Le Mans Series, Estoril - Sunday - Warm Up, Snippets and Start Drivers 

A very similar morning to yesterday weather-wise and 26 cars took to the track, most choosing to run for the majority of the apparently trouble-free 20 minute session.  All that is apart from the glitchy #51 which Bruni had shaken down nicely by putting it second on the grid yesterday.  Ensuring smooth running and finding a race setup is probably not the key priority for Bruni and Fisichella however as their thoughts are already on next weekend’s Petit Le Mans.  Bruni said they had “a starter motor problem this morning, we hope it will be OK for the race, but we will have to see.  If we can keep the car running then we will certainly try to complete the race.”

It remained nice and tight in most of the classes, Bellichi heading the times with a 1:31.886, Prost less than two tenths back, then Tinseau six tenths back.   Rebellion are hoping that they don’t need to use too many spares, quite a few crates already being labelled up “Estoril to Atlanta” at the back of the garage.

P2s were grouped from fourth through to 10th, only the Norma cut adrift back in 18th with a best of only 1:41.027, seven seconds slower than in qualifying.

FLM saw Neil Garner over a second in front of Marroc for JMB again.  Alex Kapadia is doing a good job here, but he is used to being at the front.  “My racing career started in the late 90s and it started really well in single-seaters, I went quickly into Formula Renault and was going well there until basically the money ran out.  I spent the next 18 months in and out of other people’s Formula Renaults which whilst it was fun and I still did well, meant I didn’t have any consistency of car or team or engineers and no-one was really that bothered about what I was doing.

“I decided I had to step back and not damage my reputation by being uncompetitive, but needed to do something that meant I could fund myself properly in racing.  I started a few Bargain Booze franchises and got involved with e-tyres.co.uk and whilst that wasn’t quite enough it did allow me to do a few races in 2008 and the results were really good so since then I’ve been able to get drives. 

“Obviously I’m way too old for single-seaters now so the dream is Le Mans, probably P2 next and whilst it is a dream, hopefully drive for a manufacturer.

“I have been trying to get into the Le Mans Series paddock for three years now but I hadn’t driven the FLM car before Friday, when I was quite uncomfortable.  I had a new seat yesterday but only got three laps in practice with it, the times were improving though.  In qualifying I pulled a time out, so it is looking good at the moment.  I think all the teams are struggling with consistency so my plan is to start the race and finish my stint without issue, there are some sand traps and walls a lot closer here than on most circuits.”

JMW, Felbermayr-Proton and Hankook Team Farnbacher were all in the 1:40.7s with the other GTE-Pro cars all covered by just over a second behind.  Dominik Farnbacher was looking forward.  “We are second in the championship but Felbermayr and JMW are right behind, there are two others [Prospeed and Jota] that could still take second too.  Obviously we want to stay in this place but it will be tough.  I think the guys that survive will take second in the championship.  Overtaking here is very risky anywhere so we will probably see a lot of action in the GTE class!  The surface here is very abrasive and I think performance-wise over a stint we probably can’t keep up with the others but I think we can run a good strategy and have good fuel consumption so only have to stop four times which should make us competitive.”

Richard Lietz didn’t see that any leaps had been made by Porsche, just the Ferrari advantage was weakened by this circuit.  “At Silverstone we were a similar distance from the Ferraris, it was just the BMWs that were way too fast.  In the race we do expect to be more competitive, Silverstone did suit the Ferraris more than us, whereas here is not an advantage for Porsche, but is less of an advantage for Ferrari.  I think the race will show how the teams are going to use their tyres, the tarmac seems quite old and is very aggressive on the rubber.  Most tracks improve as the race goes on and more rubber goes down, but I don’t think this one will behave like that and I think tyre wear will remain high.”

JMW’s Tim Sugden agreed with Lietz that “it is going to be tight, it always is, but the Porsches are definitely closer here than they have been, they love a hairpin do Porsches!”

JMB were closer to the GTE Pro pace after a disappointing qualifying and somewhat up-down performance all weekend.  Ayari explained “This is just a first race for me to come and see how it is in a GTE car in LMS configuration, compared with my car in GT Open, it is completely different.  We have to run higher here and we have around 100bhp less, but we have very good tyres here, rather than standard control tyres in GT Open.  The set-up from the GT Open car is not working so we have to find something completely new and are changing everything on the car each time we go out.  We were a bit better this morning but not as good as we want so we will be changing everything again for the race!”

Start drivers:

#12 Jani
#16 Jousse
#13 Bellichi
#41 Lombard
#42 Kane
#46 Thiriet
#45 Ebbesvik
#40 Meichtry
#39 Kaffer
#43 Garofall
#44 Rosier
#92 Kapadia
#99 Kutemann
#95 Simon
#66 Bell
#51 Bruni
#77 Lietz
#75 Goosens
#89 Farnbacher
#76 Pilet
#67 Armindo
#71 Melo
#79 Hancock
#61 Cioci
#90 Ayari
#82 Hummel
#88 Ried

PS