04.07.2004 It was more winning Ferrari pitstop strategies at Lime Rock yesterday as Risi Competizione gave Ferrari their first ever ALMS GT-class victory: ALMS race report AND result from Lime Rock

Ferrari scored its first-ever GT class win in the American Le Mans Series in the New England Grand Prix sports car race at Lime Rock Park yesterday with Anthony Lazzaro and Ralf Kelleners taking the victory in Risi Competizione's Ferrari 360 Modena.

The win was also the first in the ALMS for the two drivers and ended a 21-race GT class winning streak in the series for Porsche that dated back to the first event of the 2002 season.

The race was also the 50th event in the history of ALMS, which started in 1999, and was the first-ever race for the series at historic Lime Rock Park.

The J3 Racing Porsche 911 GT3-RSR driven by Tim Sugden led most of the first half of the race after many of the top cars pitted to take on rain tyres when a brief shower hit the track at the start. The J3 and Risi cars remained on slick tires and that proved to be the winning decision as the rest of the contending cars were never able to make up the lap they lost changing back to slicks under green flag conditions. The J3 car then fell out of contention on pit stop strategy.

"This win has been a long time coming," said Lazzaro, who has co-driven with Kelleners in the GT Ferrari since the 2002 season. "We've had a lot of podium finishes but could never get to that top step.

"It was a team decision to not change to rain tyres," he said. "We found some local people who were standing behind the fence near our pits and they told us the rain wasn't going to last long. We trusted that information and they were right."

Johannes van Overbeek and Darren Law finished second in the Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3-RSR, followed by Romain Dumas and Marc Lieb in the similar Alex Job Racing car.

In the GTS class the sole Lamborghini Murcielago R-GT, driven by Peter Kox and David Brabham, survived high drama to eventually cross the finish line. The class was won by Oliver Gavin and Olivier Beretta in the Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C5-R, who beat the team's second car driven by Ron Fellows and Johnny O'Connell by just 3.627 seconds. It was the first win this season for the two, as Fellows and O'Connell had won the opening two events of the season.

Beretta had led much of the first portion of the race, but he lost nearly a lap to the other Corvette after pitting while the other car stayed on the track. Gavin was able to make up some of the distance during his stint, and then the race's next-to-last caution brought them back together. Beretta got back in the car and passed Fellows for the win with an inside move into turn one with just over 25 minutes remaining.

Terry Borcheller and Johnny Mowlem finished third in the ACEMCO Saleen S7R, the Carsports Chrysler Viper came home fourth, while the battle scarred Lamborghini rounded out the GTS field after the team's mechanics toiled to repair rear suspension damage sustained when Peter Kox was the blameless victim of a collision with the ACEMCO Saleen S7R.

At the front Marco Werner held off a late charge by Butch Leitzinger to score his second consecutive series win, ably assisted by co-driver JJ Lehto. Werner, driving the ADT Champion Racing Audi R8, beat Leitzinger's Dyson Racing Lola-MG to the finish line by 1.429 seconds after a late-race caution period set up a five-minute dash to the finish of the two-hour, 45-minute event. Lehto, who drove the first 45 minutes of the race, and Werner, led 105 of the race's 165 laps, while Leitzinger and co-driver James Weaver led for 59 laps.