LMS, Silverstone – Qualifying Report
Disaster For Pescarolo

GT

It was a slow start for the 20 minute session in bright, calm and warm (yes, in England in September) conditions.  Tom Coronel set the early pace with a 1:50.358 but it was only in the closing half of the session that we had more than 8 cars on track. 

Peter Kox set the initial pace in GT1 with a 1:45.796, but when the Aston was driverless and defenceless in the pits Groppi took the Saleen top with a 45.732. Yann Clairay took the Corvette to a 45.8, so the three cars are very evenly matched for what could be their final hurrah in present iterations.

Bruni had qualifying duties for JMW, Lietz for Felbermayr.  The latter posted a 1:48.810 on his first flier to go quickest in GT2, Melo, Kaffer and Montermini driving in a solid wedge of Ferrari behind the Porsche.  The point for class pole could be vital in GT2 as the championship would be all but won if Felbermayr could snatch it.  Indeed, Bruni could not better the Austrian’s time, finishing second with a 1:48.830.  To add insult to what could be a serious injury, Lietz then improved to a 48.638.  “We only need one point now for the championship and that is our target.  I am a bit surprised with the time because we have been struggling a little in practice, but in qualifying I found a lot of grip and confidence.  The plan will be to drive the race at a safe speed and not take any risks.”

Pilet piled even more Porsche pressure on JMW by taking third in class with a 48.984, then it was back to Ferrari with Melo and Kaffer.  Cocker took the GT2 Aston Martin to sixth in class on only his second flying lap as he took the flag.  Montermini and Farnbacher rounded out the top 8.

LMP

The prototype boys left it even later than the GT boys to post their quick times and crucially for Pescarolo, they left it far too late.

It was a somewhat disjointed session with a couple of yellow flags just when the quick times were starting, two of which were caused by Albers in the #15 Audi.  His first spin happened going through Chapel when the car swapped ends on the apex, just as Pla was on his first quick lap alongside.  It didn’t trouble the Frenchman at all, though, as he steamed through quickest overall with a 1:36.092.  Albers did end up pointing in the right direction but the car did not look settled coming down Hangar Straight and before long Albers was once again off track, this time ploughing through the gravel and bringing out the flags.

Things were brighter on the other side of the Kolles camp as Meyrick took (a very) provisional pole with a 1:35.806.

Nicholas Lapierre confirmed that he caught a flash of the Albers-induced yellow flag on his quick lap “but I was lucky to have got my time before the Pescarolo went off.  On a corner like that [Becketts] everyone has to be very careful when there is a yellow flag, so after that I was sure that my time would be OK.  We had a good practice yesterday and today.  We have new aero at the rear and we haven’t had much time to test it before here.  The car has been getting better and better and we have been working on the balance of the car through the first sector and all of these quick corners that you have here.  It is good news for us to have pole, we hope to be reliable for tomorrow but of course we want to win.”

His time was a 1:32.798, easily the quickest of the meeting so far.  It would stay the best time too, because Boullion went off into the barriers at Becketts with just three minutes left on the clock; making moderate contact on the rear right after seemingly losing the car on the kerbs.  This was a disaster for Pescarolo, as, although the underdog limped back to the pits, they hadn’t set a time at all and will be at the back of the grid.  To compound the team's misery, the championship-leading #007 Lola Aston Martin will start from second, with the #009 third.

The Pescarolo will be in good company, though, as the #15 Audi will be with it too after Albers’ gravel-scrabble session; and a Ginetta that refused to fire up meant Strakka were a disappointing no show.  Watts had been very keen to try and bookend the season with two pole-positions.

The yellows through the super-quick Maggotts and Becketts complex as the Pescarolo was recovered meant times thereafter were compromised.  Mucke, Turner and Belicchi formed the rest of the front two rows when the flag fell, while Greg Mansell was an impressive fifth in the orange Ginetta-Zytek, demoting Meyrick to an eventual sixth.

Lawrence Tomlinson, on how the arrangement with the Mansells came about: “Greg and Leo have the same personal trainer as me, Richard Chessman, and it was Richard who arranged for me to meet Nigel at Petit Le Mans last year. It didn’t do any harm that we were leading the race at the time.

“We chatted about a test, which Nigel and Leo then had, and Nigel rang me to thank me, and to say how easy the Ginetta-Zytek was to drive. We met again at Le Mans, had a round of golf, came second in the competition (on the Friday), talked about another test and maybe driving here – and then we had a great test at Snetterton.

“From my point of view, Greg has been great to work with, he’s got a great future – and unlike most young drivers, he’s got a really good engineering background.”

How are you three arriving at a set-up together?

“Nigel takes on board all our views – and then does what he thinks best! (said in NM’s hearing).

“We believe that the car’s benefiting from a change of set-up, which Nigel has helped us with. Alan Mugglestone seems to be the best engineer of a Ginetta-Zytek, but we look at the stopwatch, not the bullshit.”

Nigel Mansell: “I’ve been privileged to drive so many cars, and what works on one corner may not work on another, so it’s a case of cherry-picking the best bits. The team made a major step forward last night.

“To come here from a standing start, what we’ve achieved in two days should have impressed a few people.”

Pla’s single lap was good enough for class pole, but he complained of “a lot of gravel on the track at Becketts, so I couldn’t improve afterwards.  The car is great and I think we could have been two seconds faster than the others, not one.”

“The others” were in the order of Kane, Erdos, Peter and Hughes.

Warren Hughes: “The settings don’t transfer (from Snetterton to Silverstone).”

Jody Firth: “The car really wasn’t good at all yesterday. We had a really good balance at Snetterton (probably over 95% happy with it), but here yesterday, we were at maybe 40%. Now we’ve got a good 85 to 90%. There was maybe a little bit more in Warren’s qualifying lap, perhaps a 38.5. But the things we learned at Snetterton enabled us to apply that knowledge to the set-up changes we’ve made here, so despite the accident yesterday, we’ve made a lot of progress very quickly.”

Jonathan France: “Now we’re beginning to show the potential of the package – and we typically race better than we qualify.”

Bart Hayden, TM at Speedy Sebah: “If you’d asked me what I thought at lunchtime today, it would have been a very different answer. We’ve made small tweaks to both cars and we’re now extremely pleased with both. In the P2, we just couldn’t have been any quicker than Jonny managed, while fourth in P1 – we’re delighted with that. All season we’ve been trouble-free in practice and qualifying, but here we’ve had nothing but niggles – so I hope we’ve got them all out of the way before the race.”

PS & MCC