Le Mans 24 Hours - Thursday Morning Notes

A quick scout down the pitlane this morning reveals that the news is mostly good.

The exception is AF Corse, but the news could have been much worse.  Luigi Urbinelli, AF Corse’s Technical Director confirmed that “Matias Russo is OK, he has been here this morning.  He lost control in the Porsche curves and the car hit the wall at around 190km/h.  The car is destroyed.  [Bent and missing chassis members, the almost complete absence of the right rear suspension members and even a bent engine pushed into the bulkhead made this comment inherently unnecessary].  There is the chance of another chassis but the situation is confused at the moment.  It is a matter between the team, the ACO and the drivers and we will know by this afternoon.  There is another car in Italy and it is not a problem to bring it here if we are able to.  It is important that we make sure Matias is right though.  He seems OK [physically] but I would need to see him and medics to see how his neck is, his legs, his arms.  Also to see how his mind is because he was shaken by the crash.”

(An update via Mika Salo is that #96 will play no further part this weekend, Russo still very much feeling the effects of the impact.)

The #88 Felbermayr Porsche was back in Porsche shape after a fairly heavy impact with the barrier on the way to Indianapolis last night.  The front right had been badly deranged when the car came back on a flatbed but was fortunately confined to suspension, bodywork, front and rear screens and ancillaries. 

The Oreca engineers tried to persuade us that there were “no problems” with #4 in qualifying last night.  At the time they were saying it was a “fuel supply problem” so perhaps either the car did run out fuel (it was going very fast very early in the session and only lasted six laps) or Lapierre decided to watch the rest of qualifying trackside from just after Arnage.

The Autocon Lola had a gearbox problem and a mechanic, spanners in hand, said they thought the problem had been fixed but they would have to wait until track time to see.

#82 and #63 had component failures last night, but both on ‘lifed’ parts that were due for replacement before the race in any event.  #82 was an output shaft causing the car to crab at the rear.  #63 was a gearbox problem, but this was one of the original GT2 gearboxes so was not unexpected.

On investigating Drayson’s scavenger pump issue, the team found some debris in the oil.  Rather than investigate what it was, where it had come from and what it might have done to the engine, they opted to change engines as a precautionary measure, albeit 24 hours earlier than programmed. 

#61 had a clutch problem last night, but again it is now fixed, likewise the #12 Rebellion car suspension mount issue had been resolved.

Andrew Howard was looking more relaxed after qualifying than he was at scrutineering.  “People tend to forget that this team is only five months old and our last 24 hour race was done in what was officially a GT4 car.  I think the team has done a brilliant job so far.  If you look at the teams ahead of us and their experience, then remember that we have two Le Mans and night-driving rookies I think the drivers have done brilliantly.  I think it is all about mileage here, if we could bring in McNish’s Le Mans experience into our drivers, then we’d all be happy.  Whatever the weather does tonight we will be getting as much track time as we can, the more the better.”