Patrick Long, two-time class winner at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, finished preparations for the 2012 edition of the race today, and with his teammates Jörg Bergmeister and Marco Holzer, will start 7th in the stacked GTE Pro category. GTE Pro features full factory efforts from Porsche, Ferrari, Chevrolet (Corvette) and Aston Martin, and figures to be one of the tightest battles in the classic endurance race.
The Lizards, who will field two Porsche 911 GT3 RSRs, lost a bit of valuable track time in the third qualifying session for Saturday’s race when a driveline component failed, costing the #80 team several laps of qualifying time. Long and his teammates feel they have a solid and stable racecar for the most grueling endurance race of them all.
The 24 Hours of Le Mans will be broadcast nearly in its entirety in the U.S. on SPEED, with coverage beginning at 8:30am ET on Saturday, June 16.