Le Mans 24 Hours - Wednesday Qualifying

10pm and the first two hour qualifying session is underway - And the good news is that its fully dry - With wet weather predicted for tomorrow we look set for some real action in this session.

First though some comment gathered from the pit lane after the earlier free practice session:

Johnny O’Connell

“It’s not bad but we still have a lot to learn.  Tyres are going to be huge, between the two cars we’ve tried some different types and the differences are huge.  From where we are after just rolling off the truck it’s looking pretty decent, but it’s not right yet.

“The biggest worry is that whilst we’ve been successful here and we know what it takes to win, Ferrari and Porsche have won in this category.  All our stuff is new.  We’ve done a 24-hour test but not 24 hours straight.  It doesn’t look like it is going to rain tonight so I think somewhere between 10pm and 10:45pm we’ll try to nail one.  You’ve got to put one down even if the car isn’t right, and it won’t be.  ‘Sticker tyres’ hide a lot of bad things though.  It’s laps 10 through 14 that is where the problems show up, so that’s why practice is important.  We need to know how the car will behave throughout and into second stints.  We need to decide whether to set the car up based around when the tyres are new, old or somewhere in between.”

Peter Kox

“I’m really pleased.  It is the first time Young Driver has been here and they have done a fantastic job and hit the ground running.  I still need to get into it a bit with the new rules, but the car is already comfortable.  I think the Fords will be quicker than that session showed, once the rookie drivers have more laps so we have not seen the real picture yet.  It is very difficult to pass the GT2’s on the straights in the new GT1 cars.”

Romain Grosjean (seen pushing the part-repaired GT40 off the flat bed in the paddock whilst Matech crew looked on):

“I don’t know what happened.  It was my first lap, going into the Porsche curves.  ‘Snap’ is not a big enough word to explain what happened.  It looks like the car went up in the air and then spun off the road.  It didn’t slow down at all before it hit the barrier, it was very strange.”

Jonathan Hirschi

“I don’t know why they brought the car to parc ferme and then put it here, behind our pit.  Now we need to get it round the front into the garage and we have a lot of work to do.  I have not driven yet tonight but hope to do my rookie laps tonight in the qualifying session.  We all have a lot to learn so qualifying is not important for us at all.”

Alex Wurz

“We were just running through our programme.  I think as we know from the past, Audi will wait a little longer.  We had a technical problem with the car and didn’t have a good balance, which led to the front splitter being broken.  We have fixed that now, so we start from 0.”

Darren Turner

“It doesn’t really mean anything at the moment, for me it’s just getting back into doing P1.  We had some brake issues that are sorted now but the balance was also a bit pointy so we’ve calmed it down.  We all want to have a comfortable car that we can rattle off consistent laps in.”

Dr Ullrich

“We ran the same tyres on our cars all through the session but now we will go for quicker times with less fuel load and see what we can do.”

Dominik Farnbacher

“We found a good tyre, we used the same construction at the Nurburgring, it is just a slightly different compound.  It seems to work really well here, we had hardly any understeer or oversteer.  We are very close to Michelin, the Risi Michelin Ferrari is our benchmark.  Our race strategy is going to be a little conservative to keep the car alive.  For qualifying we have a special tyre and we want to see if it works.”

Neel Jani

“I was the very first guy out and the car was running pretty well at the time, a 3:30.6 on my 5th lap but we had some issues with braking at the rear and we realised it wasn’t so good.  Marco [Andretti] had two offs and he maybe broke something in the front suspension which we have just found now.  I got in at the end of the session and did half a lap and thought ‘this is not the same car’ so brought it in.  I think if it stays dry tonight we will find some more time, but the AMR car is so much faster than us on the straight, we are like sitting ducks.”

Atsushi Yogo

“We wanted to be setting up because it is a new car.  We were checking on initial problems and working on stability.  I did three or four laps to check the car and then Iiri drove and we improved the car, but we still have understeer.  He has done his rookie laps now.  I will be happy if it stays dry so we can continue to improve the car and see what our changes do.”

Both Matech Fords are out and running after their dramas earlier.

Juan Barazi suffers a lurid spin in the #009 Lola Aston at the Ford chicane but continues unscathed - we have a report meanwhile that the #007 car lost a chunk of bodywork at speed on the Mulsanne in Free Practice.

Jonny Kane is immediately on it in the #42 Strakka HPD - A 3:36.259 good enough for 9th fastest overall in the early minutes.

Tomas Enge too is pushing hard - immediately 3:55.025 - Gimmi Bruni tops GT2 early on with a 4:00.150

The early pace in LMP1 is around the 3:24 mark (#4 and #1 Peugeots)

Whilst there is an opportunity for teams to set fast times here we shouldn't forget that teams still have to qualify rookie drivers and also to complete the 3 laps required for each driver at night. It's a risky time out there.

One car that won't be out in tonight's session is the #12 Rebellion Lola, the car has a damaged suspension pick-up point, a legacy of a pair of earlier offs for Marco Andretti.

Kane improves his LMP2 leading time by a further tenth.

Lapierre breaks the 3:24 barrier in the #4 Oreca Peugeot - 3:22.901

Stefan Mucke grabs fastest petrol time meanwhile - 3:26.680 fast enough for 4th overall at the moment 

Magnussen grabs provisional GT2 pole with a 4:00.097

Lapierre goes faster again - 3:21.192

Bruni goes under 4 minutes to retake the advantage in GT2 - 3:59.233

Sarrazin goes 4th fastest to make it a Peugeot 1,2,3,4 as we approach the end of the first half hour - but the Oreca Peugeot has stopped on the run out of Arnage! Fuel?

Sarrazin sets the fastest first sector time of all but has a big moment over the kerbs coming onto the Mulsanne - the front end of the #2 Peugeot lifting off slightly - that attempt abandoned immediately! Despite that drama he still sets a time that would have been good enough for fifth overall at this early stage.

Bourdais though gets the #3 car within 0.118 of the provisional polesetter.

Red Flag at 22:34 - It looks like the #88 Felbermayr Porsche is broadside across the road out of Mulsanne.  It looked to have damage at the front right corner

That's bad news for that crew but good news (we presume) for the Oreca Peugeot boys whose charge can now be recovered. (albeit only to parc ferme!)

It seems our supposition that the Oreca 908 was 'low on fuel' was correct!

The session is going to get underway once again at 22:50 - 70 minutes remaining and its still entirely dry.

Paul Drayson has a spin into the gravel at the Ford Chicane and rather irritatingly the timing screens have frozen!

Sarrazin goes third fastest with a 2:22.829 - Lotterer goes fastest of the Audis - 3:24.430 only good enough though for 5th fastest at present.

GT2 is a Risi, Corvette, Corvette 1,2,3 at the moment.

The Bruichladdich Zytek and Autocon Lola have both spent a while on pit lane and are propping up the times at present. The Zytek though gets up and running before the session ends.

Matias Russo has put the #96 AF Corse Ferrari hard into the barriers backwards at the exit to the Porsche Curves - Red Flag again at 23:11 - An ambulance is in attendance - we'll let you know as soon as we have any information on the driver's condition.

The provisional polesetting #82 Risi Ferrari is done for the night - the time was set on 5 lap old rubber but Bruni pitted the car soon afterwards with a problem which the team have determined is transmission related (not driveshaft or diff).  Risi will take their time looking into the problem and the car will not be back out tonight.  (Output shaft on the Gearbox is the diagnosis)

We're told to expect a restart imminently and indeed we do get green flags at 23:25 - 35 minutes until the end of the session.

The Racing Box Lola celebrates with a spin at the Ford Chicane

Sebastian Bourdais celebrates with a 3:19.711 - Provisional pole as all the Peugeots are on it.

Wurz goes second in the #1 car with a 3:20.317.  Sarrazin goes 3rd with a 3:20.325 - Lapierre's gamble hasn't paid off.

Timo Bernhard is fifth - best of the Audis at present but nearly 4 seconds off the provisional pole pace.

The Drayson Racoing Lola has stopped on the Mulsanne - Pirro at the wheel.

Right at the death the #009 Lola Aston Martin, Turner at the wheel goes 9th fastest, splitting the #007 and #008 cars , all three Lola Astons setting the top 3 petrol-fuelled times - their best though (from Mucke in #007) was 7 seconds slower than the provisional pole time from Bourdais.

The Audis looked rather lacklustre by comparison with their Peugeot competition - but did we see the best from the R15 Plus this evening?

Strakka finished the session atop the LMP2 order 14th fastest overall with Enge once again setting the pace in GT1 and Bruni's early effort not bettered by the competition in GT2.

“It was difficult to find a clear lap but this one (the fast lap) was on my fifth lap so the tyres were not so good!  I had two good laps before that, and was quick in Sectors 1 and 2, but got traffic at the end of each lap.  I slowed down once and went again.  It’s good, I’m pleased because we worked hard to find a good set up on the car in the practice session this afternoon and now the car is very good.”

If it is wet tomorrow we've seen the grid largely set - It has to be said though that despite the very impressive times set at the sharp end this was remarkably downbeat as a spectator experience.