Le Mans 24 Hours – Friday

A silent day in terms of track action – there is none as the roads are of course open to the public today.  The pitlane was also open to the public and was as popular as ever for the fans.  There wasn’t a huge amount of news to gather from last night’s proceedings as most teams worked through their pre-race programmes, engine and gearbox changes were at various stages of completion by around midday.

One car was missing from its pit box.  The #13 Lola Rebellion tub, holed in Jean-Christophe Boullion’s qualifying crash last night, was away at a local carbon fibre workshop.  Having the Le Mans Tecnopark on the doorstep proved handy for Rebellion Racing.  Fortunately the hole was minor and could be successfully repaired.

Bart Hayden confirmed that he expected the repair process to take around five hours so the tub should arrive back in the afternoon ready to be rebuilt in time for warm-up.  The Rebellion crew have easily done a 24 hour race of work in their garage already and we haven’t started yet.  Guy Smith was one of the few drivers out and about today, although they will all be down at driver parade in Le Mans centre later tonight. 

“The hole in the tub was only a small one but it’s just a shame that we haven’t got as many laps in as we wanted.  We aren’t too concerned and we know that we should be further up the grid than we are and we are in pretty good shape for the race.  Qualifying positions aren’t of great importance anyway and I think we will be fine.”

Speaking of qualifying positions, perhaps the biggest story of the day is a scrutineering issue that has affected the #82 Risi Ferrari.

Having retained the honour of the fastest GT2 qualifying time at the close of Thursday’s final session the car was pulled in for its official ACO scrutineering check after midnight. A ‘minor irregularity’ was found at the rear wing, all its times being cancelled. This comes as a disappointment for the team, which was on a comfortable programme of bedding in new parts having set the pole time on Wednesday, but now seems to have accepted that its car will start at the back of the grid.

Gianmaria Bruni was nevertheless relishing the prospect of a good scrap with the Corvettes: “We all got traffic on quick laps, but I think we’ve got a little more in the pocket which will help us in the race.”

Jaime Melo: “If you start first or last, it doesn’t really change anything for this race. It’s where you finish that’s important.”

The weather has stayed dry today, and temperatures rose rapidly when the sun came out this afternoon. But we also saw big dark clouds with a few light spots of rain. It really seems that it could do anything for race weekend if the past week is anything to go by.

We spent the remainder of the day at the Drivers parade in the City Centre - More from that on race morning tomorrow.