Le Mans Test Day – Sunday 4
Into The Afternoon

It’s a bugger trying to keep up with 55 cars testing, and so far there are many teams still to catch up with.. but pressing on…

Michael Vergers: “I did two of them (two 3:39s). They were both good laps. Before today I suggested to the team that LMP2 pole might be a 3:37, but who knows what we can do now. We don’t need to find that much.”

Vergers did point out that he wouldn’t be on the second row here in qualifying in ten days’ time, but what if both qualifying evenings are wet? “If it rains, I will be on the second row!”

Correcting an earlier error, it was Adrian Fernandez who set a 3:42 while completing his ten laps this morning (in the other LMP2 Zytek). Robbie Kerr then went out and went off at the first Mulsanne Chicane, on his out lap. "It just turned left on me approaching the second Mulsanne Chicane." Kurosawa made it a Zytek 1-2 in P2 approaching 16.00, pipping Warren Hughes' time in the Quifel ASM Lola.

Marco Werner, just after 15.30, is the first man into the 29s, a 3:29.563. That’s almost a second quicker than Capello’s pole time last year… but the track is faster.

Back to P2 dramas, and Liz Halliday confirms that Petrov in the del Bello Courage hit the same piece of wall that accounted for the #13 Courage. “He went in backwards and then hit with the front. They’re fitting a new gearbox now,” said Liz. Petrov only completed five of his laps, so he’ll be first out this afternoon.

The Arena Zytek has had a ratio change.

The Charouz Lola hasn’t gone for quick times yet. Marcus Sarach: “We had to qualify Jan and Stefan, and Jan (Charouz) has an exam in London tomorrow, so he’ll get more laps in early this afternoon.”

“We want a safe racing car, not a qualifying car,” added Sam Hignett. Referring to our figure of 13 laps for an R10, Hignett reckoned that “we’ll match that, if not better it.”

Before 15.00, Allan Simonsen went fastest in GT2 in the Autorlando Porsche, a 4:03.754. Bergmeister in the Lizards Porsche beat that by three-tenths.

Simonsen: “Our best lap this morning (a 4:06) was on old tyres, and fresh rubber ought to be worth at least a second and a half.” He proved that that was an underestimate.

Team-mate Lars Erik Nielsen suggested that the top speed of the 997 is no quicker than the 996 towards the first Mulsanne Chicane, “and elsewhere we’re about 5 kph slower. But over a lap we’re about a second quicker (than last year).” GT2 pole last year was a 4:03.2, set by Dumas in the IMSA 996.

Tom Kimber-Smith is finding some real pace in the #81 Panoz, with a 4:07.8 and then on the next lap a 4:07.0. The #97 Risi Ferrari's only problem today has been a puncture.

15.15, and Marco Werner sets a 3:29.064.

Norbert Siedler is reasonably happy with the Kruse Pescarolo, “but we are looking for more top speed. I set my 10 laps this morning, and now we are working on the set-up. I only did six flying laps so I’m still looking for the braking points – and most of the time here is in the driver.”

Along pit lane at Rollcentre, with the other customer Pescarolo, Joao Barbosa reckoned that the morning plan “was to be quicker than we actually were”.

“I went out after Stuart had done his 10 laps,” said Martin Short, “and said we needed to go stiffer. Joao agreed. We had a really good set-up at Valencia, now we’re trying to unlock it here.”

Stuart Hall was thoroughly enjoying himself, but not going for outright pace this early, obviously. “As long as I’m competitive in the race, I’ll be happy. Today isn’t about pace, for me.”

He described Le Mans as “a mega track, fantastic”.

Just one comment on the drivers’ briefing yesterday afternoon. “Drivers must imperatively respect the race track delimited by white lines, cones or markers,” said one line of the official summary. Fortunately, we haven’t heard any “white lines stuff” today.

The improved lap times that are starting to come, despite this only being the test day, will make a nonsense of the ACO’s ‘target’ lap times for each class.

We’ve not really covered GT1 at all yet, but they’re on our list of tasks… one of the Oreca cars has gone second in class, Lapierre setting the time. Bouchut in #008 Aston Martin then takes over as the second Frenchman in GT1.