pole With Michelin

Bruni, Bergmeister Lead Michelin 1-2 in GT Qualifying

FLASH-Risi Double Whammy

Heating Up

Home Game (Almost)

Lizard’s Leap

Saturday Morning Update

Corvette Switcheroo

FRIDAY

Fleet Ferrari Friday

Dumas Tops Friday Test

Century Mark For Brabham

Highcroft Aims To Get Back On Top In Mosport (LMP Preview)

Still Anyone’s Title Heading Into Mosport (GT Preview)

Brabs Joins The 100 Club (from The Alley)

Kyle Marcelli On The Rise

Although Sunday’s eighth round of the 2010 American Le Mans Series season at Mosport did not run to its scheduled time of two hours and 45 minutes, there was no doubt the dominant team on the weekend got the win.

The Muscle Milk Team CytoSport Porsche RS Spyder paced every practice session, qualified on pole, and led every lap of the 99 completed at Mosport en route to their third win of the season. Klaus Graf and Romain Dumas, the ace substitute for injured team owner and Graf’s usual co-driver Greg Pickett, had the measure of the field from the drop of the green flag.

“This car had a really balanced package,” Graf said. “It has been developed a lot over the years, it’s probably one of the best sports cars ever built. With this track you really have to work hard to find the right balance. I think we’re learning a lot more, with the Porsche engineers, and the Michelin engineers, we get closer every race. And then to bring in the factory drivers, and someone like Romain, we get even that much closer.”

Graf was in the lead when a red flag for an accident involving Luke Hines in the ORBIT/Paul Miller Racing Porsche GT3 Cup in the GTC class caused severe damage to the guardrail on the backstraight. Series and track officials worked to repair the broken sections, but it was later determined the repairs could not be completed in a reasonable amount of time. The field resumed under one more lap of yellow flag conditions and took the checkered flag with two hours, 19 minutes complete in the race.

Graf is now 16 points behind Patron Highcroft HPD’s Simon Pagenaud and David Brabham heading into the final round of the season, Petit Le Mans, in October. A maximum of 30 points are available for the winners at the 10-hour or 1,000-mile event (whichever comes first).

Brabham, celebrating his 100th ALMS start, did not end it on the top step of the podium but still finished second with Pagenaud. Pagenaud, despite the CytoSport Porsche’s pace all weekend, did a great job during the middle stint of the race to stay on the lead lap while Graf was not far behind. The result ensured a Michelin 1-2 overall.

Highcroft also took the win in the MICHELIN® GREEN X® Challenge for prototypes, the team’s third triumph this season in the “race within a race” that measures who went the fastest, furthest and with the least environmental impact.

Delighting the local fans with third overall and in class was Tony Burgess, a Toronto native, with Johnny Mowlem in the Autocon Lola. Each were the respective best results of the season for the California-based privateer team.

Drayson Racing finished an unrepresentative fourth, though Jonny Cocker put in some sterling lap times including the fastest lap of the race.

In LMPC, Gunnar Jeannette moved into the class points lead with his fourth win this season (third in the last four races). Jeannette has shared the car with Elton Julian on each occasion. It has been a remarkable year for the Green Earth Team Gunnar car, as it is still running on its first Chevrolet engine in the Oreca FLM09 that was mounted in the car when the team first got it.

“We are up to 83.5 hours on the engine at the completion of this race,” Jeannette said. “I was happy we didn’t have to do another 29 minutes on it.”

Unofficially, Jeannette leads Scott Tucker (Level 5 Motorsports) by six points. Tucker and Christophe Bouchut finished second in the race with Genoa Racing recording its first podium since Monterey in May courtesy of young Frankie Montecalvo and Christian Zugel.

Michelin didn’t only go 1-2 overall and in prototypes at Mosport, but they also accomplished the feat in the highly competitive GT class for the third time this season. Flying Lizard Porsche led home Risi Ferrari on the day.

Joerg Bergmeister and Patrick Long secured their class-leading fourth win in eight races this season. They trailed the No. 92 Rahal Letterman BMW during the middle portion of the race, but took the lead just before the eventual final pit stop and race-ending accident.

The team exited the pit lane after the final round of stops ahead of the No. 62 Risi Ferrari. It became the winning position as soon as the race was red-flagged, then checkered, after a severe accident on the backstraight.

“Even if we went green again I knew we might be able to hold them off,” Bergmeister said. “We had a bit of a strategy and we only took two tires, so great job by the team for coming up with great strategy.”

Impressive for the Lizards, considering they expected Road America and Mosport to be tougher tracks with a rear-engine Porsche 911 GT3 RSR compared to the front-engined Corvettes and BMWs and mid-engine Ferrari. The team noted the hills and lack of comparative grunt would make things challenging.

But the back-to-back second place and win are vital and great results for the current championship leaders. In their quest to repeat, Bergmeister and Long enter Petit Le Mans in October with a 22-point lead over Bruni, up from 18 last round.

“It’s better to have the four-point advantage from today,” Bergmeister said. “The outlook doesn’t change. We still have to finish the last race. We don’t want to take too many risks but we still have to stay focused.”

Each team needs to finish 70 percent of the race at Petit Le Mans before scoring points.

Second still marked a great result from a challenging weekend at Mosport for Risi Competizione. Toni Vilander went from not racing following the withdrawal of the sister No. 61 entry after Pierre Kaffer’s practice accident on Saturday to then filling in for Jaime Melo, as the Brazilian ace was sidelined with a stomach virus, in the No. 62.

Well Vilander was the man on a charge on Sunday. He started 27th overall in the 29-car field and 12th in class, but by the end of his stint (less than an hour), was up to third in class, doing everything he could to keep his new co-driver Bruni in the title hunt. Vilander certainly was the flying Finn on this occasion.

“The car was running really strong in my stint,” Vilander said. “There were some corners where I could really eat up the gap to get to the drivers in front, and some other corners where we were really equal. I just didn’t want to take too many risks but once I decided to overtake a car I just went for it.”

Rahal Letterman BMW kept its streak alive of getting at least one car on the podium in each ALMS race this season, with the No. 92 car of Bill Auberlen and Tommy Milner rebounding from a heavy accident at Road America that wrote off their primary M3.

From fourth to sixth, the two Corvettes and the No. 01 Extreme Speed Ferrari ensured Michelin technical partner teams finished in five of the top six positions in class. Corvette also took home the GT win in the MICHELIN® GREEN X® Challenge.

In GTC, Luke Hines was the driver involved in the severe accident that ended the race. The Englishman did give an interview to SPEED’s TV broadcast after the race and though he said he was “dizzy,” he otherwise was unhurt. Shane Lewis and Lawson Aschenbach took the class win for Velox Motorsports.

An update from the previous post. Following the red flag, here is an official statement released from IMSA, the ALMS sanctioning body, that says the race is now complete:

“Due to the massive crash that involved the No. 48 car with the barrier, the decision has been made to end the race with the cars in their current positions instead of asking fans to remain for another 29 minutes of racing. The time to repair the damage is estimated to be in excess of three hours. A final lap by all cars in the field will be made with the pace car in the lead.”

The Muscle Milk Team CytoSport Porsche RS Spyder takes the overall win with drivers Klaus Graf and Romain Dumas. Unofficially, the GT class winners are Patrick Long and Joerg Bergmeister in the No. 45 Flying Lizard Porsche 911 GT3 RSR, with the Challenge class winners Gunnar Jeannette and Elton Julian (LMPC, Green Earth Team Gunnar), and Lawson Aschenbach and Shane Lewis (GTC, Velox Motorsports).

Stay tuned for further updates from Mosport.

***

More than two hours are complete in the two-hour, 45-minute race at Mosport. The race went under its second full course caution after a heavy accident for one of the GTC class Porsche GT3 Cups, but with just less than a half an hour remaining the race has been red-flagged. All cars are onto pit road with 29 minutes to go.

Just mere minutes before the two-hour mark in the two-hour, 45-minute race, there was contact between the Drayson Racing Lola Judd Coupe and the GTC-leading ORBIT/Paul Miller Racing Porsche GT3 Cup. The Porsche with Luke Hines driving had a serious accident, which caused heavy damage to the guardrail the backstraight. Some sections will need to be replaced.

Most of the field came in for another round of pit stops just after the caution flew. Of the leaders, the Muscle Milk Team CytoSport Porsche RS Spyder took fuel only while the Highcroft HPD ARX 01-c took both fuel and tires. In GT, the No. 45 Flying Lizard Porsche edged the No. 62 Risi Ferrari out of the pits for the class lead.

In the last stint, Simon Pagenaud did a fantastic job to stay on the lead lap for Highcroft. He restarted ahead of the leading CytoSport Porsche with Klaus Graf driving. Although he was nearly about to be lapped throughout the stint, Pagenaud worked through traffic to his advantage around the 2.459-mile Mosport International Raceway to stay on the lead lap.

When the race restarts, Pagenaud only has a few seconds in-between him and Graf in the leading CytoSport Porsche.

And in GT it should be a barnburner between the Lizard Porsche, Risi Ferrari and the No. 92 Rahal Letterman BMW, which had led the middle stint. Both of the Corvettes in fourth and fifth are also on the lead lap.

The Challenge class leaders are Gunnar Jeannette (LMPC, Green Earth Team Gunnar) and Lawson Aschenbach (GTC, Velox Motorsports).

***

We are past half distance and a yellow flag has altered the complexion of the penultimate round of the 2010 ALMS season at Mosport.

Several GT cars went off course on Turn 9 just past one hour into the race including the No. 90 Rahal Letterman BMW and the No. 40 Robertson Racing Doran Ford GT-R.

While most of the field had completed its first pit stops, the leading No. 6 Muscle Milk Team CytoSport Porsche RS Spyder was still in its first stint as the yellow flag flew.

The Porsche pitted under caution and changed drivers from Romain Dumas to Klaus Graf, and retains the lead after the restart. The Highcroft HPD car is still on the lead lap, but at the tail end as it restarts ahead on the road of the Porsche. Either way, the Porsche went five laps longer on its first stint (56 laps to 51) than Highcroft for both of the E10-fueled prototypes.

In GT, the No. 92 Rahal Letterman BMW leads with Tommy Milner aboard the car. Michelin technical partner teams Flying Lizard Motorsports with Joerg Bergmeister in the No. 45 Porsche and Risi Competizione with Gianmaria “Gimmi” Bruni now in the No. 62 Ferrari second and third in class. The BMW did pit nine laps sooner (35 to 44) than the other GT cars for its first stop.

Leaders in the Challenge classes are Gunnar Jeannette (LMPC, Green Earth Team Gunnar), and Luke Hines (GTC, ORBIT/Paul Miller Racing).

***

We’re through a half an hour of the eighth round of the 2010 American Le Mans Series season and largely, the stories of the race have involved charges from the back of the field. So far there have not been any yellow flags or pit stops, except for the No. 3 Corvette Racing Corvette ZR1 and No. 75 Jaguar XKR.

Romain Dumas, who started the polesitting No. 6 Muscle Milk Team CytoSport Porsche RS Spyder, has led overall and in LMP from the green flag. But as the race has progressed, the field has closed in. Though Dumas led by more than 12 seconds at one point, the gap is back down to single digits to David Brabham. ‘Brabs’ of course is celebrating his 100th start in the ALMS today in the usual No. 1 Highcroft HPD ARX 01-c, renumbered No. 100 for this weekend.

Both the Intersport and Dyson Lolas started from the rear of the field. The Intersport Lola AER didn’t set a time in qualifying but Jon Field has flown through the 29-car field to fourth place, and the Dyson Lola Mazda driven by Chris Dyson just passed him to move up to third. The Dyson car changed tires before the start of the race and started from pit lane.

The Intersport Lola was the first of the prototypes to pit after 36 laps and with 45 minutes complete.

In GT, Toni Vilander has risen from last in class up to fourth behind the leading No. 45 Flying Lizard Porsche, No. 4 Corvette and No. 92 Rahal Letterman BMW. A great drive then from the Finn, filling in for the sidelined Jaime Melo in the “rosso red” Risi Competizione Ferrari F430 GT. Melo is out today with a stomach virus. The starting drivers were Patrick Long, Oliver Gavin and Bill Auberlen.

Leaders in the Challenge classes are Elton Julian (LMPC, Green Earth Team Gunnar) and Bryce Miller (GTC, ORBIT/Paul Miller Racing).

Race Day – Pre-Grid

The sun is shining, the sky is clear blue, the parking lots are filled and the fans await the start of the Grand Prix of Mosport, the eighth event of the 2010 American Le Mans Series season at this historic 2.459-mile circuit located about 60 miles east of Toronto.

The morning warm-up was relatively uneventful. For the fourth time in four sessions, including qualifying, the fastest car on track was the pole sitting #6 Muscle Milk Porsche RS Spyder of Romain Dumas and Klaus Graf.

Jon Field in the #37 Intersport Lola was second in the warm up, followed by the Highcroft HPD of David Brabham and Simon Pagenaud. Field will start at the back of the field after being unable to set a time in qualfiying due to engine problems.

On the GT front, the #4 Corvette, now with Jan Magnussen and Oliver Gavin shaded #3 teammates Olivier Beretta and Johnny O’Connell for the top spot. 

“Gimmi” Bruni and Toni Vilander in the GT pole winning #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari were third quickest, as they prepare for their run from the back of the grid due to the late substitution of Vilander for the stomach virus stricken Jaime Melo.

Pre-race ceremonies are about to begin with special presentations to Mosport for its 50^th anniversary, and to David Brabham who is making his 100^th ALMS start.  The race will start at 3:05pm Eastern time.