Motorsports

Champion Racing lives up to its name at 12 Hours of Sebring

SEBRING - The ADT Champion Racing Team Audi R8 beat its sister car late Saturday in the closest finish ever in the 12 Hours of Sebring, the season opener for the American Le Mans Series.

The trio of JJ Lehto, Marco Werner and Tom Kristensen gave Champion Racing its first Sebring victory in the closest competitive finish in Sebring's 53-year history. The No.1 Audi R8 posted a 6.365-second win over the No.2 car driven by Frank Biela, Emanuele Pirro and Allan McNish.

Kristensen and Lehto teamed with Jorg Mueller in 1999 to win by 9.2 seconds in a BMW V12 LMR. Audi won by less than half a second in 2001 in a manufactured team finish.

Kristensen won the race for the third time, and Werner and Lehto each won his second Sebring title. Werner was part of the victorious Audi Sport Team Joest entry in 2003 and Lehto was a winning driver with BMW in 1999.

The victory extended Audi's winning streak at Sebring to six. The last manufacturer other than Audi to win the historic endurance race was BMW in 1999. Only Porsche has won more consecutive Sebring titles, from 1976 to 1988.

The other big story was the No.57 Aston Martin Racing DBR9, driven by David Brabham, Stephane Ortelli and Darren Turner. The three gave Aston Martin the GT1 title, its first class victory at Sebring since 1956, a span of 49 years. In its ALMS debut, the car finished fourth overall and outran a pair of Corvette Racing C6-Rs for a one-lap victory over the No.3 car of Ron Fellows, Johnny O'Connell and Max Papis.

In GT2, Jorg Bergmeister, Lucas Luhr and Patrick Long completed 321 laps in a Porsche 911 to take the class victory and finished seventh overall. In P2, the team of Jeff Bucknum, Ian James and Chris McMurry was the only one of five cars in the class running at the end. Their Courage C-65 covered 311 laps and finished 12th overall.

FORMULA ONE: Fernando Alonso is making the most of Michael Schumacher's struggle with his old Ferrari.

Alonso won the Malaysian Grand Prix in Sepang in 1 hour, 31 minute, 33.736 seconds to give Renault its second straight victory. He was 24.3 seconds ahead of Jarno Trulli, who powered Toyota to its first top-three finish in Formula One. Nick Heidfeld of Williams-BMW was third.

Schumacher, who earned a fifth straight drivers' championship last year by winning 13 of 18 races, was seventh. Still, that's two points and an improvement from the opener in Australia, where Schumacher stopped after colliding with Heidfeld.

Alonso said Renault needs to capitalize while Ferrari runs a modified version of its 2004 cars. Ferrari's F2005 is still being tested and might be introduced for the next event in Bahrain on April3 before the 19-race series heads to Europe.

"In these days that Ferrari is not so strong, we need to be in the first position and take the points," Alonso said.

Alonso improved two places from Melbourne, giving Renault 26 points in the constructors' championship. The 23-year-old driver is the first Spaniard to lead the standings.

He has 16 points, six ahead of teammate Giancarlo Fisichella, who won in Australia two weeks ago. Fisichella was cautioned by stewards Sunday after crashing on the 37th lap with Williams driver Mark Webber in a duel for third place.

[Last modified March 21, 2005, 01:50:19]