ILMC/ALMS, Petit Le Mans - Lunchtime Paddock Notes

Road Atlanta is one of the DSC Editor’s very favourite places in motorsport and it seems that plenty of others agree – including Tom Kristensen who described the combination of the Le Mans 24 Hours, 12 Hours of Sebring and Petit Le Mans as the “Grand Slam of Sportscar Racing”.

That should help focus the ACO’s attention on the importance of this event to many competitors and fans.

We’ll hear tomorrow in the annual State of the Series press conference what the ALMS’s point of view is on calendar issues, sources suggesting that we’ may see an expanded calendar revealed – including a surprise or two!

We may also hear more from the ACO with a partial WEC calendar revealed – That can only mean that the prospects of Petit Le Mans staying on the calendar are rather better than they seemed until remarkably recently.

DSC caught up with several of the teams that have had early meeting troubles over the lunch break – JDX’s stunning gold liveried GTC Porsche is no more – a confirmed withdrawal it’s beyond repair after being shunted by the out of control (suspected brake malfunction) #24 Oak Pescarolo.

The body language of several senior members of the Oak team suggests that we will hear later today that the #24 car will also join the list of withdrawals.

Over at Lotus the #64 car still requires a major parts delivery after Oskar Slingerland’s Wednesday testing shunt. “I ran out of talent,” said a rueful Slingerland – No excuses!  He’ll never make a professional racing driver with honesty like that!!

The flight carrying the parts from the UK is currently reported delayed until this evening and DSC believes that the team has requested and received approval to skip night practice this evening.

With so many European teams on parade here there’s no shortage of rented race transporters and equipment on display – It seems, for instance from this shot that team Gunnar won Sebring this year!

Despite that Hugues de Chaunac and co are in fine form, Le Patron thoroughly enjoying his race meeting so far and Nic Minassian revelling in his return to the “fantastique” 908 HDI FAP.

In a nearby awning the Signatech Oreca Nissan squad had both of their 03 chassis visible, the car parked at the rear bearing scrutineering stickers from Silverstone, the one at the front the race car for this weekend.

Rebellion Racing are looking to push hard here in a quest to wrest third place in the teams standings from Oreca.  As for 2012 they’re looking for some rapid reassurance on calendar and regulations before finally committing to the FIA WEC, making it very clear that they will not count out an ALMS campaign if the answers from the ACO don’t suit!

Down at United Autosports there's a refreshing blend of two teams - DAMS and United - France meets Yorkshire - Think Snails in Gravy!
 
And finally for now – we’re very firmly in the silly season – teams talking about new machinery, teams talking about other teams selling their current machinery but happily very few talking about walking!  There's one machine here that nobody is talking about though!

Favourite rumour of the day – Autocon to seek customer Audi deal!  That follows on from last year’s Autocon to seek Peugeot factory deal story and is expected to be just as accurate!