Le Mans Series, Algarve - Saturday Notes

31 of the 32 runners chose to go out for the bizarrely post-qualifying 'Warm-Up' session.  Only the JMW Motorsport boys chose to stay in the garage, the team having completed all of their pre-race preparation.

No major dramas for anyone, the one exception was the #89 Hankook Farnbacher Ferrari.  It posted fastest GT2 time of the session but then ran over some debris (possibly an errant toll from a team on pitlane), which led to a tyre delaminating and minor body damage.

The temperature is blistering this afternoon with several teams offering an opinion that cockpit temperatures (and possibly component reliability) are going to be a problem here.  Perhaps worse still many expect the Budapest race to be warmer still!

Several competitors expect that 2010 spec LMP cars will NOT be expected to carry the new for 2011 shark fins.

dsc believes that there's been a meeting between the ACO and the teams this morning and that a wide range of issues were discussed.  Amongst those we know came up were:

The ALMS and LMS will continue to organise their own Series as before, putting paid to rumours that there might be no additional LMS rounds to the Spa and Silverstone Intercontinental Challenge races.

The Intercontinental Challenge rounds will run to full ACO regulations with the exception of the US rounds (Sebring and Petit Le Mans) where there will be some differences in pitlane procedure.

There is a spirited debate on the issue of 2011 LMP2 regulations with many current, and some prospective, competitors offering the opinion that the economics that apply to the proposals simply don't stack up.  We believe that a proposal from Remy Brouard came forward that if a pro-driver was utilised in LMP2 they might not be permitted to drive for more than a third of the race distance.  That willingness to compromise appears to have gone down reasonably well with some of the competitors.