The 2008 edition of the greatest sports car race starts under partly cloudy skies and the same mild temperatures we’ve seen all week. The mood is that of expecting a good tactical 3 vs. 3 battle among the dieselites. There is also some apprehension, given the disturbing number of flying cars during the preliminaries and preliminary events.
The space station astronauts as delegated to three famous astronauts in attendance here (including lunar walker, Buzz Aldrin) give the signal to start here, i.e. wave the tricolore flag.
It’s no surprise, as Montagny and Lamy are away. McNish holds third in the yellow-winged Audi, but only as far as the first chicane, where Minassian powers past to make it a Peugeot 1-2-3. The best surprise thus far (end of lap 1) has been the pace of Daisuke Ito, who gets the pretty domed Dome into eighth and well in contact with tail of the Audi contingent. Perhaps less of a surprise is Mücke in a strong sixth.
After two laps we have a 7 second gap between the top 3 Peugeots and the first of the Audis (McNish). While the Lola-Aston leads the petrol “class”, the Dome is closing up. Jeroen Bleekemolen leads LM P2, his Porsche a hal-second ahead of Joao Barbosa (No. 18 Rollcentre Pescarolo). Jan Magnussen is the next of the surprises, with a huge 5-second lead. His No. 63 Corvette is well clear of yet another surprise, the second place car in GT1, Christophe Bouchut’s No. 50 Saleen. However, a little later that swaps around as the Ford powered car is passed by the other works Corvette and both official Astons.
The Lizard is sticking its tongue at the GT2 field with Jörg Bermeister’s Porsche 3 seconds ahead of the Risi Ferrari of Jaime Melo. Robert Bell is next with the Virgo F430, but Patrick Long is moving well up the ladder after having started from the back.
At the end of Lap 4 Lamy begins to encounter traffic and his ripping 3.22 pace has slowed to 3:27. McNish is almost having more trouble with traffic as the gap spreads a tad more.
The very first pit caller is Xavier Pompidou. The No. 33 Lola-Judd gets back to being Speedy after replacing a puncture tire. Meanwhile the Denmark vs. Netherlands LM P2 fight has emerged as the brightest element in the race. Casper Elgaard has closed up within 2-3 car lengths of the Van Merksteijn Porsche. Third in class is [was] the RML Lola-MG, some 35 seconds further back. However, Greg Pickett (No. 12 Charouz Lola-Judd) taps Erdos and the No. 25 car goes careening into the tire wall at the first chicane.
Pickett’s car has no damage. He stopped at the pits but no action was taken on the car. It took Erdos several minutes to crab slowly back. The MG-badged car was immediately backed into the garage with much of the front bodywork gone and some obvious suspension damage.
Franck Montagny stopped out of the lead shortly after the 20-minute mark (fuel, no tires), starting a flurry of stops among the LM P1 cars. Next in was the No. 1 Audi of Frank Biela.
Peter Hardman in the No. 53 Vitaphone-ish Aston spun and briefly stalled in the Esses area. Soheil Ayari, No. 5 Oreca-Courage was the first of LM P1-Bis class to stop, followed by the No. 17 works Pescarolo of Harold Primat. Even before Erdos returned to the pits, the first garage caller was actually Peter Kox in the Lamborghini.
Lucas Luhr was the middle of the diesel pack to stop (No. 3 Audi). Then came Warren Hughes in the Embassy WF-a very strong start for the Zytek powered No. 45-up to 3rd in LM P2. Minassian (No. 7 Peugeot) was next in, about at the same time as the No. 14 Creation, No. 26 Radical, and the non-whining Mazda of the Kruse team. The No. 20 Euskadi had a long stop that included lifting of the engine cover, hydraulic systems requiring re-pressurising. The Autocon Creation is the first to make a driver change, Bryan Willman taking over from Chris McMurry.
McNish meanwhile leads briefly before making his pit stop in the #2 Audi
The two Alphand Corvettes began the set of regular stops for the GT1 leaders, with the No. 009 Corvette next. Rob Bell was one of the first GT2 drivers to stop. The Virgo team took a little extra time to take care of light damage to the right rear after the Ferrari was tagged by the Team Modena Aston as it left its own pit box after stalling. Tim Mullen takes over in #96.
The real first GT2 car to make a scheduled stop was the leader, Bergmeister handing over to Johannes van Overbeek.
The Trading Performance Zytek, No. 41 of Claude-Yves Gosselin came into the pits quite slowly (misfire) while the hour ended with Tracy Krohn (in for Niclas Jonsson in the No. 83 Risi Ferrari) Going straight on at Arnage, rejoining but apparently tagging something and going off at the Porsche Curves. The No. 19 Chamberlain Lola-AER (Bob Berridge) also came around slowly with some sort of a mechanical problem.
