Allan McNish claimed a narrow, hard-fought victory in the Grand Prix of St Petersburg in Florida last night (SAT).  McNish started his diesel-powered Audi from third place on the 24-car grid on the temporary 1.8-mile, 14-corner street circuit and snatched the lead at the green light. However, organisers judged the Scot to have jumped the start necessitating a stop-go penalty after only four laps and dropping him to eighth place.

But incredibly McNish had charged back in to the lead after 21mins and handed over the leading Audi R10 TDI to Italian co-driver Dindo Capello for a scheduled pit-stop after 80mins. The 2hr 45min race featured five full course caution periods, the last ensuring a nail-biting and tense five-minute race to the chequered flag between Capello and the sister Audi of Emanuele Pirro (It) and Marco Werner (D). 

McNish commented: "We always knew it would be a hard fight from start to finish and so it proved. I made a good start at the green flag but the organisers deemed I'd overtaken a car before I'd crossed the start-finish line. "If that was the case, then it's my mistake. Anyway, I served a stop-go penalty which meant I then had to fight my way back. Thankfully my Audi was really, really good which enabled me to push hard and produce consistently fast lap times.”

The McNish/Capello Audi finished just 0.426secs ahead of the second-placed Audi earning the reigning ALMS champions a tie on 42-points with ALMS opening race winners Pirro/Werner. – 1 April 2007