Petersen/ White Lightning Sebring Qualifying � Bergmeister Takes Fifth in Time Trials Shootout

by Thomas Moore

SEBRING, Fla., March 16, 2006 � The 2006 American Le Mans Series (ALMS) season officially began today with qualifying for the 54th Annual Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring. 2005 ALMS GT2 Champion and defending 12 Hours of Sebring class winning Petersen Motorsports/ White Lightning Racing driver J�rg Bergmeister (Langenfeld, Germany) captured fifth on the GT2 class grid for Saturday's 12 Hour classic event. Demonstrating the intense competition of the GT2 class for 2006, time trials for the classic American sports car event came down to a 10-minute shootout between the class's five marquees. Bergmeister's time of two minutes, 4.040 seconds was the second quickest of the Porsche 911 GT3 RSRs just two-tenths slower than the quickest Porsche. Bergmeister will be joined by his brother, Tim, and Nic J�nsson (Buford, Ga.) on the outside of the 11th row, 22nd overall, for what is widely considered the most difficult endurance race in sports car racing.The red flag hurt the overall effort of the Michael Petersen-owned team. Qualifying was stopped eight minutes into the scheduled 25-minute session to remove a competitor's car from the track. The stoppage came just as Bergmeister began his “hot” lap. After a 17-minute delay, qualifying continued for a 10-minute shootout for the class pole position. With one heat-cycle complete on his Michelin Pilot racing tires, Bergmeister was not able to take full advantage of his few remaining minutes on the track. He turned his quickest lap on his fourth circuit of the 3.7-mile Sebring International Raceway. A fifth, and quicker lap, was started but the car bobbled half-way through the lap, low on fuel. That ended the quicker lap and the Petersen/ White Lightning team's opportunity at a second Sebring pole position. Quotes: Dale White, team manager: “Fifth is not ideal and we would have liked to have been the fastest Porsche in GT2. But, as a competitor, we are really enjoying the competition out here this weekend. This is as tight as anything we've seen in a long time and that is a lot of fun. I've said it before but that's why we're here. The excitement for us is the challenge and beating the best.”J�rg Bergmeister, driver: “We had some bad luck in qualifying. When I went out for my first flying lap at turn one I hit the red flag. So, we had an extra heat cycle on our tires. After the red flag I had some problems with traffic so I got just one clear lap. I think we left a little bit on the table. We have to work on the race setup but I think we should look pretty good compared to the other Porsches. Also, the Ferrari was not as far ahead of us as I expected. I think we should be competitive.”The Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring can be seen live on SPEED Channel starting at 10:30 AM (ET), March 18th. Live timing and scoring of each on-track session can be found at www.AmericanLeMans.com. Regular reports from the track can be found at www.PetersenMotorsports.com throughout the day on Saturday, the 18th. More on Petersen Motorsports/ White Lightning Racing can be found at www.PetersenMotorsports.com. Please visit www.Porsche.com for more on the Porsche's line of products.For more on the ALMS, please visit www.AmericanLeMans.com. ###