Paul Ricard Test Days – Monday Morning (And Into The Afternoon) Report
Still Improving

With the Lamborghini ending its night run at around 02.30, the only car left was the Courage-ORECA LC70, which suffered two problems before dawn: the ECU needed changing, and then the gearbox. The unit had covered plenty of miles/hours anyway.

For the teams returning to the track from their hotels, it opened for them at 09.00, and the wind wasn’t too much of a factor at this point. It was noticeably stronger/gustier by lunchtime, but by then we had witnessed 20 of the cars going faster. The biggest improvement was by the Speedy Sebah Lola LMP2, which knocked 2.7 seconds off its day 1 time.

Towards the front, with the now absent Audis 1-2, JC-W went quicker still to secure third best, his 1:41.797 having been extended by a loss of “about half a second in traffic”, according to Ian Bickerton. “We always knew it was a very good car: now we’re showing it.”

The #5 Courage-Oreca also improved, to just over half a second slower than JC-W. The Lola Aston Martin then began to show some real form, a 1.3 second improvement, to fourth fastest, just ahead of the better Courage-Oreca.

The RS Spyders remained 1-2 in LMP2, but both went faster, the van Merksteijn car just about getting into the 1:43s.

Martin Short didn’t seem terribly pleased with a half second improvement in the Rollcentre Pescarolo. The Larbre Saleen was pipped for best time in GT1 by the newer Alphand Corvette (#72), while the Virgo Ferrari edged closer to the 2007 IMSA Porsche at the head of GT2.

We’d begun the morning with Benjamin Leuenberger and the Spyker – but sadly, we ended the morning (actually just into the afternoon session) with the Spyker. It was spotted burning fiercely at the exit of the final corner. The driver baled out quickly, but the Dutch car was all but destroyed by the blaze.

“It’s last year’s factory car,” explained Leuenberger some hours earlier. “We’re here just to get the drivers familiar with the car, to work on a base set-up, and things we can use on the new car. We have all the parts for the new car, but we needed another week. It’s a lot stiffer than this car, and we’ll have a new engine later in the season.”

The Swiss driver had never driven a GT2 car until this test, and of the four classes, now he has only not driven an LMP2. The way the drive came about was remarkably simple: Benjamin just called the Speedy team owner, Alex Pesci – and here he is. The Dutch car looks to be running Michelns this season, in the LMS and at Le Mans.

The Lucchini looked to be still in the build process this morning – which it was, sort of. John Judd had been present in the garage yesterday evening though, and confirmed that the car completed two out lap in the dark, but it didn’t run again this morning. “They did an amazing job to get it ready to run yesterday evening. I don’t think they thought it was part of the plan.”

We promised to bring you up to date with some of the French teams… and Larbre boss, Jack Leconte was pleased with the performance of the no. 50 Saleen, which Christophe Bouchut used to set the fastest GT1 time in yesterday’s running. “We are particularly satisfied with the car, as this is the first test for us, since our own circuit at Val de Vienne is closed for remodelling.”

DSC asked him about the change from the Aston Martin to the Saleen, and the reasons behind the decision. “We have worked with Hugues (de Chaunac) before, and took the FIA GT championship in ’01 and ’02, with the Dodge Viper. Now that he is concentrating on P1, he is pleased to see the cars go to a good home and we have an excellent relationship with Oreca.”

We asked him if he would be working closely with Steve Saleen, as de Chaunac did throughout its development. “No, I have not met him yet, as his own company is going through some changes at the moment, but I certainly hope that we can do so, as this car is his own creation and he is very much a part of it.”

We asked him if it was possible for the car to be competitive in the 24 hour race this year, after its disappointing showing in the ’07 race. “No,” said Leconte, “it is virtually impossible. I wanted to run two cars so that we could have the professionals in one and the gentlemen drivers in the other. With just one car having been selected, I now have to have a mixture of experienced and amateur pilots in one car. We cannot compete with the factory-backed cars on that basis. It’s a pity, because once again the GT1 category will be a straight fight between four factory Corvettes and four factory Aston Martins. This is not the best thing for the fans.”

Christophe Bouchut, who has worked with Leconte for many years, was delighted with the car’s early good showing. “We spent the morning (yesterday) ironing out a few little niggles, and by the end of the afternoon we were happy with it. The car has taken some getting used to as this is the first time we’ve been able to test it properly. But it is running very well.” As Bouchut’s lap time shows – a best of 1:52.486.

Raymond Narac was standing in the pit lane this morning looking like a dog with two tails. He is, in fact, the man with two Porsches. After last year’s successes, he is now running two 997 GT3-RSRs, and he could not look happier about the prospect.

“The 76 is running even better than last year and the new car is not far behind. The cars are very difficult to set up as the set up has to be very finely balanced to get the maximum from the car; it’s a case of tweaking here and there to get the combination perfect. The new car is going well, but still needs a few fine adjustments before it reaches the standard of the Le Mans winner - but we are getting there.

“The new drivers have fitted into the team very quickly. Michel Lecourt and Richard Balandras will share the 75 with Jean-Phillipe Belloc. With strong backing from the Porsche factory, we have really high hopes for the season to come.”

Certainly, by Sunday lunchtime, the new car was within a couple of seconds of its stablemate which had held the GT2 lead for most of the weekend. Not bad, out of the box, with a new driver line-up. Certainly, the cars’ owner had one of the biggest smiles in the pit lane.

So did Greg Pickett, a Trans-Am winner in the ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s and ‘00s. “In the Rocketsports ‘Jagwar’. Pickett is thoroughly enjoying his LMP1 racing (with the Charouz/Cytosport Lola).

Henri Pescarolo didn’t seem to be smiling quite as much, although he was happy enough with though with the carefully thought out testing programme here.

“We are not trying to do anything except validate what we have been developing this winter. We are certainly not in the best configuration for this circuit – but that was never the plan. We are comparing the changes to the car on different parts of the circuit, one sector at a time: after all, we will never race here, but different parts of the lap are useful in developing different aspects of the car.”

Henri then turned to the diesels, as usual, and while admitting that his car has an extra 19 bhp this year (thanks to the larger restrictors), “development by the factories on their diesels has probably given them another 50 bhp. That is normal, that is what we would expect to see – development of a new engine. But I think we are seeing the gap (to the diesels) getting larger.”

The lap times don’t bear that out though. The Creation is within three seconds of the best Peugeot time at this track layout – less if you take off that half second lost in traffic. The gap to the Audi is eight tenths less. The Lola Aston Martin is starting to show some real form, already right among the better race-engined, petrol-fuelled cars.

“The bar has certainly been raised (by the diesels) this year,” volunteered Martin Short. “In the drivers’ briefing yesterday, I wasn’t brave enough to ask for a podium for the petrol cars.”

In some respects, particularly after a night of no sleep for us here, it’s been difficult to keep up here on day 2 – particularly with a complete lack of printed times from two and a half hours ago… We haven’t really followed the progress of the new GT2 Porsches, although Marc Lieb is absent today, as he started back at University this morning, after six months working at – Porsche. That left Alex Davidson to go quickly today in the 2008, #77 (white) Felbermayr car, third fastest behind the familiar 2007 IMSA and Virgo Porsche and Ferrari (respectively).

“Rob Bell in the #96 430 talked of a track that is “quite understeery, but if you work away at dialling that out, you can be sure it won’t be right for somewhere like Barcelona. The Porches are quick on the fast circuits, such as here, but we’re quick in the corners.

One Porsche that didn’t make it was the JWA 2007 car, but James Watt is here and reports that the team had a “small engine problem just before we were due to leave for Ricard, so we decided, reluctantly, not to come”.

But likely JWA Aston Martin Vantage GT2 drivers will be here on Wednesday and Thursday, for a group Aston Martin test – which explains why we saw the Gigawave truck near the circuit this morning. Allan Simonsen is here ready to drive the Gigawave DBR9, with Philipp Peter.

The Aston Martin Racing/Prodrive development car was due to run some Dunlop tyres here this afternoon, presumably in readiness for a team to race on the British rubber.

James Watt reckoned that the development Vantage is “25% short of the real thing”, and suggested that there is plenty more to come in the power department. The car that we’ve tried to follow as closely as possible in recent months is impressively quick anyway, a best here of 2:00.349 – just over two seconds slower than the fastest GT2 car.

The LMS press conference (at lunchtime) suggested that promotion of the events is at the top of the agenda for 2008: we’ll see what transpires at Barcelona next month.

We’re still waiting for Monday morning times (from the screen) to be confirmed in print – and we’ll have to dash to the airport shortly, so if there are any dramatic developments in the last hour, we won’t be able to describe them. But since the Spyker fire, no one seems to be really going for it?

We needed a 908 / R10 head to head to set the test days alight (not a Spyker), but it’s still been a fascinating couple of days.