Friday Morning - Monza No major dramas to report from a warm, bright and sunny Monza this morning with 45 cars out running, the second Epsilon Euskadi (not ready) , Charouz Racing Lola Judd (Cytosport) (Greg Picket business commitment), Larbre Saleen (FFSA clash) and JWA Aston Martin (watch this space) the four missing from the initial entry list. Amongst those that are here there were problems for RML at the very start of the first free practice session – Thomas Erdos felt something was awry as he got to Lesmo, saw the water temperature soar and switched off the engine as the car reached Ascari. Large mechanical chunks of the MG Lola were being exchanged for other large mechanical chunks as the session ended, the #2 car not registering a time.
The Peugeots once again topped the times (Pedro Lamy quickest with a 1:34.862 in #8) but by no means dominated the session, Allan McNish topping the times for a time and the lead R10 finishing the hour just a couple of tenths shy of the 908s.
Pedro Lamy: “I’m not too surprised that the Audis are closer here. After all this is the circuit that is most like Le Mans and we hardly expected them to stand still!” The Lola Aston Martin was the fastest of the petrol-fuelled runners but the lead Courage Oreca was finding good pace as the session went on, Olivier Panis justifying Hugues de Chaunac’s decision to bring him into the fold. Also in the top ten was the #20 Epsilon Euskadi, the shapely coupe very much in the thick of the leading petrol fuelled LMP1s with just a hundredth of a second separating the Spanish car from the first of the Creation AIMs, Jamie Campbell Walter 9th quickest in the #16 car. Ian Bickerton: “The cars are good and the engine is great. The #15 car is brand new, this morning is its shakedown session. Felipe (Ortiz) won’t be driving this weekend, He’d hoped to be able to squeeze in his sessions around a major tournament this weekend (at his Valderama Golf Course) but decided that it is too tight so Robbie Kerr and Bruce Jouanny will drive that one.
“For a brand new car it has gone very well so far, just some minor brake problems, very unusual for us, and now we’re working on driver comfort.” At Rollcentre Racing Duncan Tappy was thoroughly enjoying his first session aboard a sportscar. “It’s fantastic,” said the beaming youngster as he brought the Pescarolo back to the pits. LMP2 saw the three Porsche RS Spyders top the times, all three in the 1:39s with Jos Verstappen again heading Casper Elgaard and Jan Lammers. Best of the rest were the Quifel ASM Lola (Olivier Pla), Michael Vergers (#32 Barazi Epsilon Zytek) and Xavier Pompidou (Sebah Speedy Lola Judd), these three though back in the 1:41s
Both Embassy Racing WF01s were running well (in the low 1:42s) the team buoyed up by a fruitful Silverstone test session (one car posting a 1:36.2 on the GP circuit).
As for the steering issue that cause one car to retire and prompted the team to withdraw the second at Barcelona: “We know what caused it and we’ve effected a cure,” said a happy Jonathan France. “The car is doing exactly what we thought it would do here with the set-up we decided to run with today. We’re still learning where to unlock more and more from the cars – They’re like any 3 month old babies, very high maintenance!” The GT1 field is of course only four strong here and on the basis of the timing sheets it looks like a one horse race, the Team Modena Aston Martin more than two seconds quicker than the nearest challenger, the IPB Spartak Lamborghini. In reality though the #72 Corvette, Olivier Beretta joining the squad this weekend, is mighty close, the team though lost their times for an as yet unexplained violation. GT2 saw encouraging times coming from the leading Porsche runners, Marc lieb topping the times by almost half a second in the #77 Felbermayr-Proton 997 ahead of the #91 Farnbacher machine with the Virgo Ferrari a little way back. Virgo though reported that they were “Not pushing yet, we’re working our way through the job list and running some tyre comparisons.” It looks like this morning’s 151.4 form the #96 car will be substantially bettered as the weekend goes on. | 
