Le Mans Series, 6 Hours Of Le Castellet - Friday Free Practice 1

Beautiful conditions greeted the cars as they took to the track, a pleasant 18 degrees air temperature in the sunshine and a track temperature of 21 degrees.  It was to prove a clean and straightforward 60 minute session.

Henri Pescarolo was able to see his ‘old’ boy Collard in his ‘old’ weapon head the timesheets early as he was straight into the 1:48s, this car’s feat only to be matched in the whole session by Rebellion’s #13 which was to finish ahead with a 1:48.395.

Tinseau almost turned the tables again with a late 1:48.5.  We may already be getting a preview then of what the pointy end (once we get a number of entrants capable of forming a shape that has a point that is) of the LMS P1 battle is going to look like this season – close.  Rebellion’s second car was half a second further back, Pla hopefully not doing anything representative in this session with only a 1:51.220.  AMR did not run the AMR-One, which as reported earlier is expected out for the first time this afternoon.

Tom Kimber-Smith headed the early P2 times but was then bettered by Kraihamer who improved throughout the session to finish with a 1:50.766.  We believe that this is Tom Kimber-Smith’s first run in an LMP car since his one-off drive in the Team LNT Zytek at Silverstone in 2007 (pole in P2 and fourth quickest overall) and oddly this car is the exact same chassis.  You had to go back nearly a second to find the Greaves car, Race Performance a further 0.15s back.  There was then a big gap of nearly two seconds to #42 and #46.  Ominously, RML still find themselves with no grunt at all.  Strakka are not used to be being in the pack, some contact with a Porsche didn’t help.

Representative fastest times from the same session last year were 1:44s for the P1s (diesels and petrols), 1:48s for P2s.

GTE (v 2010’s GT) was naturally more on a par, with Lieb straight into the 1:58s, which is more or less where they were last year.  His time of 1:58.666 on just his fourth lap was unchallenged throughout.  Porsche were certainly dominant so far and the Ferrari teams, AF Corse in particular, seeming to struggle with their new tools, dropping to the bottom of the timesheets with only the Young Driver Aston Martin for company and the latter didn’t turn many laps after a delayed start to their session with starter issues.  Even more surprising as the clerk of the course considered that the AF Corse drivers were both exceeding the track limits to get those times.  #51’s best was only a 1:51.306 and #71s a 2:01.557.

One very obvious distinction between the 458 Italias is that they sound very, very different to each other.  The Hankook Farnbacher car was quickest (2.00.4) and is race car loud - lovely.  JMW is noticeably quieter and half a second slower at the moment, but nearly half a second further back are AF Corse and their cars are practically silent through the glass of the media centre.  Interesting…

Jota had a steady first half of the session but climbed to fourth behind the Porsche’s with a very encouraging 2:00.1.  #75 and #76 were on 59.7 and 59.8 respectively, so a full second down on Lieb.

In GTE Am #67 was dominant, Narac lapping in the high 2:00s (and a best of 2:00.695), which no-one else managed bar his co-driver Armindo, who finished with an almost identical but slightly better 2:00.639.

Behind the IMSA show it was #70, #72, #82, #61 and #88.

In FLM Neil Garner were late onto the track but Keen posted a 2:00 on his first flier and then headed the class with a 1:58.1 until Zhang Shanqi finished with a 1:56.725.  The Chinese’s team-mate Nicolas Marroc (replacing the listed Michael Tinguely) had also been quick so #91 could be one to watch.  FLM finished up in numerical order, the five cars covered by two seconds.

PS