Le Mans 24 Hours – Thursday Notes From The Paddock 2
Update On Wednesday’s Casualties

As you will have no doubt noticed, yesterday evening’s Free Practice and first Qualifying sessions didn’t go so well for several teams; the most obvious casualty of the evening being the #51 GTE-Pro AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia, which crashed heavily in the Porsche Curves while in the hands of Giancarlo Fisichella.

The crash was so severe – but with the driver fortunately uninjured – that a new chassis was summoned from AF Corse’s Italian base, with the replacement car arriving first thing this morning. “We have received the necessary permission to use the new chassis from the FIA under the force majeure rule and we will have the car out again for Warm-Up on Saturday,” confirmed AF Corse Team Owner Amato Ferrari. The team is hard at work on the rebuild, but it is clearly going to be a lengthy undertaking.

Despite fears of a parts-shortage for the #16 Pescarolo 03-Judd, which crashed at the Michelin Chicane during Free Practice, the team confirmed that the repairs will be completed in time for today’s Qualifying sessions, which begin at 19:00.

Similarly, Gulf Racing Middle East confirmed that the #29 Lola B12/80 which came to grief at the Dunlop Bridge during Qualifying will also be repaired in time for today’s action. The damage was to the front end – mainly bodywork – but the steering was also affected. However, there was no serious damage and the repairs are quite straight-forward.

The issue that stranded the Nissan Delta Wing out on the track in the early part of the Qualifying session turned out to be a frustrating one for the team; “Michael (Krumm) hit a kerb and had a bit of a hard landing,” said Team Manager Phil Barker. “The car was fine, but the impact knocked the Master Switch off. Unfortunately, the reset required the engine cover to come off and Michael wasn’t able to do this, so he had to sit out the rest of the session.

“The switch wasn’t spring-loaded last night, but we’ve fixed that now so that it knocks itself back on in future – you live and learn!”

And it was happily not a serious issue that sidelined the #55 JWA Avila Porsche in the latter stages of Qualifying; “Markus (Palttala) had a puncture, but because he had only just started the lap – the tyre actually started to deflate as he passed the pits – we told him to pull over rather than risk any damage trying to get the car back; there was nothing to gain with so little time left,” said Paul Daniels. “Sod’s Law, we were going to be fitting the tyre sensors today!

“It’s been a troubled start for us, actually,” he continued. “We had a set-up problem that cost us the first hour of practice and Markus hasn’t really set a time yet – if we’d done our ‘flier’ and last night’s time (4:08.170) was the best we could do, I’d be quite worried now; but we know there’s more to come.

“The positive is that I’ve had a lot of track time and so far I’m lapping 13 seconds quicker than when I was last here in 2004. The circuit doesn’t really feel any different – the biggest difference is the paddle shift. There are some big braking zones here, so if you focus and brake as late as possible the paddle shift gets you through the corner a lot quicker than before; it’s a big help to the ‘gentleman racer’.

“We’re putting the race engine in now so that we can have a pressure-up run tonight. That way, if we have any issues, we have more time to sort than if they arose during warm-up.”

MH