1000km Algarve - Friday Free Practice Report
Hot, Hot, Hot

It was a sweltering 35 degrees as the cars came out for the third free practice session. Apart from anything else, this provided an interesting test for the air-conditioning systems, mandatory on the closed cars, which had to maintain cockpit temperatures at a temperature “less than or equal to the external temperature”. In their Nomex driving suits, this still was not very comfortable for the drivers; at least during the race it should be cooler.

Early in the session it was the two Gulf-liveried Lola-Astons, following their disappointing showing in last night’s free practice, which set the pace, despite not running the direct injection engines. Miguel Ramos, making a welcome return to the Aston Martin Racing team after missing Le Mans, was fastest in the first ten minutes at 1:33.33 in the 009 car and Jan Charouz in the 007 second at 1:33.67.

Before fifteen minutes of the session had gone, though, it was Christophe Tinseau in the sole Pescarolo entered who was quickest, on 1:32.9, followed by another Portuguese driver, Tiago Monteiro, in the no. 10 Oreca at 1:33.2. Five minutes later, and another name appeared at the top of the screens, in the shape of Christijan Albers, driving the no.15 Kolles Audi R10. He then got slightly ahead of himself, having a big lock-up coming down into turn 6, the downhill left-hander behind the pits. Albers’ time was a 1:32.567, but he was pit-bound, to change the tyres for some round ones. Meanwhile, his time was eclipsed by the hard-charging Tinseau, who put the Pescarolo back to the top of the timing screens with a 1:32.194.

Meanwhile, halfway through the session, the quickest in the P2 class was once again the Portuguese Ginetta-Zytek in the Quifel colours, driven by Olivier Pla; a second and a half quicker than the rest of the P2 field.

In the GT1 class, Jack Leconte’s Saleen was quicker (in the hands of Stéphane Lémeret) than the Luc Alphand Corvette, which Yann Clairay was driving. And in the GT2 class, the lead was see-sawing between the Modena Ferrari no 84, in which Leo Mansell was acquitting himself very well indeed and the no 77 Felbermayr Porsche with Richard Lietz at the wheel.

The second half of the session was considerably calmer, with teams tending to concentrate more on their race settings; although in many ways, this was a meaningless session, as the conditions here on the Algarve coast mid-afternoon will not be reflected either in qualifying or the race. Hugh Hayden, running the two Speedy Sebah entries, identified the problem; “there’s a real danger that you go chasing a setup that will not work in the race”.

 In general, everyone coped well with the conditions, which were not made any easier by a gusty southerly wind, which would also swing the flags to the east and to the west from time to time. Narain Karthikeyan, at the wheel of Kolles no 14 Audi had a lurid spin, narrowly avoiding the gravel bed, and fortunately being able to rejoin and return to the pits with his tail between his legs. However, having handed the car over to Charles Zwolsman, it suffered a worse fate at the hands of the Dutchman, who spun out at the top of the hill after turn 13 without damaging the car. Unfortunately for him, the car got itself beached and was not able to rejoin.

In the final five minutes, Bruno Senna made a big effort in the Oreca-AIM, and went quickest of all, a tenth of a second ahead of the Pescarolo.

Just as in yesterday evening’s session, the Lola Aston Martins struggled for ultimately quick laps, and ended the session in fifth and sixth places. More disappointing was the performance of the Strakka Racing Ginetta Zytek; which, having set the fastest time in both free practice sessions yesterday, was only tenth in today’s session. Piers Phillips, the chief engineer, was not worried though. “We were really just doing some housekeeping,” said the man now in effective charge of the team. “Bedding in brakes and tyres, making sure the car is reliable and driver-friendly. There was no point in trying anything else as the conditions are so different at the moment.” It was apparent, though, that the team would be disappointed not to be on pole position. In fact, Phillips went as far as to say that he would be “very disappointed not to be on the front row”. With Danny Watts at the wheel for the start, the team will be well-equipped to set the pace in the early laps of the race.

The entry in P2 is perhaps a little disappointing, with the absence of both the Essex Porsche and the Barazi Zytek. Also absent are the KSM Lola - as has already been reported in these pages, due to the substantial damage sustained at Le Mans - the Pegasus Courage and the Randaccio Lucchini. In the WR-Salini run car, no 37, the Salini brothers are joined for this weekend by Bruce Jouanny, who replaces Tristan Gommendy; away at the Superleague Formula race in the less sunny UK.

GT1 has gone the way of all mortal things, and only two cars are entered. By the end of the session the Luc Alphand Corvette was quicker than the Larbre Saleen.

GT2 is missing five cars that appeared at the last LMS round, at Spa Francorchamps: Ferraris from the Advanced Engineering team, Virgo Motorsport and FBR; the Prospeed Porsche and the Reiter Lamborghini. It remains to be seen whether they will return for the next round at the Nürburgring. The Modena Ferrari 430GT of Garcia, Mansell and Melo ended up quickest, less than two tenths of a second faster than the works Porsche drivers Marc Lieb and Richard Lietz in the Felbermayr Porsche 911 GT3 RSR.

Portugal is well-represented. In addition to the Quifel Ginetta with Lisbon-born Miguel Amaral driving, which features on the front cover of the raceday programme (at 5 euros, it’s two euros cheaper than the substantially similar issue you bought at Spa), there are Miguel Ramos and Tiago Monteiro, who has some 37 Grands Prix under his belt. Then there are Francisco Cruz Martins in the second Felbermayr Porsche and Cesar Campanico in the JMB Ferrari.

And while mentioning the JMB Ferrari, Campanico is joined by regular driver John Hartshorne and a refugee from the Reiter Lamborghini from Spa, a certain Prinz Albert von Thurn und Taxis. I am sure that the female dailysportscar readers will know that Albert is the world’s most eligible bachelor – he is listed by Forbes Magazine as the youngest billionaire in the world – at the age of 26 and with £1.3 billion and 30,000 hectares (that’s larger than the county of Surrey) of German woodland to his name.

One final story that I missed from last night’s free practice session. It seems that there was a small coming together between the two LMP1 Aston Martin cars just after 10:30pm. Darren Turner in the 009 car came across a slow (spinning) LMP2 car and slowed accordingly. Unfortunately, Jan Charouz in the 007 was unsighted and ran into the back of the sister car. There was no damage to the 009, and the damage to the 007 was limited to some front end carbon fibre. It was not a significant factor in and of itself, but perhaps is an indication of the sort of incident on which might hinge the outcome of the 1000km race tomorrow night.

Paul Truswell