ALMS : Sears Point : Fading Ferraris
25.7.99

Alex Caffi's Ferrari made heavy contact with the wall.

A fine entry of sports prototypes contested the 2¾ hours race at Sears Point Raceway in California, the fourth round of the ALMS, including five Ferrari 333SPs.

The more modern prototypes again showed up the declining competitiveness of the Ferraris and the quickest 333, the Doyle-Risi car of Angelelli/de Radigues, could only qualify ninth - some 2½ seconds off the pole-sitting Williams-BMW of Lehto/Soper.

Didier Theys struggled, like all 333s.

During the race the Ferraris were left to compete amongst themselves whilst the BMWs, the R & S' and the Panoz' competed at the front. The BMW of Lehto/Soper took a narrow victory over the two Panoz Spyders of Brabham/Bernard and O'Connell/Magnusson. In 8th, 9th and 10th places, with just four seconds covering them, came the three Ferraris of Johansson/Matthews, Theys/Lienhard and Angelelli/de Radiques.

The winning BMW is built by Williams.

The potentially quickest Ferrari, driven by Taylor/Caffi, brought the race to a halt for 15 minutes when it crashed heavily into a retaining wall following a misjudged lapping manoevre. Alex Caffi was taken to the medical centre but emerged unhurt from the seriously damaged 333.

Johansson/Matthews were best Ferrari down in 8th.

The remaining Ferrari, the AV Engineering car of Davies/Dollahite finished 14th.

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