Le Mans Test Day, Saturday Morning Notes - 1

It’s a beautifully sunny morning at Le Mans with plenty of hustle and bustle around the pitlane as tech inspection continues.

The DSC Away Team arrived well rested thanks to Travel Destinations and Brittany Ferries (both highly recommended).

In factory LMP1 land all 8 cars are here –

Starting alphabetically both Aston Martin AMR Ones were being fettled in the garage, the first time we’ve seen both factory cars together.

The Audi R18s were under wraps for now, one car made its way through the crowds briefly to the scrutineering area but was soon back with garage doors down with the #3 crew waving to us (we think!) from the upstairs suite – There’s just the hint of a problem here!

At Peugeot all three 908s were on display in the garages – the revised Le Mans spec front aero clearly visible.

Oreca’s Sebring winning 908 HDI FAP was another car sitting unattended in the garage, again sporting the low downforce package we saw last year here.

Oak Racing had all four of the Pescarolo’s they will be running ready to roll. There was bad news/ good news yesterday for the team with a mechanic injured in a flash fire in the workshop whilst working on the fuel tank of one of the LMP1 cars.  The unfortunate individual suffered flash burns mainly to one arm and is reported to be expected to fully recover.

The other Pescaolo LMP1 here is, of course, the #16 car run by the returning Pescarolo Team - Henri back in his natural habitat rather than the rather incongruous 2010 seat he had in the press room!

Hope Racing are having something of a race against time, the team have so far not completed the required all electric run along the length of pit lane but do expect to be on track tomorrow with the car operating in hybrid mode.

Steve Zacchia is listed for the weekend together with Nicolas Marroc but James rossiter, originally down to run here with the team has instead been recalled by Lotus to run in the JetAlliance Evora.

Not out in the open yet though is the MIK Corse Zytek Hybrid, the team not keen for dsc to photograph the car in the garage just yet either.

The reserve listed Kronos Lola Aston Martin is here, with Vanina Ickx joined by Maxime Martin and Bas Leinders, the Marc VDS GT1 trio joined by many of their regular crew here too.

Finally the Rebellion Lola Toyota Coupe’s new (and pretty extensive) new aero package was being shown off by the #13 car in pit lane, plenty of detail changes to ponder  but the front end (accommodating the bigger front tyres and a slippery low drag nose - and rear deck and wing in particular look radically different.