ALMS - Mobil 1 Sebring 12 Hours – Friday Morning Report
Preparations
© Gary Horrocks & Russell Wittenberg

As typical here at Sebring, the Friday morning session saw limited participation by teams, as many took the day to carry out their race day preparations. The day started as a typically glorious, sunny Florida one, but deteriorated later, as another front moved through, just in time for the Porsche GT3 Cup race – or maybe non-race might be more appropriate. Let’s just leave it that the drivers rather quickly learned the dangers of racing cars and deep standing water. At least six cars were eliminated before they even came to the first turn.

First off, the Audi damage report. The #1 Audi was back on track this morning, courtesy of last year’s winning car. The tub that was damaged was replaced with the tub from the 2006 Sebring winner (Chassis #101 for those of you keeping track), which was at Champion, being prepped for the next race at St Pete. The original tub from this weekend will be sent back to Germany for proper repair. It was quite an impressive result for the team to have a car back on track for the 10:00 am session.

Dindo Capello, #1 Audi: “The car feels good. At the moment it’s 90% perfect. We’ll just need to fine tune some things.” Now though it appears there are more problems for the #1 Audi this morning. The car would not restart after Kristensen replaced McNish late in the practice. It appeared the team replaced the battery and did some work in the area of the starter, but finally the car had to be pushed back to the paddock.

Even though this was in essence a meaningless session for many, for those keeping score, the #2 Audi R10 was the fastest in the session, turning a 1:48.318, with the newly repaired #1 car third fastest with a 1:49.471. Splitting them was the #7 Penske Porsche with a 1:48.687.

In the P2 class, only Penske (both cars), Fernandez Acura Lola and the B-K Racing Mazda Lola came out. The Mazda came in on the hook and struggled a bit through the session, as the car was suffering from throttle cable issues - as in becoming a disconnected throttle cable.

The #61 Risi-Krohn Ferrari caused a red in the session about 20 minutes in. The reason was a fluid leak. No other problems were reported. It is confirmed that Risi will indeed run two cars all season long. Strong speculation suggests that it will be Krohn drivers Nic Jonsson and Colin Braun in the car for the full season, with Tracy driving at the events already announced – Sebring, Houston, Le Mans, Petit Le Mans and Laguna Seca.

The Petersen White Lightning (#31) and Corsa/White Lightning (#32) teams share much together, including pit crew, for the Dale White led teams. For night practice, the two cars also shared the same rear engine cover/wing assembly. The #31 car got its laps in last night, and before it came to a full stop, the crew was busy removing the assembly from the car and readying it to be installed on the #32 car, which was freshly back on site from body work repairs.

Jon Field has a sore back, the result of his accident yesterday. The Creation was being re-Created under the remains of their awning in what was a disastrous 24 hours for the team. “The impact broke or bent just about everything in the rear of the car. We’ve got most of everything that we need to fix it, but some other bits and pieces are on their way here to complete the job. We hope and expect to be ready to take the start, but it’s been a long hard week for us.” Jon had high praise for the Judd V-10. “It’s just a fantastic engine – on the straight, it just keeps on pulling.” Luckily, both the engine and gearbox survived without any damage. They are counting on the superstition that bad luck comes in threes. The IMSA Lites entry driven by Richard Berry crashed yesterday, Jon Field crashed in ALMS qualifying, and finally the early evening thunderstorm blew the awning off their transporter, injuring some crewmembers. They are looking for a reverse of fortunes on Saturday.

Bobby Rahal: “We are happy with the car. There was really no need to run it this morning. We’re just going through everything getting prepped for the race. The flat tire in qualifying hurt us quite a bit, but we’re only less than a second off the fastest guys. Our drivers are real comfortable with the car and that is the most important thing.”

Rahal Letterman Racing is the only Porsche team running with the VP Racing E-10 fuel. Bobby explained that “Porsche did not feel that they had enough data from running with the fuel to feel comfortable with using it yet. So, they opted not to. We, as a non-Factory team, opted to use the fuel, as we have tested with it and had great results. We did not have to make any changes to the car at all. Besides, we did not feel that it would be right for us to run with the stickers on the car, but not use the product.”

Terry Borcheller, #54 Team Trans Sport Porsche: “ We’re chasing it around the mulberry bush. The set up is just not working. With limited testing, and then the rain last night really changed the track - I don’t know….”

Tom Milner (Sr.), PTG Panoz: “The cars do not have enough grip. We need more downforce, but we are working on that. The tires are new to this car also and I think we went to conservative with our compound choice for this race. We will need a few more races to get it sorted properly. A few more races will also give Yokohama the opportunity to work on compounds and tire choices for us. We have infrared tire sensors on all the tires and we know the tire temperatures are too cool. At the winter test we really concentrated on the mechanicals of the car and did not do any set up work. We’ve tried several combinations this week and are getting closer. But it’s not as good as it could be and I won’t be happy until we are the fastest. We have collected some good info and have some ideas for the car but we can’t do them at the racetrack. I hope at St. Pete you will see some substantial changes on at least one of the cars. Our top speed is good we just need to get it handling better. It’s funny you know, for years with the BMWs we had the best handling and braking car but always complained about not having enough power. Now we have enough power but are complaining about the handling and braking. So I guess the moral of the story is you need to have a BMW chassis with a Panoz V-8 motor.” Scott Maxwell added, “ever since the size of the front splitter was restricted, back in 2005, we have struggled with front downforce.”