Le Mans Series – Silverstone – Qualifying Report
Peugeots, Of Course, Plus TK-S, Garcia And Bell

LMP
With only twenty minutes to set a time and grid place, it was straight down to business, for the prototypes initially - or at least the half of the Ps that chose to go out for the first half of the session.

Leading them all around for the first time was Tommy Erdos in the RML MG Lola, enjoying possibly his first traffic free lap of the meeting so far. He impressed with an opener of 1:35.847, the first sub 1:36 for a P2 car this weekend.

Primat took his Pescarolo to an initial second with a 1:37.459 before Vergers and Buncombe both pushed him down the order. Hall took over at the head of P1 with a 1:37.424, but then pitted. Primat, Hall and Berridge were the only P1 drivers to have posted a time as the session entered the last ten minutes.

Jamie Campbell-Walter’s opening 1:36.535 took the Creation to the top of the P1 times, and despite then chipping it down to a 1:36.461, it was still only third best overall.

“I’m disappointed with the position we’ve ended up in but, considering the way the weekend has worked so far, maybe we shouldn’t be too down<” said JC-W. “We had a lot of problems with set up in the practice sessions and now the car is quite good although we are still lacking grip and I didn’t have the confidence in high speed corners I really needed. It was my first time round on low tanks and new tyres. If you consider the Zytek and Pescarolos as the benchmark for the ‘petrol’ grid, we are only three tenths of a second off the Pescarolo which isn’t bad. Taking that into consideration, and how far we’ve come since the first practice session, I’m quite confident for the race tomorrow. We’ll see what happens.”

As Cochet and Lamy peeled onto the track, Kimber-Smith, continuing the incredible story of LNT’s debut in prototype racing, went fastest overall with a 1:35.615, then a superb 1:35.149. Amazing stuff.

“I only saw the car for the first time on Monday and had a seat fitting but since then the seat had shrunk, so we had to do a second and I’m onto the third already, so the weekend didn’t start too well, as I tried to get comfortable in the car. In the first session on Friday it felt like everything was at warp speed, a bit of a reality check but by the afternoon I was getting used to it and by this morning it felt like I’d been doing it all year. We were confident we could get pole and we really wanted third overall. I lost about a third of a second on my best lap, but that wouldn’t have done it anyway. Overall, the team are pretty happy, me and Danny [Watts] are pretty close and it could have been either of us qualifying really. Danny will start tomorrow and we’re pretty confident going into the race.”

As Minassian’s Peugeot bore down on the timing beam, it was obvious that Kimber-Smith’s reign at the top would be a short one, but the diesel’s 1:31.692 was perhaps beyond what most had expected. That would be good enough for pole tomorrow.

Lamy ensured the inevitable Peugeot front row lock-out with a 1:32.168 and Mucke took the Charouz Lola ahead of the two P2 leaders – the only conventional P1 to do so.

The three Cs in P1 were next, in the order Cochet, Chilton (Tom) and Collard, all separated by just one-tenth of a second. Vergers and JC-W rounded out the top ten.

The final four minutes of the session were effectively brought to an end after the Charouz Lola, still in Mucke’s hands, had an off at Bridge, hitting the wall (travelling at an acute angle, so barely any damage) whilst going backwards on the approach to Bridge, ending up crossing the track and facing the wrong way. Yellow flags were waved and several cars had to take avoiding action as the Lola was removed from the track, then released again, still facing the wrong way, only to get stuck on the other side of the track as Mucke tried to get under the bridge the right way, meaning he had to be retrieved again. Any chance of an improvement was lost with the drivers having to lift at such a fast part of the circuit, so most of those still out chose to pit and call it a day.

That Mucke lap-with-the-off was going to be even quicker than his 1:34.459: he was two tenths up by the time he got to Becketts, and a low 1:34 looked to be on the cards. As it was, the top P1 car was 2.8 seconds slower than Minassian’s diesel pole – but 1.6 seconds faster than the rest of the P1s…..

“I know this track well, and it has been good to me,” said Nic Minassian. “Often the first lap works well here, and the car was really good. We want to win the next two races if we can, but first of all we want to finish.”

There are some yawning gaps in the times at the front of the field, but ignoring, for a moment, the top five (Minassian, Lamy, Mucke, Kimber-Smith and Erdos), the gap from the Courage LMP1 in sixth (Cochet was one of the few to find a clear lap in practice, and hence he didn’t improve much in qualifying) to the Horag Lola in 19th is just 2.9 seconds. It’s going to be a great P1/P2 scrap.

Two cars that didn’t feature too highly in qualifying, the Rollcentre Pescarolo and the Embassy Radical – 12th and 17th – are both expected to be highly competitive in the race.

Darren Manning qualified the Radical (which Neil Cunningham won’t race tomorrow, it will be just Manning and Warren Hughes), and he commented that “we know we can do 38s and 39s in the race, on clear laps”.

The Rollcentre Pescarolo also had its set-up ‘made good’ for qualifying, and Stuart Hall set the time in Shorty’s car.

“He did a really nice job,” said the boss. “We’re only 1.3 off Collard, which is encouraging. The high downforce nature of the track doesn’t suit the Pescarolo, but as usual we’ve got a good race car.

“We’ve given Stuart the responsibility this weekend, and he’s done a fabulous job. It looks as though Joao might be employed elsewhere next year, and if that’s the case, this might be his last drive for us. But Joao has taken Stuart under his wing and taught him well. For next year, we’ll probably be looking for Shorty’s next apprentice!”

GT1
Cioci opened proceedings in GT1 with a 1:46.366, which was good enough to stay on top for the first half of the session. Dumez’s Corvette and Zacchia’s Aston Martin swapped improved times behind, lowering themselves through the 1:47s.

Saleen, Corvette and Aston Martin had all been represented early on then, but it was their quicker sister cars that took the limelight in the final eight minutes. Gavin was the first to challenge with a 1:45.933, a time he tried for several laps to better, but never quite managed. As he gave up and pitted, Ayari took over with a 1:45.721 on only his second flying lap.

Bouchut’s Aston Martin popped up for the first time in the session - third in class on the timing screen with a 1:46.160, then 1:45.897 to demote Gavin and go second. So another Saleen pole?

Antonio Garcia in the Team Modena Aston Martin was the last to show his hand - but the best had been saved to last. A stunning 1:44.755 was enough to clinch the class pole and ensure that the Team Modena Aston Martin will start tomorrow ahead of the P2 Lucchini, which could be an advantage over the competition, who will all start in a tight little group behind it.

“Normally the Saleen jumps ahead of the rest of us in qualifying,” said the Spaniard. “I expected them to do a 43, but they didn’t. I was pushing as hard as I could on my first lap, because the best lap here is nearly always the first lap. I had no traffic and and it was a perfect lap. They didn’t tell me the time so I tried another lap and that was also a 1:44. So the normal pattern is reversed on this track. I hope we have a great race with the Saleen, like we did at Spa last year.”

“I think we could have got second on the GT1 grid but not pole,” observed Ollie Gavin. “Antonio [Garcia] did a great lap and they have looked good here all weekend. After looking at the split times, it seems we lost about half a second behind a couple of GT2 cars. On my first lap I was trying to pass a Ferrari into Turn 1 and got off line into Copse. On the second timed lap I followed a Spyker into Turn 1 and then had to fight him all the way through to Becketts. The next lap was looking really good through to Stowe but then I had to try and pass someone coming into Club, I braked too late and ran wide and, after that, the tyres were gone. I am disappointed really as I wanted to give the car a better showing and start further up at my home race but, as we know in these endurance races, anything might happen tomorrow.”
Paul Slinger

GT2
“We’re still on Plan A.” That was the response of Virgo Motorsport’s Steve Bunkhall after Rob Bell had stepped from the Ferrari F430 GT, cool as a cucumber, having set a pole position time in the GT2 category a full 1.2 seconds quicker than its closest competitor in the class. Fifteen minutes of the twenty minute session had elapsed before Rob emerged from the pits, and then a single flying lap sufficed to put the Ferrari not only on pole position, but also very firmly in place as the favourite for tomorrow’s 1,000km race. “We’ve been quick all week,” he said. “The car is set up well, the Dunlop tyres are good and I expected to get the pole. I expect to win the race tomorrow as well.” Later, he revealed that he had made a little mistake on his lap: “but there wasn’t any traffic, and I was able to back off straight away after one lap. I knew it was good enough for pole.” Rob will be in the car for the start of the race tomorrow for Virgo.

Delivering on the promise shown all season was the IMSA Performance Porsche 997 driven by Richard Lietz. “I hope we are on the right tyre”, he said after he had set what was the quickest time for most of the session. (They will be using the softer (Michelin) tyre rather than the harder rubber that he believes most of the competition is using.) The Porsche was one of the first cars to set a quick time, but Richard reported “big traffic on my second and third laps,” making further improvement impossible. “We will try some stuff in the warm-up tomorrow,” he continued. “We want to do the race on four pit stops if we can. But first we have to finish!” he smiled, wryly, ruing the fact that the car has only had one classified finish this season.

The Spyker Squadron team was in third and fifth places, easily their best qualifying result of the season. Jonny Kane was third fastest in the (speedy) Speedy car (above), but Peter Dumbreck was very disappointed with the result of the car he shares with Mike Hezemans; he felt that the car could have been half a second quicker. That would have put the two Dutch cars third and fourth. His problem was traffic, which he encountered on his first two flying laps. “On the third lap, I got a reasonably clear lap, but by then the tyres were shot,” he said. Dumbreck is not particularly looking forward to the race, however – “we don’t have a good race setup,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do in the warm-up tomorrow.”

Mike Hezemans seemed happier though, reckoning that the Spyker was still handling well on 35 lap old tyres, but confirmed that something new was afoot for the warm-up.

Norbert Singer and Hugh Hayden were in deep conversation after the qualifying – and uncharacteristically, not a smile between them. Marc Lieb ended the session in fourth place with the Felbermayr-Proton Porsche 997, and he was very unhappy and somewhat mystified. “I don’t understand it,” said the German, “we used the same set-up, the same tyres, and we are slower than yesterday. We have lots of oversteer, I am not sure that we can fix it in the warm up.” Possibly a consequence of Pompidou’s off this morning? “No,” said Nobert Singer firmly to me afterwards. “I don’t want to say that it is the tyres, but let’s say it is in the area of the tyres,” he went on cryptically. “We are working with the engineers from Pirelli, to understand the problem. We understand now the problem in the Free Practice this morning; the problem with the front wheel was a valve, and when Pompidou went off, it was a puncture.” So the team will be working hard to rectify the problem in tomorrow morning’s warm up.

Johnny Mowlem qualified the GPC Sport Ferrari in sixth, ahead of the sister car (“I’m quite chuffed with that,” said the Brit, "on the hard Pirelli tyres"), the sister car driven by Matteo Bobbi. In eighth spot on the GT2 grid was a much happier Piers Masarati. “I’m made up,” he said. “We only had 75% throttle yesterday. That, plus I’m driving a lot better now. Our main problem is that Lars (Erik Nielsen) has hurt himself, so it will be down to Pierre (Ehret) and me.” The Dane has hurt his shoulder and will probably only do one stint in the race.

The last word though has to go to Rob Bell, who with Gimmi Bruni is looking in danger of spoiling everyone else’s weekend in GT2. “It was a great lap,” he told the pole position press conference. “And on the tyres, we can run for an hour, which is basically a stint.” Before qualifying, he was smiling and confident. “Basically,” he said, “we’re hoping for a boring weekend.” The opposition can only hope his confidence is mis-placed.
PT