ALMS, Mid-Ohio - Thursday Test

Big news of the day was the huge accident that Greg Pickett had in the dying minutes of the session, for reasons yet unknown.  He went off hard at Turn 4 and, having just seen the car returning on the back of the tow truck, everything forward of the cockpit was in a bad way.  Apparently he was at full speed coming out of the Keyhole and, while the gravel scrubbed off a little speed, the nose dug in which flipped the car over into the tyre wall. 

Porsche’s indomitable PR guy, Andy Schupak, spoke to Greg in the Medical Centre who confirmed that he’d never lost consciousness, but was complaining of back pain.  He’s being taken to hospital in Mansfield for X-rays and to be checked out.  It’s the last Porsche Spyder in competition but Schupak confirms they have enough spares on the Porsche truck.  The real question is whether Greg will be fit to drive...Saacha Maassen is probably packing his suitcase as you read now.  Pickett and Klaus Graf finished the session two tenths of a second ahead of Brabham and Pagenaud with Dyson, the Intersport and Drayson all following in close succession.

Luis Diaz, running for the first time this weekend in the LMPC class with Ricardo Gonzalez in the PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports Oreca, pipped the Green Earth Technologies car by 0.67 seconds by the end of the session.  The popular Mexican is obviously delighted to be back in a prototype.  Tucker and Bouchut were just two hundredths off Gunnar, while Andy Wallace was another four tenths off.

In GT, the testing that Corvette Racing did at the beginning of this week obviously paid off as Olly Gavin slotted in a 20.868 to top the class, a full 7/10ths ahead of Muller and Hand in the quickest of the BMWs.   Nine hundredths of a second behind the Rahal Letterman-run car was the second Corvette, with the second Bimmer, Bergmeister and Melo just behind.  The Risi team had a pretty torrid session, with Melo running just 7 laps before a clutch problem saw the #62 Ferrari returned to the trailer for a new clutch assembly.  It means taking the gearbox off so wasn’t the work of a moment. 

In the sister Ferrari, a very relaxed and cheerful Giancarlo Fisichella showed his pleasure at being back in the ALMS, taking the main workload for the day off the shoulders of his Finnish team mate, Toni Vilander, who is suffering from a gastric bug which has left him considerably less than 100%.

In GTC Bleekemolen and Pappas continued their good run by topping the time sheets just ahead of Bryce Miller and Luke Hines.  As both the latter two finished the Lime Rock race severely dehydrated, they’ll be hoping that Saturday’s race is no where near as hot and humid as today was.

Fiona Miller