LMS – Spa 1000 Km – Saturday Morning Session Report
Into The 2:01s

A beautiful sunny day greeted the Le Mans Series pack as they came out for the third, and final, 60 minute free practice session of the weekend.

With the World Series by Renault performing their usual and very successful policy of giving away free tickets, there are some signs that we may get something of a crowd this weekend and it was particularly heartening to see so many people atop the new pit building getting a free view of proceedings that would no doubt cost them several thousand Euros in F1 land!

There was early drama for the #17 Pescarolo, Harold Primat into the wall at Turn 14 after contact with the Chamberlain-Synergy Lola, yellow flags only and the car eventually struggled back to the pits with some obvious front end damage.

“Harold was touched by a Lola at Stavelot,” commented Christophe Tinseau, “but there wasn’t much damage.”

Absolutely flying early on though was Embassy Racing new boy Darren Manning – up to third overall in the early minutes of the session with an excellent 2:08.

“My first clear lap of the meeting. We knew we were going to be fast, but we didn’t know it was going to be that fast. The guys were working late here last night, making me a new seat, and an insert for Warren. I feel much more comfortable. And I love LMP cars!”

The #45 Radical would drop down the order as others improved, notably Jan Charouz in the #15 Lola Judd and Manu Collard in the #16 Pescarolo, these two separated by two thousandths of a second and significantly both into the mid 2:05s. Both of these cars had squeezed ahead of an early effort from Jamie Campbell-Walter in the #9 Creation, a 2:06.dead is a big improvement for the black beauty.

Trouble for the Markland Corvette, with yellow flags indicating that the similarly coloured #89 car was stuck in the gravel. At the other end of the GT2 order however Allan Simonsen became the second man into the 2:22s this weekend in the Virgo Ferrari. Marc Lieb though responded almost immediately, 2:22.5 was what he said he could have done yesterday and that’s exactly what he delivered.

“I was happy until I saw Lietz’s time,” said Simonsen earlier in the session (referring to the Austrian's 2;23 lap).

The Virgo Motorsport crew had been working on the Ferrari until 4.30 this morning: nothing major though. “Fitting some new parts that arrived yesterday, and changing the clutch,” said Chris Warne.

Presumably Simonsen was much happier once he’d set his time – at least until he saw Lieb’s time. This is very competitive stuff at the head of GT2 – throughout the class in fact.

Up front the Peugeots held sway again, the #8 car again into the 2:02s: best of the rest with 15 minutes to go was now Jonathan Cochet in the #12 Courage with a 2:05.2 whilst GT1 saw the early session dominance of the #55 Saleen cracked by Christophe Bouchut in the #50 Larbre Aston Martin.

Michael Vergers (above) was the next man to post a significant time, and very significant it was too, the #32 Barazi Epsilon Zytek storming round in a 2:06.816, the first LMP2 man under 2:07 so far. Burgueno’s time yesterday was impressive – but here was Vergers going even faster.

And then to cap off a great first hour here, Nic Minassian closed out the session with a 2:01.769, in #7. What on earth will the pole time be? The timing screen didn't look right at the end, with some times missing - so we'll post the times when we receive the printed sheet.