Le Mans Series – Monza - Friday Lunchtime Notes

It was a very early Friday morning start for the dsc team, but Milanese traffic meant that the first 60 minute practice session, at 12.30, was well under way as we arrived at the circuit.

And what a session that proved to be for the Skoda Charouz Racing Systems Lola Judd, Stefan Mücke storming round in 1:37.998 on his third flying lap, a time good enough to top the timesheets at the end of the session, the #8 Peugeot trailing by less than a tenth with its #7 frère a further half second adrift, the #7 car suffering some gear selection issues. Peugeot Sport announced this morning that the team will undertake a full 24 Hour simulation prior to the Le Mans 24 hours. The team also made very clear remarks that the team has so far not demonstrated that the car is yet capable of doing the 1000km distance reliably.

The Charouz boys are clearly enjoying their new project, team manager Sam Hignett was lapping up the Monza sunshine and was eager to sing the praises of his three new charges (Mücke, Charouz and the Lola Judd that is!).

Mücke was enjoying himself enormously – “It’s very, very different to DTM. There all of the cars have very familiar performance whereas here I am dealing with traffic the whole time. It’s a lot of fun and in many ways much more of a challenge for a driver. This is only my second time in the car and there have been no problems at all.”

Jan Charouz meanwhile was also sporting a wide grin, “I love it, the car is fast, the traffic is a big challenge and it is hard to get the most out of the car.”

Unofficial sources suggest that the Charouz car saw 325 km/h during the first session!

At the other end of the order the Lavaggi failed to complete a lap in the first session, an as yet unknown problem stopping the car on an out lap.

LMP2’s fast men were the Quifel ASM Team, Miguel de Castro in amongst the slower LMP1 times (a 1:41.252) and a full second faster than the Michael Vergers pedalled Barazi Epsilon Zytek (now with added Gulf orange)

The Noel del Bello Courage LC75 is a no show.

It was all smiles at RML, no problems at all this morning,” said a smiling Thomas Erdos.

Team Bruichladdich though were busy changing a gearbox post session and there were gear selection issues of a less dramatic nature at Binnie Motorsport too.

The second Radical SR9 runner is of course Embassy Racing and the #45 car, sporting a very smart black and silver livery, was out on track doing its first laps in its new owner’s hands.

“It really is a shakedown run,” said Warren Hughes after running for around 30 minutes this morning. “The biggest problem for me is that I am uncomfortable in the car so we’ll be having another seat fitting session tonight. Beyond that it has been a case of a number of small niggling issues around balance, braking and stability together with a software problem which gives us far too big a blip on some downshifts. The great thing is though that with those issues we’re still not that far from the pace (4th fastest!).”

At this point Martin Short popped into the Embassy truck for a chat about progress so far with the ex-Rollcentre car and immediately there was recognition of some of the issues and advice on how to best deal with them. Hughes will take the car out for the first minutes of the second session late this afternoon to assess how the team’s tweaks have affected the car, before Neil Cunningham gets his first chance at the wheel.

Jonathan France’s new car features the CLAPA logo (and smiley faces) at Monza, many of the team’s sponsors having agreed to remove their logo decals in order to draw attention to the work of CLAPA, the Cleft Lip & Palate Association.

CLAPA is the only UK-wide voluntary organisation specifically helping those with, and affected by, cleft lip and palate. It is a cause close to Jonathan France’s heart as his son William was born with the condition last year.

GT1 saw Antonio Garcia gain first bragging rights for Team Modena: a 1:47.038 was more than half a second clear of the best that the Oreca Saleen could deliver. .

The #51 Larbre Aston Martin meanwhile was suffering transmission woes, the team deciding post session that a transmission change might be the best solution.

In GT2 Xavier Pompidou took the #77 Felbmayr Proton Porsche to the top of the GT2 times, with the Fabrizio de Simone propelled #97 GPC Ferrari second in the order.

The #96 Virgo Motorsport Ferrari meanwhile was looking very clean and shiny having just been delivered back to the squad after a full post Paul Ricard rebuild at Michelotto.

“The car has now got a full 2007 upgrade with new engine, braking and aero and air con too,” said a smiling Rob Bell.

At Spyker Squadron Jarek Janis was looking forward to unlocking more from the #85 Spyker: “We need quite a lot of work on set-up. The car really needs to be a lot harder at the rear, we came here really with a Sebring set-up and we are losing out quite badly at the moment. Of course the car hasn’t raced here in two years and also there has been the change from Michelins to Dunlops. That is a major difference. On Michelins the car was understeering and now we have some turn in oversteer.”