Audette Goes Flag-to-Flag at Lime Rock
Lakeville, CT – Canadian Remy Audette led all 32 laps from pole winning round four of the F2000 Championship Season at Lime Rock Park. Audette, driving the #21 Dimension Doors/Novatech Audette Racing entry broke the standing track record during morning qualifying and simply took off on the field from the drop of the green. It was Audette’s first F2000 win.
“I took off from the drop of the green,” said Audette, who extends his championship points lead. “Mentally it was a really challenging race because there were no yellow flags; I had to be on the limit the entire time. I never looked back or in my mirrors and concentrated on the track ahead. It is a great result for the team.”
Saturday’s winner, rookie Benjamin Searcy started on the outside of the front row but missed a shift early that allowed fellow American Chris Miller to get around him. At this point Audette took off on the field stretching his lead to over four seconds. A blanket covered the rest of the top five with Miller, Searcy, Inge and Orsolon running nose to tail, putting on a show for the fans on the hillside.
When Miller made a mistake coming onto the front straight Searcy got around and left Miller and the rest behind, setting fast lap of the race at 50.272.
Searcy cut Audette’s lead down to one second as they worked through slower traffic . With just a few laps to go Searcy locked up the brakes going into turn one and lost control of his Van Diemen, spinning off the track and allowing Audette to go onto victory by eight seconds.
“I dropped back a bit on the start when I missed a shift,” commented Searcy, who has won two out of the four races this season. “I caught Miller and when he made a mistake on the downhill I got alongside going down the front straight and got past him. From there it was all about running Remy (Audette) down. I was turning qualifying lap after qualifying lap and overcooked it going into one. I was going for the win.”
Searcy had to settle for seventh place while Miller logged another second place finish and Matthew Inge rounded out the podium.
Rookie Fabio Orsolon, driving for Alegra Motorsports, finished fourth, his best result thus far this year. “We made a huge improvement on the setup compared to Saturday’s race. It was hard to pass any cars here and we were all running so close for the entire race, it was a lot of fun. Near the end the car developed some oversteer and at that point I was really just hanging on. We’re going to go back to the shop and work really hard for Mosport,” commented Orsolon.
John Dole was the first Master’s Class driver, rounding out the top five while Friday’s fast man in practice, Tom Fatur came home sixth. Searcy followed in seventh with Colin Alexander eighth. Caitlin Johnston logged her third straight top finish in ninth and ran her fastest lap of the entire weekend during the race. Al Guibord, Jr. rounded out the top ten.
Going into Mosport, Remy Audette leads the championship standings by 18 points over Matthew Inge. Chris Miller sits third in points, just six points being Inge. Searcy is fourth, another 12 points back. Al Guibord Jr’s consistent finishes put him fifth in the standings, 31 points behind Searcy while Searcy’s Z-Sports teammate, Caitlin Johnston, with her three straight top ten finishes, sits sixth in the points, another 18 points back from Guibord Jr.
The season resumes at Mosport June 11-14. Stay tuned to F2000ChampionshipSeries.com for the latest.
Full race results:
Pos PIC No. Name Class Laps Total Tm Diff
1 1 21 Remy Audette F2 32 27:09.222
2 2 85 Chris Miller F2 32 27:17.719 +8.497
3 3 02 Matthew Inge F2 32 27:18.031 +8.809
4 4 26 Fabio Orsolon F2 32 27:20.107 +10.885
5 5 08 John Dole/M F2 32 27:20.696 +11.474
6 6 70 Tom Fatur/M F2 32 27:25.208 +15.986
7 7 10 Benjamin Searcy F2 32 27:25.559 +16.337
8 8 12 Colin Alexander F2 32 27:29.071 +19.849
9 9 20 Caitlin Johnston F2 32 27:30.980 +21.758
10 10 95 Al Guibord, Jr. F2 32 27:36.199 +26.977
11 11 97 Chris Gumprecht F2 32 27:44.700 +35.478
12 12 41 Brian Belardi F2 32 27:46.014 +36.792
13 13 7 Brent Gilkes/M F2 32 27:57.507 +48.285
14 14 94 Blake Teeter F2 32 27:57.576 +48.354
15 15 27 Craig Clawson/M F2 32 27:57.691 +48.469
16 16 90 Robert Wright/M F2 32 28:00.129 +50.907
17 17 00 Chris Burke F2 31 27:13.161 1 Lap
18 18 25 Jeff McCusker/M F2 31 27:19.834 +6.673
19 19 69 Paul Farmer/M F2 31 27:30.932 +17.771
20 20 96 Alejandro Munoz F2 31 27:34.048 +20.887
21 21 4 Chris Camadella/M F2 31 27:40.569 +27.408
22 22 23 Victor Carbone F2 31 27:42.210 +29.049
23 23 22 Jonathan Scarallo F2 27 27:58.659 5 Laps
24 24 39 Chris Fahan/M F2 18 15:38.122 14 Laps 9 Laps