Nurburgring – Session 3 Report
Much The Same (Lots of Comments)

To be honest, we didn’t follow the pattern of this one too closely – but the significant times were a 1:42.852 from the Gene / Minassian Peugeot, the sister car in the 1:43s, the closest petrol car lapping in 1:46.711 (the lead Pescarolo) – and the top two in P2 (Vergers with a 1:48.039 and Moseley a 1:48.055).

It was the session before qualifying – and it’s the times this afternoon that we’re looking forward to seeing.

So more a collection of opinions from the pit lane than a report on a session: oh, the Lavaggi set a 1:54.976.

Traffic – everyone was talking about traffic.. and 908 lap times… and traffic again.

“The traffic is fun – but a lot of hard work,” commented Gareth Evans. He reckoned that his co-drivers were a “pair of wimps” for not coping with less power steering effect on the #19 Lola.

“You can’t risk everything and go for a dive up the inside – so you get behind a GT car, and by the time you get to the next one, you get the next two,” explained Peter Owen.

All happy at Kruse, with team co-owner Ian Mitchell predicting “a 1:48 in qualifying.” But that won’t be close to the P2 pole. We have had the sun come out today, to brighten up a very busy Neue Nurburgring.

Neil Cunningham, sharing this session with Warren Hughes after having driven for the whole of yesterday’s second session, was “frustrated, you just can’t string a lap together. The traffic is worse than Valencia because of the nature of the circuit, but the car’s really strong now and we’ll be there in the race.”

So what about those provocative Peugeot comments yesterday, on the relative performance of diesels and petrols?

Hugh Chamberlain: “No one ever looks at History. Just look at the formulae that have been ****** by not controlling things. Look at the GT1 Porsche in (the second half of) 1996. Look at the 3.5 litre Peugeot. Peugeot went out and built a car, Jaguar built a much better one (exploiting the regs. to the full), so Peugeot had to build a better one to beat them.

“Someone said to me recently that they want LMP1 to be for manufacturers – but where are they going to come from?

“It keeps on happening – yet here there are more LMP1s than ever before, but they’ll disappear if they don’t do something about the diesels. You wouldn’t have a race here without the privateers.”

And that reminded us of a photograph that covered the table at our breakfast restaurant at Adenauer yesterday morning. The 1973 Nurburgring 100 Kms only had six competitive cars: two Matras, two Ferraris and two Alfas….

Perhaps here is the explanation for why we don’t give us much coverage to the factory cars as does a certain publication (see below). We try and support the teams that are the bulk of the grid.

We then touched on the subjects of manufacturers only in P1 from 2010, and the costs involved in fitting production engines into P2s – so no privateers in P1, and extra costs (to fit production engines into P2 cars)….

At which point Bob Berridge appeared on the scene, with some balanced remarks.

“I know what I see on the track – but I don’t blame Peugeot for using Napoleon’s edict, that attack is the best form of defence. But they’ll be in a minority of one (or two?). Every P1 driver sees what the Peugeots do to him on the first half of every straight. I know how good Nic Minassian is, and he’d probably be on the pole anyway.

“The one I feel sorry for is Henri Pescarolo, who has been doing a stunning job year after year.

“But having said all that, I have every faith in the way that the ACO manages things. They’re the best in the world at finding a good balance, and I’m sure they will again.”

Elsewhere down pit lane, Marc Lieb is suffering from a bad cold but is still confident that the #77 Felbmayr-Proton Porsche can take the fight to the Ferraris this weekend.

“The relative strengths of the two cars depends on the track. The 997 has better traction and at Valencia it was the quicker car. Here at the Nurburgring it is less clear, in the Mercedes complex we are stronger perhaps, but further around the lap where the turns are more open the 430 has a slight edge.”

But what about the weather factor, would that put the ball back in Porsche’s court?

“It certainly favours us but there is nothing like the sort of advantage that you might have seen a few years ago. Ferrari has been very busy testing the car and they have done some good work on traction control. If there is a gap it is not a very large one now.”

Rob Bell shrugged at that remark, but did comment on the good work that Dunlop has been doing, again. Bell will qualify this afternoon. "I'm very optimistic for this weekend."

Much has been made of the secret weapon in the Felbmayr-Proton camp – Norbert Singer. Just how big a part of the equation is he?

“Mr Singer looks after tactics and strategy and he’s a genius. Put that together with the efforts of our engineer Andrea Marchitelli and there is some real strength behind Xavier and myself. Without Mr Singer we would not have won the GT2 title with Autorlando. Often he will make a tactical call and you will have no idea why he is going that way, but then an hour later it all becomes clear. He is always analysing, always watching and there is nobody else close to him on that front.”

Hugh Hayden meanwhile was happy to clarify that all three of the Felbmayr-Proton Porsches will contest all of the remaining Le Mans Series races (including Brazil), the ex-2004 FIA GT title winning 996 RSR had been denied a full season entry (principally because of the issue of a restricted grid size in Valencia) but there are no such concerns for the remaining races.

The 996 did actually run in the practice and qualifying sessions in Spain as a reserve car but with no late retirements was not permitted to start the race.

The Farnbacher 997 was actually fastest in GT2 (Dirk Werner).

At Team LNT, Danny Watts was busy studying Friday’s data, the team plugging away with their regular tactic of avoiding the tussle in qualifying and working instead on a consistent and comfortable race set-up. “It’s a very different challenge for me but both Tom (Kimber-Smith) and I come from the single seaters and whilst this area of the sport means I have to make more compromises, it also allows me to use the discipline and technical feedback that I brought with me from the open wheel cars. We’re confident that we have the right approach here. The Ferraris and Porsches will have an almighty scrap amongst themselves and we’ll be right there waiting for the opportunities to come to take advantage.”

Team owner Lawrence Tomlinson meanwhile was happy to reveal that the business issues that had prevented him from committing to a full Le Mans Series season as a driver had been dealt with: “I’ve completed my deal earlier than I expected and I think I’ll be in for the remainder of the season now. We’ve been problem free (in the #82 car) so far and things are looking up.”

More good news for LNT Automotive meanwhile is that the very first Ginetta produced in their brand new factory was rolled out last week (a Ginetta Junior racer).

The Team Modena DBR9 was second fastest in GT1, only 16 thousandths slower than the Saleen #55.

Martin Short was basking in the memory of a quite fantastic result at Le Mans for his Rollcentre Racing team, the Pescarolo Judd taking an historic 4th place overall. “I believe that’s the best finish by a team owned by one of the driver squad in 25 years, since 1982 when John Fitzpatrick did it in a Porsche 956.”

“I’m delighted with the result but in truth Le Mans showed that we can’t rely on a lack of reliability from the leading cars to give us a good result. In truth if Audi had done a better job on the track and in the pits and if the Peugeot design team had done a slightly better job we should have been seventh.”

He was also delighted by the race report in French weekly Auto-Hebdo which chose a large picture of the Rollcentre car to head up its extensive race report of the 24 hours.

“At least they understand the importance of the privateer entrants to the race and the significance of a good result, unlike Autosport who didn’t even feature a picture of the car and didn’t mention some great finishes at all, including for instance the 4th placed (JMB/Red Bull) Ferrari in GT2.”

The #18 car is still clad in the 2006 bodywork this weekend, “The new 2007 panels were a little delayed and we only have a single set at the moment. With the potential for damage this weekend it seemed sensible to stick with the original panels for this race.”

Joao Barbosa meanwhile was in a reflective mood, still very pleased indeed with the Le Mans result and encouraged with the Pescarolo Judd’s reliability this weekend.

“We’re working hard on set-up and we are going to have a very good race car. We might not be on the ultimate petrol pace in qualifying but we’ll be in good shape for a good race pace.”

Don’t let Ian Bickerton hear you talking about petrol pace (petrol race), Joao!

Qualifying next...