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6 Comments October 13, 2009

Rubbin’ is Racin’ at the ALMS

C6.R and GT3 RSR collide in the last turn at Laguna Seca.

The October 11 American Le Mans race at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca exhibited some of the best racing we’ve seen in a long time. While we love hard racing, it’s also nice to see a win taken cleanly, but the complete opposite occurred at the end of the race between Corvette Racing’s C6.R and Flying Lizard’s Porsche 911 GT3 RSR.

With Jan Magnussen piloting the Vette and Jörg Bergmeister driving the 911, a wreck seemed inevitable. Magnussen clearly had the faster car, but Bergmeister was doing everything in his power to block the pass. Down the straight, Magnussen went for a pass using the end of the pit exit which, later in the lap was deemed illegal, so the C6 had to let the GT3 back in front. The last lap was coming to a close as two more passing attempts were taken by Magnussen, and in the last turn he went in hot to loosen up the back end of Porsche—it worked, however, Bergmeister would have none of it.

Bergmeister pushed hard to the left, closing the gap between Magnussen and the wall. Right before the finish line, Bergmeister’s relentless agressiveness forced the Vette into a spin, crashing head on into the opposing wall, skidding past the finish line to 2nd place while Bergmeister tapped the brakes to avoid contact and gracefully passed for the win.

Magnussen walked away from the wreck uninjured, but he and Bergmeister have been put on a two race suspension, but we think Bergmeister is more deserving of the suspension; he took it too far.

Fast forward to 1:53 to see the last lap battle.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 at 10:56 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “Rubbin’ is Racin’ at the ALMS”

10.13.09 at 11:57 am

Jeff says:
That’s certainly one way to read the footage…

10.13.09 at 12:09 pm

Alex B. says:
Why, what do you think of it? Both Magnussen and Bergmeister were dogs throughout the race, driving on the limit the entire time.
The pass in the pit lane can be seen both ways obviously.
When Magnussen hit Bergmeister at the end, it was a nudge like “get out my way”, the pass could have been clean and there was no need for Bergmeister to push him to the wall. That was unnecessary and looked 100x worse than anything Magnussen did.

10.13.09 at 3:33 pm

Steve Clayton says:
WHAT A $H1t3 WAY TO WIN THERE WAS NO NEED TO RUN SOMEONE INTO THE WALL

10.13.09 at 6:44 pm

Pablo says:
They were both wrong, I admit that I am biased and wanted the Vette to win. Jorg was out of hand with this move, you get bumped you do your best to cut the other drive off. The C6R is a beast when if comes to off the line speed, combo that with the bump and that’s game over for Jorg. Bergmeister must have been livid because he went from Cut you off, to Push you in to the wall, into Full on Pit Maneuver. Magnussen must have made a mistake for the Vette to fly in the other direction like that. He should have Powered off the wall and won. I bet once he felt the bump from Jorg he tried to counter steer, then Bergmeister let off and that sent Magnussen flying. Wow just F-ing wow.

10.15.09 at 1:13 pm

Jeff says:
When you jack the rear end of someone AS they’re TURNING the LAST corner of the LAST LAP at Laguna Seca, it is not a racer’s reminder to “please stop blocking me”. 1 second before that and a little lighter? Sure. It’s a completely agressive last-resort dick move out of pure desperation. Magnussen knew what he was doing — trying to take Jorg out. If the people+cars were reversed, I would say the same thing.

11.23.09 at 1:23 pm

dj says:
porsche deserve a penalty, as it was done after race. but corvette driver must have lots hours of home work, how to take over good drived porsche. bumping back at last corner - c’mon, this not the way guys do race.

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