News

SEBRING, Fla. (March 16, 2008) - Porsche, the most storied name in the history of the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring - America's oldest sports car race - added to its legacy Saturday with a double victory at the 3.7-miles airport course in Central Florida.

Scoring its 18th overall win (Ferrari is second with 12 overall victories), Porsche combined with another classic name in motorsports - Penske Racing - as Romain Dumas (France), Timo Bernhard (Germany), and Emmanuel Collard (France) piloted their 3.4-liter, V8 Penske Porsche RS Spyder to a one-minute victory over the Dyson Racing Porsche.

Bernhard and Dumas won 11 of the 12 LMP2 class contests in 2007 en route to last year¿s title, including six races overall.

"This is a great win for Porsche Motorsport and Penske Racing," said Tim Cindric, president of Penske Racing.

"To win the Daytona 500 and the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring within four weeks is a tremendous accomplishment for our entire organization, and we are proud of hard work of drivers, crew, engineers and shop employees that contributed to these wins. This is the toughest road race of the year, and we had not won it on our previous two attempts, so this victory is extra special," said Cindric.

The Porsche RS Spyder now has either a class win or an overall victory (or both) at every American Le Mans Series venue since the car debuted in October, 2005.

"The race presented many challenges for both drivers and crew as we always had to decide between conserving fuel and maintaining a pre-determined pace, and charging ahead to catch up or extend a lead. Sometimes those situations changed from lap to lap, but Penske Racing was up to the strategy solutions, and my driving partners Dumas and Collard did their part on the track," said Bernhard, who has entered Sebring seven times in GT2 and LMP2, and had only won a single time.

The team Penske Porsche of Patrick Long (USA), Sascha Maassen (Germany), and Ryan Briscoe (Australia) was running in the top three early in the event, but a broken water pump lead to overheating, forcing the car out of the race. It was the first time since its debut in 2005 that an RS Spyder did not finish a race due to mechanical failure.

The next race for the American Le Mans Series is the Acura Sports Car Challenge of St. Petersburg. The green flag is scheduled for 1:25 p.m. ET on Saturday, April 5 from the streets of St. Petersburg, Fla. The race will be broadcast on ABC from 1:30-3:30 p.m. ET on April 5. Radio coverage will be available on XM Satellite Radio and on americanlemans.com, which also will feature IMSA's Live Timing & Scoring.