GT2: An Actual Fight to the Finish
The racing in GT2 was not not so clean. Jörg Bermeister and Jan Magnusson’s epic last-lap struggle, while exciting, was not in keeping with the driving standards set by the Americans Le Mans Series.
Bergmeister, driving the #45 Flying Lizard Porsche RSR, had already won the series, but he wanted to win the race. Jan Magnusson in the Corvette Racing Corvette C wanted equally to win, and he had a faster car. However, Bergmeister was ahead of him, and was doing everything the rules allowed to keep the Corvette from passing.
As the end of the race neared, Magnusson resorted to swerving onto pit lane to get past the Porsche, but the race stewards radioed to him that he had to give back the position, because he made the pass by using an illegal shortcut.
More frustrated than ever, Magnusson rammed Bergmeister coming into the final turn of the final lap. While Bergmeister struggled to control his car, Magnusson pushed past on the inside.
Unwilling to be beaten by such tactics, Bergmeister responded by pushing Magnusson towards the inside wall. Magnusson had to turn sharply to avoid hitting the wall, and this sent him spinning across the track and headfirst into the outside wall with enough force to lift the back of the car completely off the track.
“I was clear ahead going into the last corner, and he just drilled me,” Jörg Bergmeister explained. “I didn’t want it to end like that but he started it and I wasn’t giving that one away.”
Magnusson was not injured, and the stewards chose not to penalize the drivers. Hopefully, something will be said after the season ends; this kind of driving, while accepted in some series, has no place in the American Le Mans Series.
10-19-2009, 10:57 PM
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