Long predicts cutthroat GT2 in 2010

Porsche recently announced that Patrick Long will again partner long-time teammate JÃ¶rg Bergmeister in the American Le Mans Series for the 2010 season, reuniting one of the Series' most successful driving duos at Flying Lizard Motorsports. Long and Bergmeister, 2009 ALMS GT2 Driver's Champions, will compete in the #45 Flying Lizard Porsche GT3 RSR, in the new ALMS GT class, alongside teammates Seth Neiman and Darren Law in the #44 Porsche.

Long and Bergmeister had a season for the ages in 2009, winning the Grand-Am Rolex 24 At Daytona to start the year, then winning six of 10 ALMS GT2 races, including a streak of five in a row, then an epic season finale at Laguna Seca. In doing so, they captured Flying Lizard's second consecutive team championship, Long's second driver's championship, Bergmeister's fourth driver's championship, and Porsche's 100th win in ALMS competition. All tolled, Patrick and JÃ¶rg have won 17 races together in their careers, and are anticipating another ultra-competitive season in 2010.

Patrick said, "I'm thrilled to be back with Porsche, the Lizards and JÃ¶rg for the 2010 season, but we've really got our work cut out for us. The team are two-time defending champions and, as predicted, the latter part of 2009 got really, really competitive. The Risi Ferrari guys had a hard-luck year, but they'll be back with a vengeance in 2010, the BMW brigade will only be stronger, and of course, the Corvette boys have got all the motivation in the world. We saw just how competitive GT2 was in 2009 with JÃ¶rg and Jan Magnussen's fireworks at Laguna Seca, but I think that is going to pale in comparison to the 2010 competition. It's going to be cutthroat racing every single lap, all year long."