In qualifying for the Petit Le Mans, the final race of the American Le Mans Series, Porsche works driver Joerg Bergmeister (Germany) posted the seventh quickest time in the GT class at the wheel of the 911 GT3 RSR fielded by Flying Lizard Motorsports. Bergmeister tackles the 1,000 mile race on the storied Road Atlanta circuit in the US State of Georgia on Saturday with his factory pilot teammates Patrick Long (USA) and Patrick Pilet (France). “I didn’t actually expect us to do particularly well in qualifying,” he said. “But we have a good car for the race distance. I think in the race, not least due to good pit stops, we’ll make up a quite a few positions.”

In the cockpit of the second Flying Lizard 911, Porsche works driver Marco Holzer (Germany), the teammate of Seth Neiman (USA) and Nick Tandy (Great Britain), set the ninth quickest time. “The car felt good and we were the fastest in free practice,” he said. “I think we’ve found a good race set-up. The event runs over ten hours and a lot can happen in this time.” Porsche works driver Richard Lietz (Austria), who shares driving duties with Sascha Maassen (Germany) and Bryce Miller (USA) for the Paul Miller Racing squad, posted the eleventh fastest time and said, “That was a difficult qualifying for us. We did a lot of work on the balance of the car during free practice and I think it’s good now. Still it wasn’t easy to clock this time. I’m now feeling very confident that our pace will be consistently fast in the race.” The twelfth grid spot went to Bryan Sellers (USA) in the Porsche 911 GT3 RSR of the Falken Tire team, which he shares with Porsche factory pilot Wolf Henzler (Germany) and Martin Ragginger (Austria). “That wasn’t a great qualifying for us,” he said. “But we expected that because during the last week we focussed on finding a good set-up for the race.”

Pole position in the GTC class was clinched by Leh Keen (USA) with the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup. In the GTE-Am class of the European Le Mans Series, which is contested at the season finale in conjunction with the American Le Mans Series, Nicolas Armindo (France) drove the best time in the Porsche 911 GT3 RSR fielded by IMSA Performance Matmut.

The race starts on Saturday, 20 October, at 11.30 hours local time (17.30 hrs CEST) and can be seen on the internet under www.americanlemans.com/live.

Qualifying result

GT class
1. Guy Cosmo (USA), Ferrari F458 Italia, 1:18.677 minutes
2. Toni Vilander (SF), Ferrari F458 Italia, + 0.05 seconds
3. Jörg Müller (D), BMW E92 M3, + 0.30
4. Oliver Gavin (GB), Chevrolet Corvette, + 0.39
5. Antonio Garcia (E), Chevrolet Corvette, + 0.41
6. Marc Goossens (B), SRT Viper, + 0.47
7. Jörg Bergmeister (D), Porsche 911 GT3 RSR, + 0.55
9. Marco Holzer (D), Porsche 911 GT3 RSR, + 0.85
11. Richard Lietz (A), Porsche 911 GT3 RSR, + 1.71
12. Bryan Sellers (USA), Porsche 911 GT3 RSR, + 2.08

GTC class
1. Leh Keen (USA), Porsche 911 GT3 Cup, 1:24.251 minutes

The 2013 race calendar of the American Le Mans Series which was announced on Friday includes the following races:
16 March: Sebring/Florida
20 April: Long Beach/California
18 May: Laguna Seca/ California
06 July: Lime Rock/Connecticut
21 July: Bowmanville/Canada
11 August: Road America/Wisconsin
31 August: Baltimore/Maryland
21 September: Austin/Texas
05 October: Alton/Virginia
19 October: Road Atlanta/Georgia