Allan McNish denied win at Mosport

Allan McNish was cruelly denied winning the latest round of the American Le Mans Series almost within sight of the chequered flag in Canada.

The Flying Scotsman’s diesel-engined Audi was delayed with a gearbox issue with 10mins remaining in the 165mins race at Mosport near Toronto.

McNish, 37, agonisingly lost the lead and a likely victory with just five minutes to run but salvaged second place at the chequered flag.

“My Audi R10 TDI was fast and strong while excellent team strategy had put us in control of the race,” reflected a crestfallen McNish.

“But with only a few minutes to go, I encountered a technical issue with the gearshift. I was stuck in fourth gear at times losing a lot of time. I lost the lead with five minutes remaining.

“Despite Dindo [Capello] and I claiming our seventh class win of the season and extending our championship lead, we’re obviously very disappointed having come so close to winning the race outright.”

McNish’s Italian co-driver Dindo Capello had earned the defending ALMS champions a pole-position start and led most of the race – Allan enjoying a 29secs lead with 15mins remaining. Meanwhile the “sister” Audi R10 TDI of Emanuele Pirro/Marco Werner finished fourth overall – second in the LM P1 class for Audi’s eighth class 1-2 of the season.

The 10th of 12-races is staged in Detroit next Saturday. The “Belle Isle Detroit Grand Prix” brings motorsport back to the heart of “Motor City” and is the fourth and final “street” circuit of the season following events in St. Petersburg (Florida), Long Beach (California) and Houston (Texas).

The 2.125-mile, 14-corner circuit is situated on an island in the Detroit River.

“Having just raced on one of the fastest tracks in the series at Mosport, we now head for what is likely to be one of the slowest,” confirmed McNish. “I visited Detroit last month and saw that it’s a pretty slow, tight and flat concrete-lined track – exactly the opposite to Mosport.

“While I think it’ll be an exciting race for what is expected to be a big crowd, I think it’s going to prove extremely difficult for our Audi like most of the other ‘street’ tracks.”

Formula One Grands Prix were staged between 1982-88 and CART single-seater racing (1989-91) on a “downtown” street course in “Motor City”. The race venue shifted gears in 1992 to the Belle Isle venue for CART until 2001.

Practice and qualifying is staged on Friday with Saturday’s 165-minute race due to begin at 2015 (BST).