ALMS - Mobil 1 Sebring 12 Hours – Thursday Morning
Last One Befoe Qualifying
© Gary Horrocks & Russell Wittenberg

Pretty uneventful morning session. An off by the Robertson Panoz caused a short red, but other than that, it was another session with many of the expected results.

According to Dick Barbour of the Robertson Team, “the car just went too deep into Turn 1 and went in pretty hard. The rear suspension is broken and the rack snapped but we can fix it.”

As far as times, both Audi R10s are knocking on the 1:44 door again, the only cars to do so in this session, naturally enough, and in GT2, the Ferraris are ready to break into the 2:01 range.

An interesting development was revealed by a chance paddock remark, which reveals that the 2007 VP Racing Fuels StreetBlaze 100 octane ethanol-enriched gasoline is not yet in universal use.

Aside from the obvious exceptions of the Audi R10 TDI pair there is a one race waiver in place for the Risi Competizione Ferraris and a longer four race waiver for all of the Porsche 997s (with the exception of the Rahal-Letterman car) and for all four Porsche RS Spyders, all of which apparently require the extra time to complete mapping work and testing with the new fuel.

The Penske and Dyson Porsche Spyders, as well as the Andretti Green Acura, are next up on the time sheets, but none were even close to breaking into the 1:45 range.

The Dyson team has got on quite well with their new cars, and displays renewed enthusiasm within the team.

Andy Lally #16 Dyson Porsche: “The car is running great. I’m getting more and more comfortable in it. This morning’s practice will be my first time out with sticker tires, so I’m looking forward to that. We are also going to try a different compound this morning but don’t expect it to be any quicker. We’re pretty sure we know what tires we are going to run, so we’re just taking a look at how the car reacts to a different tire.”

Guy Smith #20 Dyson Porsche: “We are really watching the tire wear. That is so important at this track for the race. We want a set up that will give us consistently quick times for the whole stint. Even if that puts us 0.5 seconds off the ultimate pace in class. You can’t be super quick for a few laps and then have to battle the car for the rest of the stint. Chris will qualify the car this year. I qualified and started the last two years and we had awful luck with punctures and such at the beginning of both races. So we thought we’d change it up a bit for this year. And qualifying should be intense this year so I’m glad to let Chris deal with that.” Smith was quick to point out, and proud to show off, his new little baby girl. Wife and daughter, who was wearing an “I love my mom” bib, were off in the stroller to enjoy the beautiful Florida sunshine, while dad suited up for work.

The pace of the Acura cars is improving, an indication of the effort and organization that Robert Clarke and his team have put into the program. In fact at lunch time Acura announced that the cars for both Andretti Green and Highcroft have now been homologated officially as Acura ARX-01. The “new” cars feature developments that have come on line since the 12 hour intramural race here at Sebring. As the only thing that remains a Courage is now the tub, it was decided that it was appropriate to now change the designation. Bryan Herta, who will be driving the #26 Acura, for the full season, stated “I’m super happy to be back in the ALMS. Sportscar racing has been on a steady rise and to be back at this time, with this team and car, is awesome. I’m really excited about this season; the car is just going to keep getting better. The car is pretty good, it’s still very new, but we’re happy with the progress so far. The car is handling very well, but we are still working on improving the balance. We’re going to give it all we got for qualifying and see what happens.” When asked to compare this Acura LMP2 with the Panoz LMP1 he drove a few years ago Herta had this to say: “They are similar. The Acura obviously is much more advanced technologically and is lighter weight. The Panoz was a good car, it wasn’t a beast to handle like many people think. It was fast, the only real problem with it was that it had the Audi R8 to beat.”

Marino Fanchitti, on of the list of co-drivers for the season with Bryan in the Andretti-Green Acura, further explained why he was here this weekend, even though he is not driving. “I knew when I signed on that I wouldn’t be driving at this race. So I’ll just enjoy the event and try not to think about driving too much. I wish I was out there, but my time in the car is coming soon. I did do some testing with the car earlier this week and the car has really come a long way. This is a serious effort by Acura and they won’t stop working on it until it’s a winner.” Nothing has been set, but Marino has his eyes on St. Pete. He’s heard his brother rave about the circuit and hopes he will get a go at it also.

Darren Turner, driver of the solitary Aston Martin here, just arrived late yesterday, and found it odd arriving so late. “It’s difficult, especially with everybody already up to speed. We had a brake issue that has been preventing the car from showing it’s true potential. It’s fixed now. The car felt pretty good today, even with old tires on it. I think we may be able to match the speed of the Vettes over the course of a few stints, but for the entire race, I think we’ll have a tough time matching their pace.” He did say that the focus of the Aston Martin program is Le Mans, and that hopefully now that David Richards is one of the owners of Aston, maybe, just maybe, they could return to the series at a later date. Post Le Mans maybe?

On the Ferrari vs Porsche front, Michael Petersen stated that the Porsche 996 was a much more forgiving car to drive than the Ferrari. The 430 has much more of a knife edge to the handing, much more conducive to someone with open wheel experience. Once it starts to break away, it is nearly impossible to catch it, but in the Porsche, it can be caught much more easily.

Getting the Ferrari this year has renewed his excitement for the series, in fact, he even went as far as to say that if they had stayed with the same cars, he would have cut back on the amount of events he would have attended this year. He is also very excited about their off-road program and looking forward to testing their new vehicle in preparation for the Dakar Rally Raid in 2008. “It should be a lot better car than what we raced this last time and I’m looking forward to testing it.”

The Spyker Team is having a good, quiet time out there, concentrating not on out right pace but on race set-up. Jarek Janis: “The car is getting better with each session. We have a lot of data from the years before when Spyker ran here and that is helping us to make progress.

“The Spyker deal might look like a strange choice but the team are very serious about making progress and made me a good offer for the whole season. Ecosse offered me a season deal too but I had already committed here, so I will be running for a part season in their Ferrari.”

Not having as good a time is Mauro Casedei of Autoracing Club Bratislava. “It has been a very frustrating week. The car arrived here from Dubai and was sent straight from the 24 Hour race there. The team has changed the gearbox and braking system but we are still running the same engine from Dubai. We have also had a lot of our equipment delayed in customs so we have not been able to make it to the track yet. The last parts we needed have just arrived though so we will be on track for the afternoon session.”

Further Quotes
Ben Devlin #8 Mazda Lola: “We’re very pleased with progress so far, it’s where we expected to be. We are still waiting for some components that will let us step up a little more, but we’re realistic about the week.

“The car arrived in the States only last Thursday and the boys have done an enormous amount of work in that time. We have had the Car down at Classic Mazda in Orlando for a sponsor event there and they loaned us the showroom to put the vinyls and decals onto the car.

“We’re going for a finish and getting there as quickly and reliably as we can.”

Nic Jonsson #61 Risi Ferrari: “Colin will qualify, but I will start the race. The car is really good; it’s a nice piece. The chassis is very nice. It handles well, great over the bumps and brakes are very good. The first few practice sessions we double stinted the tires and that seemed to be no problem. We will probably single stint everyone through early in the race and then go to double stints.”

Ian James, #73 Tafel Porsche:- “I haven’t had that much time in the car but with old tires I was just .03 seconds off Dominik’s time. I haven’t had any sticker runs yet so I feel pretty good about that. I’m comfortable in the car now; I know what it’s going to do. It takes a bit to acclimate myself, from Daytona Prototype, to GT3 Porsche to the RSR, I have to remind myself which car I’m in. The larger rear tire for this year (the 997 is allowed to run a GT1 sized rear tire) I think has helped the handling later in the stint. It seems to hold its grip longer.”

Lonnie Pechnik, #44 Lizard Porsche:- “It’s been a very frustrating week. We’ve been chasing a bad understeer problem now for four days. I don’t want to make too big of a deal out of it, but this might be the hardest car to drive I’ve ever been in. We just can’t’ get it to turn into the corner. The good news is I think we have just found the problem. They are real happy with the #45 and the way it’s working. We thought we had both cars set up exactly the same but further checking found the front ride height on the #44 car was 10mm higher than the #45. I’m pretty sure that was the problem, it would make sense. I’m still not sure we’ll be able to match the speed of the Ferrari, but it’s a long race. A lot can happen.”