Le Mans Test Day – Sunday 5
Fast Stuff – Red Flag Ending We promised to bring GT1 news / comment to you this afternoon. So.. at Team Modena, Rik Bryan was happy: “We’ve had a great day. We put the race ‘ box in this afternoon, just to give it some miles. Antonio (Garcia) set a 3:52.295, and we’ve still got some changes to make.” The team’s Lamborghini Gallardo finished fourth in British GTs today, at Snetterton – on its maiden appearance. Adam Jones set the fastest race lap. The top GT1s were very well matched heading towards the last hour – but Jan Magnussen would have something to say about that. The BMS DBR9, on its Pirellis, was hanging onto the tail end of the top group. Fabio Babini: “Today is very important for practice, not important for lap times. The new tarmac is faster and safer. We are working only for the race. Yes, the car is better than last year: the synchronise between the tyres and the tarmac is better, and the set-up too. Jamie (Davies) set the 3:52: he was on low fuel and I was on full tanks. Back to LMP1 and a call into the Arena pit coincided with Hayanari Shimoda becoming the third man to hit the Porsche (Courage) Curves wall. “The car is bad but he’s all right,” said Mike Earle. There was a hint of a fire as Shimoda got out – and he’s left the team a lot of work today before race week. Until his partner was brought back to the garage, Stefan Johansson was very entertaining on various subjects, but that’s for another time. “We’ve had a bad day today,” said the Swede. “Throttle cable, stuck throttle, gearbox, then something wrong with the steering.” He set a “3:34 something” in the end, bu Hayanari Shimoda ensured that any gremlins will have to be eradicated with a major rebuild. The del Bello (hit the wall this morning) Courage did finally venture out, for Petrov to complete his 10 laps, at 17.30 – but that’s jumping ahead. Guillaume Moreau did complete his laps this morning, before hitting the wall, and he’s staying in hospital overnight, for observation. “No broken bones,” said Courage’s Claude Surmont, “but it was a very big crash. He hit the wall on the outside then went across the track and hit the other wall. He’s very bruised.” Tom Kimber-Smith was on a very good, long run at mid-afternoon in the #81 LNT Panoz, and his sequence of laps was very impressive. “4:06.8, 7.1, 7.1, 7.1, 7.1, 7.1 than an 8 in traffic. I was lucky, because when I met traffic it was on the straights, not the corners. I ended up with a 7.4 on light fuel but old tyres, and began with a high 6 on full fuel and new tyres, so we’re very happy with that.” Tom Milner was observing it all, and reflecting on the Rahal-Letterman Porsche’s best run of the year, at Utah. “But we made two green flag pit stops, while others made only one full stop under green. That cost us. I thought I was racing for third at the end, until the team told me we’d finished sixth. But we’re competitive with Tafel and the Lizards, and we’ve got two days’ testing at Mid-Ohio next week.” Busy chap. Rob Bell on his puncture this morning: “I was in sixth gear, flat out, on the first section of the Mulsanne, just before the braking point.” That was hairy, wasn’t it? “Very. A big tank slapper, and I couldn’t get it stopped on three wheels and had to go straight on at the chicane.” Good save. Scuderia Ecosse might well have joined in with the last hour fun and games, but “we had a driveshaft failure, and another problem, so we haven’t got through all our long runs yet,” said Andrew Kirkaldy. “Oh, and we’ve got an air jack problem now too.” Right, back to the sequence of events this afternoon – building up to, well, an odd ending. At 16.00, the best times in each class read as follows:
LMP1
1 Audi 3:29.064
8 Peugeot 3:30.224
2 Audi 3:30.295
7 Peugeot 3:30.314
16 Pescarolo 3:31.697 LMP2
33 Zytek 3:39.207
32 Zytek 3:39.304
40 Lola 3:40.613
25 MG Lola 3:41.025
21 Radical 3:43.985 GT1
007 Aston Martin 3:51.414
64 Corvette 3:51.628
55 Saleen 3:51.721
008 Aston Martin 3:51.822
100 Aston Martin 3:52.774 GT2
80 Lizards Porsche 4:03.400
93 Autorlando Porsche 4:03.754
76 IMSA Porsche 4:04.255
97 Risi Ferrari 4:04.496
87 Scuderia Ecosse Ferrari 4:04.635. So in P1 we had one petrol car in touch with the diesels, just about, the two Zyteks looked to be the quickest in P2, GT1 was very close and nicely mixed between three marques, and three Porsches headed GT2. Colin Braun (after completing his 10 laps in the Krohn Risi Ferrari): “The frustrating part is that you go through a corner and think that you can do it better – but you have to wait over four minutes to try it again.” Braun’s first few laps began, impressively, like this: 4:21 / 4;18 / 4:12 / 4:09. Here’s the main sequence of events during the last two hours. Tom Chilton not received dispensation to race the Zytek. It was brought back to the garages after 18.00, and the r/front seemed to take the hit, although damage didn’t look too bad. At 16.21, Tomas Enge in the 007 DR9 lapped in 3:50.848, fastest time in GT1 to that point. Towards 16.30, the #85 Spyker stopped out on the circuit. At 16.34, the #1 Audi set a 3:28.277, Frank Biela at the wheel. That was the first 3:28 lap. 15 minutes later, Bourdais in the #8 Peugeot replied with a 3:27.180. Otherwise, times in the top three classes were little changed from those at 16.00. The Risi Ferrari improved to a 4:03.422, second quickest at that point – but the 430 ran out of fuel on its next lap, and that was the red Risi Ferrari out of it for the rest of the afternoon. Last Hour
The significant changes took place between 17.28 and 17.52 – apart from Pat Long’s 4:01.598, which was the top time of the day in GT2, with the IMSA Porsche. 17.28 and the RfH Dome set a 3:34.035, Lammers at the wheel – fastest non Peugeot / Audi / Pescarolo. 17.29 and the #33 Zytek with Fernandez at the wheel increases its margin in P2 with a 3:39.016. 17.34: Magnussen heads GT1 with a 3:49.887. 17.37: Mags improves again on his next lap, a 3:49.207. 17.38: Bourdais sets a 3:26.707, one and a half seconds quicker than anything else. 17.41: Boullion in the #16 Pesca sets a 3:28.574, 1.8 seconds slower than Bourdais but way quicker than anything the team set last year, and faster than one Peugeot and one Audi. 17.45: the Luhr Audi sets a 3:30.613. 17.47: Vergers is in the Barazi-Epsilon Zytek, and he exactly matches the time set by Fernandez in the other P2 Zytek – just as Minassian did to the Audi this morning. Zytek drivers are first, second, third and sixth fastest in class (Fern / Verg / Kuro / Kerr), with Hughes and Erdos splitting them. 17.50: Simonsen moves closer to the top of GT2 with a 4:02.192 in the Autorlando 997. Great stuff from the Dane on his LM debut. 17.52: fastest first sectors from Bourdais and McNish ruined by a red flag – an incident involving the Bruneau Pilbeam, which went off somewhere. And that brought an eventful day to a close a few minutes early, ruining a potential climax. So the track is faster, that’s very clear. Bourdais lapped almost four seconds faster than Capello’s pole time last year, while the best Audi time was 2.2 seconds quicker than the 2006 pole. Neither of the big two used qualifying tyres today. Almost as predicted, the 908 is faster than the R10 (on today’s evidence). Dr. Ullrich: “I have not been surprised with the speed of the Peugeot. It’s good to have a competitor like this. We had four drivers who had never driven a prototype at Le Mans before and they all set good lap times at the end.” That included Mike Rockenfeller’s 3:28.406. Fastest man Sebastien Bourdais: “The car was extremely well balanced. I’ve just had the most fun I’ve ever had in a sports prototype. I always try to give my very best and I was pushing as much as I could. We didn’t use qualifying tyres.” It is beautifully set up for the race in less than two weeks from now. The P1Ds seem closely matched (the Audi with the economy advantage perhaps? – we didn’t see one Peugeot run of more than ten laps, and are sure that a longer run didn’t happen today – which doesn’t mean more than 10 isn’t possible), the Pescarolos went for it in P1P, but the rest are nicely matched. GT1 is the war that we expected, while so far, the Porsches have at least the one lap speed advantage in GT2. The ACO’s ‘advisory lap times’ now look plain daft. Some cars are only listed with two drivers who are accepted for the race, but blanks include Darren Turner, who wasn’t here today. There are some oddities though: one list states that Nicolas Prost did three laps, but another says that he is accepted for the race (ah, he did plenty of laps in the other Oreca Saleen). Similarly Vasily Petrov did six laps but he is listed as OK to attend the race meeting. Anyway, too tired to do much more than add some quotes now (with thanks to the PR people involved). Allan McNish: “We completed what we’d set out to achieve. Unfortunately the day comprised a number of red flags, including one near the end which upset our plans a little, but overall we have a well balanced car and we’re happy. “We spilt the workload between the three cars. I drove our car for most of the morning to conduct basic ground work. In the afternoon all three of us drove again to give everyone experience of the ’07 R10 TDI at Le Mans which has changed slightly at Tertre Rouge and Arnage.” George Howard-Chappell: “It’s going well so far. We’ve looked at all the tyres we’ll be using this year and we’re finding our way towards some answers as to what will be the best solution. We’re very happy with the car and it seems to be very well balanced, which is of the utmost importance at Le Mans. We’re running air conditioning for the first time this year and we’re beginning to understand a bit about how that works and its effect on the cars. We’ve worked through the test programme we had planned and we’re confident we’ve got a good package now, but who knows what the actual conditions will be like at race weekend? The track will almost certainly be grippier but we can’t predict the weather at the moment. That’s always one of the many unknown factors about Le Mans.” Peter Kox: “I was the first driver out on the track and the surface was very green, very slippy. I only did about four laps so it’s very hard for me to draw many serious conclusions but the car feels good and very similar to how it has been in previous years. I think we’ve got the pace, but you can never predict too much from the test day.” David Brabham: “We’ve had a pretty normal test day, which is good, and we’ve seen that we’re certainly in the ball park in terms of performance, although I wouldn’t say I’m entirely happy because as a racing driver you never are. I’d like to find a bit more stability under braking but I’m sure we’ll get there. We’ve had a very good tyre evaluation and that’s given us a clear direction of where we’re going. I’d say we’re in good shape.” Tomas Enge: “It’s not been a bad start – I’ve got a very good feeling with the car and I would say that it actually feels even better than it has done in the past, although the evolutions are always very small. I did about 13 laps and I got a good grip on the conditions but of course in two weeks time they might be completely different. It will probably be hotter, with better grip. Luckily, I’m very familiar with the DBR9 now so I feel confident in all conditions. I’m just looking forward to it now: Le Mans is probably my favourite race.” Rickard Rydell: “For me, it was all about getting time in the car: I’ve not been to Le Mans since 2004 and not driven a GT car since then. Instead, I’ve been doing World Touring Cars, which is a totally different sort of thing. There’s a lot for me to learn but I’m confident that with more time in the car I’ll be right on the pace of the others. The DBR9 is definitely the best-balanced GT car I’ve ever driven; it feels easy to drive and very predictable. Already I have a lot of confidence.” Johnny Herbert: “From my point of view I got a decent amount of running in and got used to the track again. It was important to try out the tyres and know what it’s like rather than go all-out for times, but the time that Tomas set shows that we’re right up there. From a team point of view, everything’s beginning to knit together and there’s a real cohesion there. The car is very well-balanced and I think we achieved everything we set out to do.” David Richards: “Today has certainly been an interesting way to spend my birthday! It’s been a good experience for all of us though, and I think it’s clear that we have a three-way fight now for the supremacy. There’s competition from within our own ranks, and the Saleens seem strong now as well as the Corvettes. From what I can see, this race has got all the hallmarks of being a classic Le Mans.” Colin Braun: “It was a lot of fun. This track is a difficult place to learn but a lot of fun, and with a lot of character to it so it was neat to do the 20 or so laps that I did. I really enjoyed the day and we Krohn Racing drivers worked well with our engineer, Mark Schomann, to get the car running pretty good. I’m excited about our chances for the race. Tracy has done a great job and was running some good lap times so we’re going to have a good shot.” Nic Jönsson: “I’m very pleased. I talked before the session with Mark, our engineer, about race set up and we’ve been running full tanks all day and trying different tire combinations so things are good. I know we’re 7th in the middle of the field, but if we go out with low tanks and new tires I’m sure we’d be in the top three or four. For Colin, who’s here for the very first time, it’s been great and he’s been getting up to speed well. For Tracy it’s been fantastic – he’s about 6 seconds a lap faster this year than last – so if we can continue like this and stay out of trouble in the race we’ll be in good shape.” Tracy Krohn: “Today was a great day. I’m definitely much quicker than I was last year and the car is going well. I don’t think we had the right tires on it in the last stint there, but I’m very pleased and looking forward to next week.” Jaime Melo: “To be honest I’m not completely happy because I think we have to fix some small problems we had to get more confidence with the car, especially at the rear. But anyway, we are going in the right direction and we need just to try to find a solution for these problems and for sure we can go quicker and be more consistent for the race.” Johnny Mowlem: “I’m absolutely delighted the team has got the car going so well. From a personal point of view I’m really pleased with the way I felt in the car, and I’m very comfortable with the lap times I was doing given the tires and fuel loads. I think the car is in really good shape and we are looking good for the race.” Mika Salo: “I did most of my laps this morning when the track was still a bit dirty but we got things going in the right direction for set up so I think that important. It didn’t feel like it was four years ago since I was last here which I guess means that I didn’t forget too much as far as track layout is concerned.” | 
