Le Mans Series – Barcelona – Pre-Race
And Starting Drivers
© Janos Wimpffen

The true dean of sports car racing journalists, Mike Cotton, has put Audi’s plight into a particularly good perspective. “The situation with the R10 is much like that of the Ferrari 312PB in the early 1970s. In 1972, with the likes of Mario Andretti, Jacky Ickx, Brian Redman, and Ronnie Peterson, the Ferrari team was invincible. They won all bar Le Mans, which they didn’t contest. Then in 1973 Matra contested the entire championship and Ferrari began to crack under the pressure. Flaws in the car were exposed that the team didn’t notice the year before.”

Mike went on noting that we may be seeing a parallel here in that Audi is facing not only the Peugeots in the LMS series, but a resurgent LM P2 class as well. Just when they thought they had left the pesky Penske Porsches behind, they now have to contend with some well run Spyders here, not to mention new cars like the Lola-Aston Martin.

None of that precludes an Audi victory, of course.

The quantity and quality of the entry at Barcelona bodes well for the 2008 LMS season. Indeed, this is the largest gathering of Prototypes since the Group C era. The late SRWC rarely topped 20 cars, topping out at 26. We have 29 here this weekend. By the way, those DP things don’t count—I did refer to quality.

Some aesthetic comments—Last year much had been written pro, con, and indifferent about the visual appeal of the Peugeots. Whatever the specific opinions, there was a universal welcome given to the return of closed cockpit cars to sports car racing. Now we see a new wave of them. They’re still too fresh to be called the second wave of LM P coupe design, but there has been some subtle development over Peugeot’s first crack at the concept.

First, it’s worth taking a second look at the Peugeot. As some noted last year, from the side it looks the proper sports car. But from the front, the appeal drops a bit. The cockpit is bulbous and out of proportion to the rest of the chassis. The front splitter arrangement looks too much like an F1 car with excess bodywork grafted on.

The Lolas have taken the concept a step further, and better. First, it is notable how different the two Lolas are from each other. The Charouz Lola-Aston Martin still retains a Peugeot-like front splitter arrangement, but the cockpit looks more appropriate from the front. Side views of the cars are somewhat similar, with the Lola (perhaps because of the paint scheme) winning out somewhat, although its slightly larger ducting system detracts a bit. The other Lola, Speedy’s Judd powered B08/80, appears similar to the others from the side, but the frontal makes it the most developed of the four we’ve discussed thus far. The splitter arrangement makes it appear like a more integral design concept.

From the Basque country, the Epsilon Euskadi is by far the best looking package of the new lot. All the proportions are spot on. Perhaps the only criticism is that it looks a tad smaller than the Lolas or Peugeots. Nevertheless, the trio of new coupes add greatly to the visual appeal of the series. Now if only M. Peter at al could develop a proper attitude about promoting the series, we’ll be the better for it.

Indeed, the mass of tribunes here at the Circuit de Catalunya will be barely 5 % full for this 1000 Km. event. Spain is mad about F1 and Moto GP—not surprising given some recent drivers and riders, but sports car racing does not have a particularly deep history here.

This is the 25th top level sports car race to be held in Spain. This includes Group C (the first came at southern circuit of Jerez in 1986), BPR, FIA GT, and the FIA SCC. Barcelona has been the site of five rounds of the FIA Sportscar Championship (nee SportsRacing World Cup) between 1999 and 2003. Most of the other Spanish sports car events took place at either Jerez or Madrid’s Jarama circuit, with a few at Valencia.

Then there is the caveat that the Catalonia region is not really part of Spain. That would be the sentiment of many Catalans, who speak their own language. While having a typical Romance inflection, it sounds nothing like Spanish, but more like a cross between French and Portuguese. It is widely heard on the streets, but less so in commerce, where Spanish predominates. However, it is important to note Spanish is referred to here as Castellano—another important political distinction. For those Americans having some familiarity with the language, what you hear here offers a pleasant surprise. Unlike the crisp and sometimes harsh sound of the Mexican variant, or the high-speed Caribbean dialects, both of which predominate in America, the home country version is softer and more melodic, with the Barcelona accent adding in a touch of an elegant lisp.

Wedged between the Mediterranean and the Pyrenees, Catalonia is hilly, verdant, and mild. The circuit is located some 30 km. northeast of Barcelona. The surrounding villages serves as bedroom communities for a variety of industrial enterprises that ring this part of the very vibrant metropolitan area. Central Barcelona is one of the prettiest and liveliest of all European cities. The very unique Catalan culture has spawned the likes of Joan Miro, Pablo Picasso (who is considered more of an ex-pat), and the very singular Antonio Gaudi, whose architectural delights can be found throughout the town.

The circuit is built very much in the modern idiom, with a mix of technical and speed corners. It is contoured well to fit in with the surrounding hills, as there is a fair (though not excessive) amount of elevation change. The front straight sits at the low point. It sends with a sharp right that begins a climb composed primarily of a long clockwise set of turns that nearly complete an oval. Then comes a bit of a downhill composed of some very fast kinks. It ends at the hairpin, Revolt La Caixa, that begins another slight uphill stretch of tighter bends. There are 15 named turns in all.

The race will start at 11:35 and the day began with a 20-minute warm-up session. We’re expecting another clear day hovering around a pleasant 20 degrees, although the morning session took place under decidedly cloudy skies.
The warm-up featured the reemergence of the Saleen that had missed qualifying while undergoing an engine change. The No. 72 Alphand Corvette was the only car in the field not to take to the track, the car having sprung a reasonably serious oil leak on start-up this morning, “It’s either the oil pump itself or a union, “ said Luc Alphand, “we are checking whether we can change the pump without dropping the engine now.”.

As is often the case, warm-up sessions provide few surprises, and such was the case here. The Peugeots are comfortably, though not greatly, in the lead, followed by the No. 1 Audi. Lap times are in the practice to race range, about 3-4 seconds off of qualifying. The van Merksteijn Porsche is again well clear of the LM P2 runners. One of the new stars here, the Lola-Aston Martin, seemed to have a bit of trouble during the session. “No, not at all,” said George Howard Chappell, “it’s all going to plan. We were using the session to practice driver and tyre changes. We never planned to do any fast running this morning.” 

Mike Newton spun off with the RML MG-Lola but only after both he and Thomas Erdos had lapped more quickly than the car had managed so far this weekend..

Qualifying showed a gap of about 1-1/3 seconds in LM P2 between the Dutch Porsche and the Lola-Judd Coupe, while warm-up saw the 2-3 spots in the class changed with the Horag Spyder making it a Porsche 1-2 in the hotly contested category.

Apart from the other Alphand Corvette, all of the GT1 runners were bunched very close together. In GT2 the Virgo Ferrari had a slight edge over the Felbermayr Porsche of Alex Davison. The much raced Virgo Ferrari (originally a 2006 car but constantly updated thereafter) sports every scrutineering sticker since its debut. It now takes on the mantle of the fabled Sebah Racing Porsche which took the title back in 2004 and 2005 as a grandmother with a mean right hook.

Here are the starting drivers in grid order:
1st, 1st LM P1, #8, Peugeot, LAMY
2nd, 2nd LM P1, #7, Peugeot, MINASSIAN
3rd, 3rd LM P1, #1, Audi, McNISH
4th, 4th LM P1, #10, Charouz, Lola-Aston Martin, MÜCKE
5th, 1st, LM P2, #34, Van Merksteijn, Porsche, VERSTAPPEN
6th, 5th, LM P1, #2, Audi, PREMAT
7th, 6th, LM P1, #6, Courage-Oreca, PANIS
8th, 7th, LM P1, #16, Pescarolo, BOUILLON
9th, 2nd, LM P2, #33, Speedy, Lola-Judd, POMPIDOU
10th, 3rd, LM P2, #27, Horag, Porsche, THEYS
11th, 4th, LM P2, #31, Essex, Porsche, ELGAARD
12th, 8th, LM P1, #14, Creation, CAMPBELL-WALTER
13th, 9th, LM P1, #17, Pescarolo, TINSEAU
14th, 10th, LM P1, #18, Rollcentre, Pescarolo, BARBOSA
15th, 5th, LM P2, #40, ASM, Lola-AER, PLA
16th, 11th, LM P1, #5, Courage-Oreca, ORTELLI
17th, 12th, LM P1, #20, Epsilon Euskadi, BURGUEÑO
18th, 6th, LM P2, #32, Barazi, Zytek, VERGERS
19th, 7th LM P2, #45, Embassy, WF01, HUGHES
20th, 8th, LM P2, #44, Kruse, Lola-Mazda, NODA
21st, 9th, LM P2, #25, RML, MG Lola, ERDOS
22nd, 10th, LM P2, #46, Embassy, WF01, KANE
23rd, 13th, LM P1, #19, Chamberlain, Lola-AER, BERRIDGE
24th, 11th, LM P2, #35, Saulnier, Pescarolo, RAGUES
25th, 14th, LM P1, #4, Saulnier, Pescarolo, FAGGIONATO
26th, 12th, LM P2, #26, Bruichladdich, Radical, PETERSEN
27th, 13th, LM P2, #41, Trading Performance, Zytek, GOSSELIN
28th, 15th, LM P1, #3, Lavaggi, LAVAGGI
29th, 1st, GT1, #59, Team Modena, Aston Martin, GARCIA
30th, 2nd, GT1, #72, Alphand, Corvette, MOREAU
31st, 14th, LM P2, #30, Racing Box, Lucchini-Judd, FRANCIONI
32nd, 3rd, GT1, #55, Spartak, Lamborghini, KOX
33rd, 4th, GT1, #73, Alphand, Corvette, BERVILLE
34th, 1st, GT2, #96, Virgo, Ferrari, BELL
35th, 2nd, GT2, #77, Felbermayr, Porsche, LIEB
36th, 3rd, GT2, #76, IMSA Performance, Porsche, LIETZ
37th, 4th, GT2, #91, Farnbacher, Porsche, WESTBROOK
38th, 5th, GT2, #90, Farnbacher, Ferrari, KÄFFER
39th, 6th, GT2, #75, IMSA Performance, Porsche, BELLOC
40th, 15th, LM P2, #37, WR, S. SALINI
41st, 16th, GT2, #99, JMB, Ferrari, DAOUDI
42nd, 17th, GT2, #94, Speedy, Spyker, CHIESA
43rd, 18th, GT2, #85, Spyker, DUMBRECK
44th, 19th, GT2, #93, James Watt, Aston Martin, van der MERWE
45th, 20th, GT2, #88, Felbermayr, Porsche, FELBERMAYR, Jr.
46th, 21st, GT2, #95, James Watt, Porsche, FORSTEN
47th, 22nd, GT2, #98, JMB, Ferrari, BASSO
48th, 5th, GT1, #50, Larbre, Saleen, BOUCHUT