Le Mans Series, Portimão – Race Preview
Part 2 – The GTs

Onto the GT classes and it’s perhaps a surprise to see a GT1 class at all post Le Mans.

GT1

GT1 features the same pair of Saleens that raced at Spa, including of course the last Le Mans GT1 winning car, the #50 Larbre S7-R.

Only Gabriele Gardel features from the Le Mans winning driver trio though, Patrice Goueslard and Fernando Rees return to the cockpit from Spa.

The Atlas FX Saleen was presented beautifully at Spa and the same three drivers are listed against the Portimao entry too.

Will this be the world’s most exciting class battle?  Unlikely but it’s good to see the old warhorses out to play again!

GT2

There are 12 GT2 runners listed for Portugal with the Schnitzer BMWs missing, the team opting to prepare for the Spa 24 Hours rather than 1000kms at the opposite end of the continent.

Aside from that there are few differences from the regular LMS entry, with the only major change involving the #88 Felbermayr Proton Porsche which sees Wolf Henzler taking the place of Pat Long.

Half of the 12 contenders field Ferrari 430s, and half of those are entered by AF Corse.  DSC believes that the team cars written off at the Spa GT Open races did not include the LMS trio and Matias Russo is reportedly fully recovered from his violent accident at Le Mans, so expect all three to be contenders. The Bruni/ Melo combo will be the pair to beat but Toni Vilander’s ‘young apprentices’ are coming on strong too, and lie an impressive second in the points standings!

CRS Racing bring their pair of Ferraris back for more and they’ll be keen to take the fight to AF Corse and to the Porsches.  The lead #91 pair of Andrew Kirkaldy and Tim Mullen are quick enough to keep any of the other crews here honest and the #90 crews two quick pros Pierre Kaffer and Phil Quaife will keep Pierre Ehret in contention too.

The last of the Ferraris is one of those GT2 entries that seems to get stronger and stronger the longer the races go on.  The #89 Hankook Farnbacher entry has finished second at both the Nurburgring and Le mans 24 Hours in 2010 (though we still await confirmation of the final Le Mans class result.) 

Dominik Farnbacher and Allan Simonsen are a pair that are enjoying their racing in 2010, and well they might.  Will a full dry race in Portugal suit their package?  Probably not – but then again who’d have bet on them for their podium double?

Spyker Squadron scored a race finish at Le Mans but they’ll want to do more over 1000km.  On recent form though they’ll need to profit from the misfortune of others rather than expect to win anything on raw pace.

JMW Motorsport were massively frustrated at their Aston Martin’s lack of pace at Le Mans.  Rob Bell battled up to the lead group in early running but the car simply lacked straight line speed.

Algarve should suit the car rather better and Darren Turner returns to bolster the effort considerably too, but if the team are to come home with the kind of result they’ve got used to in recent years the car will have to find reliability as well as pace.

Finally there’s a quartet of Porsche 997 GT3 RSRs

First up, the #75 Prospeed Competition squad of Marco Holzer and Richard Westbrook; all the right ingredients are here - a top class team and a pair of top class drivers. Holzer and Westbrook have already finished third at Le Mans (on their debuts and for BMS Scuderia Italia) and that result could yet mean they win the class with the results still provisional as the first two finishers have their engines examined.

Somehow though the team have not yet produced the goods in the Le Mans Series.  It can’t be long coming though.

Another team that seems to have very good days and very mediocre days is IMSA Performance.  2010 thus far has seen Raymond Narac and Patrick Pilet score steadily but not race spectacularly; again a better result surely beckons?

Felbermayr Proton already dominate the points standings, courtesy of the unexpected double points bonanza at Paul Ricard.

The #88 car completed a Ricard one-two for the team and further points in Belgium mean that Christian Ried, Martin Ragginger and Pat Long sit third in the points standings.  As noted above Henzler replaces Long in Portugal but Christian Ried must be having a very good 2010; his team is performing well and his own car is still in contention.

Which brings us to the #77 car.  The Lieb/ Lietz combo has started three races this season, and has won all three - a world class performance. 

They might be lucky to have the points-cushion that they currently enjoy (courtesy of the pace of the Ricard winning Audi) but there’s no arguing about the way they’ve approached the season.  A win in the Algarve might just sew up a title!  

GG