With two races remaining in the race for the championship in the prototype class, it looks like Christian Fittipaldi and Joao Barbosa have timed their run perfectly with Action Express Racing.

The Brazilian/Portuguese combo took the victory yesterday at Road America – their championship assault helped by a late race issue for Wayne Taylor Racing. A suspected steering failure put Jordan Taylor into the barriers while circulating under the safety car.

Oz Negri Jr. and John Pew took second in the best result of the year for Michael Shank Racing while ESM’s Scott Sharp and Ryan Dalziel could only grab third after taking pole on Saturday.

The lighter, nimble P2 car of ESM was no match for the more powerful DP cars on the restarts – unfortunately for the P2 cars – there were lots of those. More than half of the race was actually run under safety car yesterday.

“There is no doubt about it. There are only 2 races to go. Time is running out, for us and the others also,” Fittipaldi said.

“Maybe depending on how the race develops in Austin you can start to think about points but at the moment we are still going wide open. We’ll race exactly how we’ve been racing up to this point.

“It’s been going well for us, so I don’t see any reason to change. Unless we fall into a situation during the race where we have to be extra cautious or encounter some mechanical problems then maybe we’ll put the points on the table.

“If not for that we’re going to Austin and will try to win the race like a bunch of other teams who are going to be doing the exactly the same thing. It’s been hard and tough up to now. There is no doubt we’ve been really blessed and happy and thanks to Action Express.”

Fittipaldi and Barbosa now have three wins this season to their credit – the past two in succession and the season opener at Daytona when they were teamed with Sebastien Bourdais.

“We just had a great car during the whole race. Definitely the last couple of safety car situations helped us on our fuel,” Barbosa said.

“We were sure we were good but the last couple really helped to be safe and push it to the end. On the 2nd to last restart I had to save a bit of fuel so I had to manage what was going on behind me.

“But on the last restart we knew we were good and I was able to push until the end. I could do a couple of good laps and put a gap behind me. It was a great team strategy and a great team effort. The Corvette was a blast to drive in the last stint.