Le Mans Test Day - Team By Team - Part Four

GTE Am

AF Corse

AF Corse fielded a pair of 430s in the GTE Am category – One of these can be summarised very easily as – Michele Rugolo completed his rookie laps in the #52 cart ahead of his appearance with Krohn racing in the race proper and then the car was put away.

The other car might prove to be much more significant in the race proper.  The reasonably rapid combo of Marc Cioci, his regular gentleman driver Pierguiseppe Perazzini and team newcomer Sean Paul Breslin got down to business in the #61 car, a very brief on track hiccup in the first session seemingly the only interruption to their qualification efforts.

A best time of 4:06.436 for Cioci was perfectly respectable in this company, the squad finished the day happy with their efforts.

CRS

Andrew Kirkaldy joined the regular CRS ILMC line-up of Pierre Ehret, Shaun Lynn and Roger Wills, this another team looking to get plenty of familiarisation mileage on track and with Kirkaldy present to help establish some base line data for the #62 Ferrari 430.

Both Lynn and Wills needed to complete their rookie laps, this despite both having raced here in recent times, albeit in the Le Mans Legends support race.

A competitive 4:07.955 was the best from the car in the second session, close enough to the AF Corse and Gulf AMR cars to point towards some close racing to come in June.

Gulf AMR Middle East

A planned low key run from the #60 Aston Martin Vantage was completed successfully, all three drivers here needed to complete their rookie laps and that was done successfully.  The only real drama for the team caused when the car suffered a puncture on the Mulsanne in the first session, Roald Goethe opting to pull off the circuit to prevent damaging the car with the disintegrating tyre.

JMB

Now here was a surprise package – The Le Mans Series official test at Paul Ricard saw JMB field their 2009 Ferrari 430 GT2 but the car that rocked up at Le Mans was an altogether different kettle of Prancing Horse.

As the scrutineering sticker confirmed this was the very recently ex AF Corse 430 which set pole position at Sebring in the hands of the team earlier this year.

JMB brought a roster of four drivers to the test, Tristan Gommendy adding pace to a gentlemanly line up composed of Jean Marc Menahem, Nicolas Misslin and Manuel Rodrigues.

Gommendy set a perfectly respectable 4:05.760 in the #83 car as the team went about the task of getting ten laps under the wheels of their collected rookies.

Larbre Competition

Larbre fielded both their regular ILMC Corvette and a one-off Porsche entry at the test, as they will for June’s race too courtesy of automatic entries through their GT1 successes in LMS and at Le Mans itself in 2010.

Neither though were straightforward Larbre efforts.  The Corvette saw none of the team’s regular drivers warm the seat on Sunday, instead there was a glittering array of Corvette Racing talent assembled, the car very much under Gary Pratt’s wing this time out as the factory opted not to ship their own C6.Rs over post the Long Beach ALMS round.

That meant the incongruous sight of Messrs Magnussen, Gavin, Milner (another whose last appearance here put him in the rookie category) and Beretta lapping in a Corvette resplendent with ‘AM’ vinyls, and the car showing pace that we are unlikely to see replicated come June!  Both sessions saw the car into the 4:04s, Magnussen setting its best time of the day with a 4:04.222 as the team went through the workplan gathering set-up, tyre and fuel consumption data.

The team’s #70 Porsche meanwhile was an IMSA Performance car with more than a smattering of IMSA Performance crewmembers.

Jean Philippe Belloc set the best time of the day for the car (4:05.285) as the team went through their race preparations and ensured that Pascal Gibon and Christophe Bourret got plenty of seat time.

Robertson Racing

The #68 ‘Am’ car is already in the race but all three drivers needed to complete their 10 laps, Boris Said’s last appearance at Le Mans having been some little while ago! (1994 in a Callaway Corvette Supernatural)  

The car looks great and sounds fabulous – this is a real crowd pleaser guaranteed to raise smiles in the grandstands and on the spectator banking.

After some trials and tribulations the intrepid trio made it through, a couple of contacts with other cars and an apparently misbehaving pitlane speed limiter.

There will be speed to be found though when the action starts in earnest – but if the Mr and Mrs squad of David and Andrea Roberston apply the same effort to their pace as they have from putting together this gorgeous looking two car effort there should be no problems there.