Le Mans Scrutineering Tuesday 7
LMP2 Leading Men 2 – The Zytek Powered Runners

There was much of interest here, particularly in the Embassy Racing and Barazi Epsilon camps with both of these cars having proved to be rapid on the Test Day, both having arrived at the Place des Jacobins in a new and very different liver and the WF01 of course having had to have a full rebuild after a violent accident at the end of the day’s proceedings last Sunday.

As things would emerge the Barazi Epsilon story goes much, much further than a simple repaint and the Embassy Racing Accident has a link to a significant event in the recent racing past of one of the team’s other drivers.

Embassy Racing

Jonny Kane:
“It’s all looking OK but of course the test didn’t really give anyone a real chance to show where they really are. I think we, and everyone else, will only really find out where we are on Wednesday.

“The good news though is that there is a lot more to come from our car – Of course there will be plenty of others in the same position but we’ll see.  We’re all pretty pleased with where we are.”

Joey Foster: (left)
“Well the conditions were quite testing!  But as a venue, and as a track, I absolutely love it.  The enthusiasm and the knowledge of the public is just fantastic.  The following sportscar racing has is just fantastic, it’s been a real eye opener for someone like me who is a relative newcomer to it.

Jonny Kane:
“That’s right, you get out of an anonymous hire car and loads of people here know exactly who you are immediately.  The scrutineering event is something which really shouldn’t work but it really is a special part of this.”

Moving on to talk about the accident that left the #45 car requiring an almost total rebuild following the test day a still bruised Joey Foster said:

“I’d done almost a whole stint and was on my in lap on intermediates.  I short-shifted and the car went off under full compression, it was my mistake through inexperience here really but it was a very big impact.  I’m pretty heavily bruised but that’s healing very quickly.  The main thing is that I’m gutted for the extra effort it’s meant for the team and the lads.  They’ve turned things around amazingly fast.

Warren Hughes:
“Joey’s shunt happened in almost exactly the same place as Burgueno’s a couple of years ago in the Test which oddly led to my getting the drive in the ASM car that year as he hadn’t completed his 10 laps.

“We went for a walk around the circuit this morning and it does seem that the barriers are very close to the track at that point – I’m sure there’s a good reason for that but we might ask after two such similar high speed accidents.”

“I’m, looking forward to the week, to see what we’ve really got here.  There are some really encouraging signs for us and for the whole team but as Jonny said this hasn’t been our real pace or anyone elses.

“One very good thing is that what we’ve seen already is beginning to make real sense of the data we’ve seen from wind tunnel simulations.  That’s naturally the case when you have had to do so much of your early testing at race meetings but things are slotting together well now.”

Barazi Epsilon

The car arrived in the Place des Jacobins with a new Orange and White Livery, a major step forward from the old all-blue scheme, and an accompanying Caparo T1 road car.

Juan Barazi explained:
“We are working together with Caparo on information and data exchange between their road car programme and our racing programme.

“That arrangement is looking set to produce eventually a new race car between the two concerns, the relationship will become much closer wit our le mans based engineering school and design studio.  There has however been no decision taken at all as yet on what form that race car will be, but it is very likely to be a sportscar.  We are waiting to see what the ACO announce about the future regulations.

Moving on to the race to come the conversation switched to the very strong showing from the #32 car at the test day, at one point the car was the fastest petrol car of all (in Michael Vergers hands) and it finished the day atop the LMP2 order in the hands of Barazi Epsilon new boy Stuart Moseley.

Michael Vergers:
“Last year the sister car could well have been an easy class winner had it not had a wheel bearing failure.  And as for us this season we have had some really bad luck, we have been hit twice and got a power steering failure at Spa.  Hopefully all of our bad luck is behind us now!”

So what have you got for the Porsches here then?

“Well we know Verstappen will try very hard and the cars should be reliable.  We hope they try a little too hard!

“Our car is absolutely awesome through the Porsche Curves, (where Jos Verstappen says the LM-Spec Spyder is a handful), and we now have the 08 spec engine back for the first time since we were t-boned by the Peugeot at Barcelona.”

Juan Barazi:
In LMP1 you really need a diesel now to be competitive.  In LMP2 the variety of answers to the question is awesome, and on a tight twisty circuit we can get very close to a lot of the LMP1s.”

Stuart Moseley – on comparisons with the Radical SR9:
“I expected this car to be a little bit better in lots of ways but the two cars are really quite similar.  Obviously the tyres and the engine differ quite a lot but the Zytek is a friendly car to drive and it seems softer, with more mechanical grip.

Trading Performance:

Adam Sharpe:
“It’s the best car I’ve ever driven.  The Binnie racing Lola was good but this is another level on from that in a number of ways.  It turns in very well and is great under braking too.

“One other big advantage is that Karim (Ojjeh) is a tall guy too and that helps with the car being arranged to suit him, it  accommodates me too with good driver comfort.

“It’s a high tech piece of kit though – I’m still learning about the steering wheel functions!

“I’ve had pretty limited running so far which included my first ever wet laps here after 3 previous starts.  We’ll push for a good time in qualifying but I don’t think we want any heroics.  A good mid-pack start will do for us.”