LEXINGTON, Ohio - Wolf Henzler was in the lead with the No. 71 Tafel Racing Porsche at the one-hour mark of Saturday's Acura Sports Car Challenge American Le Mans Series (ALMS) race at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, but unfortunately both the Porsche 911 GT3 RSR he shares with Robin Liddell and the team's sister car driven by Jim Tafel and Dominik Farnbacher suffered a component failure of their rear hubs that thwarted possible podium finishes.

Henzler and Liddell's No. 71 didn't finish the two-hour-and-45-minute race and was credited with a ninth-place finish in the GT2 class.  Tafel and Farnbacher's No. 73 lost many laps in the garage area before returning to the fray to finish tenth in the final rundown.

Henzler, who won this race last year, started fifth in class, while Tafel started ninth. By the fifth trip around the 13-turn, 2.258-mile road course Henzler, of Nuertingen, Germany, was already fourth and Tafel had moved up to eighth.

The two Ferraris that were leading the class tangled on lap 30, 40 minutes into the race.  The leader, Mika Salo in the Risi Competizione Ferrari, received a 2-minute penalty and the second-place driver, Tomas Enge in the Petersen White Lightning Ferrari, was nailed with a 5-minute penalty for their actions. That gave the class lead to Joerg Bergmeister and advanced Henzler to second.

Bergmeister pitted at the one-hour mark to give the lead to Henzler, which turned out to be the brightest spot in Tafel Racing's day. Henzler was still leading when he pitted four minutes later, allowing Liddell to take the wheel of his car and giving the lead to Johannes van Overbeek.
Liddell, of Northampton, Scotland, ran in third place throughout his stint, and turned the car back over to Henzler at the one-hour-and-51-minute mark still in that podium position.  Their car's rear hub problem occurred around the two-hour mark, and Henzler took the Porsche back to the garage area around 2:14:12 to battle again another day.

The problems with Tafel and Farnbacher's car started even earlier in the form of brake trouble.  Tafel, of Alpharetta, Ga., made two pit stops in the first half hour before he took the car behind the wall for repairs. He returned many laps down and posted consistently good times until he turned the car over to Farnbacher, of Lichtenau, Germany, two hours and two minutes in. Farnbacher actually set the fastest lap for the team when his 57th lap was timed in 1:22.177 (99.36 miles per hour), so both cars were extremely competitive here despite what the final results showed.The race will be broadcast on CBS at 2 p.m. Sunday.