Petit Le Mans – Hours 2-4
Not So Mellow Yellows

Hour 2

Sarrazin has fought back to second place—quite an easy task actually given that some of the cars that did not stop during the caution have now made their calls.

Turn 10 has become a car-eater this week and it has claimed another victim. Liz Halliday was lapping a batch of GT cars and got sideways. She was nearly tagged by the GT2 leading Ferrari but there was no contact—just barely.

The Creation stopped and it took a good minute before the track was clear enough and the car was able to restart. The incident greatly accordioned the GT2 contest. Dirk Werner caught right up on the Ferrari and a lap later the Porsche took the class lead. Another Dirk, Müller, also makes a pass. In this case his No. 71 Ferrari has passed GT2 points leader Bergmeister’s Porsche for third in the GT2 class.

Ryan Briscoe has shown great fuel economy in the No. 5 Porsche and remained out longer than all but a few GT2 cars. He finally stopped, which briefly put the No. 2 Audi into the lead. This changed a short time later when we had another full-course caution. This time Gil de Ferran got stranded in the gravel at—you guessed it, Turn 10.

During the interruption and subsequent round of stops the Peugeot leapt back to the fore, with the No. 7 Porsche of Dumas second overall and first in P2. The Farnbacher Loles Porsche remained in front of GT2, with Bryce Miller taking over the driving duties while the No. 62 Ferrari was passed to Mika Salo. Indeed there were more problems in the Risi camp—a delay with a bad throttle linkage. This left the No. 45 Lizard second in class—Wolf Henzler at the wheel.

The next green flag period saw Franck Montagny, now in the Andretti-Green Acura, chasing down and passing Romain Dumas. Also there was a battle between the officials and the Autocon Lola. The car had been caught speeding in pit lane earlier and their attempt to serve the subsequent penalty under yellow was not happily accepted. Then it took the starter four green flag laps before a chastened Tony Burgess finally pulled in for a slap of the wrist.

Notice that we said “green flag session” as indeed that’s what we just had. The hour closes with yet another big one—the biggest one of the day. Stefan Johansson came screaming down the fast run to the final right-hand turn. The Swede wanted to turn, the No. 48 Zytek refused the command and plowed straight into the tire wall, nearly bending the car backwards. Johansson emerged unscathed—much less so the car.

Hour 3

Bryce Miller took on a splash during the yellow flag period, just prior to wave-by period. This gave the No. 87 Porsche a decided strategic advantage in the GT2 battle. During the yellow flag came an interesting note from IMSA. The Highcroft team had filed a protest prior to the race regarding non-spec fuel being used by all the LM P2 Porsches. IMSA has agreed to process the request that will make the race ending results provisional until an analysis can take place. Gary Horrocks took a look at a shot of one of the Penske cars at Mosport and noticed that early on the area around the exhaust pipes was pitch black. He pointed at the trio of yellow cars as they zapped by today. The area around the exhausts is now shiny clean. Hmmm.

Dumas briefly leads, but once again it was the Peugeot—still with Sarrazin - who took over command of the race. At the other end of the field, both Field cars are again running, with the No. 37 Lola’s suspension being rebuilt.

There is good news for Aston Martin as Darren Turner brought the No. 007 Vantage as high as 3rd in GT2. The GT2 Corvette has been retired as its overheating problems proved terminal. Two other cars in the class have hit problems. Pierre Ehret had an off with the No. 73 Ferrari and the Panoz had a puncture. A slow moving GT2 car nearly caught out Harold Primat as the No. 88 Creation had a near miss of the wall.

The Ginetta-Zytek is again running quickly after having made a mistake in their pit stop sequence during the yellow. The No. 50 car lost a lap in the process.

At the 2:45 elapsed time mark—end of the first “sprint race”—Lucas Luhr pulled in, leaving Sarrazin with a clear overall lead. Then we had a bit of drama when the Ford Falken suffered a massive left rear puncture and smokily returned to the pits, its suspension also askew. The search was on for a replacement eyebolt.

The best racing during this period was for third overall, second in LM P2, with Montagny hounding Briscoe. Then we had Campbell-Walter off at Turn 1, but he was able to quickly get back on. The No. 71 Ferrari stopped, which handed second in GT2 to Wolf Henzler, as the Aston has dropped back a bit.

The hour ends with important stops by the No. 7 Porsche of Dumas, and then the leading Peugeot. Finally, the No. 5 Porsche stops and out of jail and across the pit rail goes Helio Castroneves. But before that last stop occurs the prospect of going 60 minutes without a caution comes to an end. Dean Stirling has gone off hard at Turn 1 with the No. 888 Creation, scattering carbon fiber bits all around.

Hour 4

Christian Klien took the lead from Castroneves on the restart and the gap grows considerably when the No. 5 Porsche is called back in, having been clocked speeding on its previous stop.

The green period is a short one as Tony Burgess slaps into the wall, retiring the bright yellow Autocon entry. Thus well into the fourth hour and we still have no real pattern emerging—just a very episodic event.

There were lead changes under yellow, both overall and in GT2. Marc Lieb now led the production category while Lucas Luhr had the Audi first in LM P1 and at the very top. On the restart one of better contests of the day begins to emerge. One is downfield, with Pirro, now in the early delayed No. 1 Audi, starting to head steadily up the charts. He would end the hour fourth overall.

The best fight during the middle part of the hour was for the GT2 lead with the lesser known Jörg Hardt (No. 87 Farnbacher Porche), chasing hard against the No. 45 Lizard car of Marc Lieb. The erstwhile GT2 leader, the No. 62 Ferrari, lost two laps with a broken hose connection.

A bit ahead of the top GT2 runners Marino Franchitti chased and passed Adrian Fernandez. But the focus during the period was still on the GT2 fight that suddenly came undone. Olivier Pla caught Hardt on an uphill section and the Ginetta unadvisedly put two wheels on the gravel. Coming back onto the racing surface Pla tapped the Porsche into a spin. Hardt was able to continue, albeit slowly, while the LNT team car was penalized for the avoidable contact. Then they received yet another penalty, thanks to speeding into the penalty stop the first time around. It thus took three stops before they could actually come and attend to damage caused by the incident. Elsewhere in GT2, Eric van de Poele had a brief off in the Krohn-Risi Ferrari.

While this effectively ended the GT2 battle for the time being, the overall fight was heating up. Klien was catching Luhr in the all-diesel fight. The Peugeot appeared to be quicker but the Audi suddenly grew quite wide. Finally Luhr ceded the spot when he lifted for the briefest of moments when he encountered a GT2 Porsche.

The Peugeot was through and the next time around heading into start-finish Klien just got past Jim Tafel when suddenly the No. 73 Ferrari veered towards the wall and spun back across the track. A fast approaching Luhr had to nail the brakes to avoid a collision. Tafel came to a halt perpendicular to the wall and after a brief delay was able to continue. Nevertheless, the incident brought out our seventh full-course caution of the day. During the yellow, Marco Andretti put the No. 26 Acura into the lead when the previous leaders made their pit calls.

Janos Wimpffen