LCC member and former Graham Hill Trophy winner, Tom Kimber-Smith, came 14th overall in the opening round of the American Le Mans Series, the Mobil 1 twelve Hours of Sebring, last week-end.

Sharing a Panoz Esperante GTLM in the GT2 class with fellow Englishman Richard Dean and Irishman Lawrence Tomilson, Tom ran an apparently trouble-free race for 312 laps of the most famous road-race circuit in America.

This was also the debut race for Audi's new diesel powered sports racing car: the R10 TDI running in the Prototype class.

Although qualifying on pole, the No 2 car, driven by Audi vetereans Tom Kristensen, Allan McNish and Rinaldo Capello, had to start the race from the pit lane and in 34th place after needing to have its heat exchanger replaced. Yet such was the car's pace, within 2 hours it was back in the lead, and when its sister car (piloted by Frank Biela, Emanuele Pirro and Marco Werner) retired after 4 hours with an overheating problem, Audi No 2 pretty well had the race to itself, covering 349 laps and four laps ahead of the second placed Lola B05/40-AER of Intersport Racing.

Race 2 of the ALMS is the Lone Star Grand Prix at Reliant Park, Huston on 12 May.