Paul Ricard Test Days – Sunday Afternoon And Evening Report
Round Up Of All The Action
(well, as much as we can keep up with)

So at 22.30, we’re now starting a round-up of the afternoon news, comments and incidents.

The new Lucchini hasn’t run yet. The Racing Box team has been spending the day completing its build, but Filippo Francioni, who looks rather like Gabriele Tosi, is sure that he and Marco Di Daio and Mirko Savoldi will be out on Monday, for a shakedown. “Then we’ll test in Italy, before Barcelona,” said Francioni.

“The problem we had with the first Lucchini LMP2 was the Pankl gearbox. We have the Xtrac now, and the Judd XV is a good engine, so we’ll be reliable now I’m sure.” He pointed out that this is the only Italian prototype in the LMS, and the only Italian team.

The RML team has packed up, having had engine problems twice, with the MG units. Mike Lancaster will be here tomorrow, and we’ll try and find out what the issue is (fuel?).

Aston Martin news – on two fronts (we haven’t caught up with the Vantage GT2 yet).

Darren Turner, Tomas Enge, Andrea Piccini, Karl Wendlinger and Antonio Garcia have been driving the Gulf-liveried DBR9 today, and Garcia would only say that “I’m racing with Tomas in the lMS in the Team Modena car: the drivers are not decided for Le Mans.”

Tomas Enge will race the LMP1 Lola Aston Martin at Le Mans, so that leaves four potential DBR9 drivers?

Garcia was much more willing to talk about his Cheever Racing entry in Grand-Am, with partner Matteo Bobbi. After the recent test at Homestead, he felt that the Cheever DP is “closer to the Riley Fords – but they are amazing. If they keep going as fast as that, the organisers will try to slow that car, because it is too far ahead of the others.

“But our car will have a new front end – everything ahead of the windscreen, everything, except for the bodywork – for the Homestead race, and a whole new rear end for Mexico.”

This equalisation is all very well, but as a team evolves its cars (like the Riley Fords, with the new Riley MkXX bodywork) and goes faster, it then, logically, gets handicapped – so why try to develop a car?

George Howard-Chappell, on Lola Aston Martin progress. “We went back a stage after the last test at Snetterton, as we learn to understand the car. We’re concentrating on core things – but the engine control and gear shift are now well sorted.” E tried to push GH-C on the performance potential of this car, but he wouldn’t have it: “We’re not interested in ultimate speed. It needs to work and it needs to finish.”

Stefan Mucke added a little more: “We’re just using a standard set-up here, not a Ricard set-up.”

These guys don’t miss much on the timing screens as it relates to their car (we’re not getting much information in printed form here and would need to stare at the screen to pick up some of these little nuances), and Mucke had observed that “the Audis are one second faster along the Mistral straight than our car”. To be within a second along such a high speed drag, with a “standard set-up” is impressive, isn’t it, this early into the development? Best lap 1:43.5.

Stefan Mucke’s father is here, and Stefan explains that his father Peter “has been in motor sport for over 30 years. We’re having Klaus Ludwig’s 1981 Zakspeed Capri rebuilt at the moment, with a 650 bhp RS200 engine. It was the Deutsche Rennsport Meisterschaft championship winner, so a famous car. My father expects to race it this year in historic races.” These Muckes seem to like 600+ bhp.

Jan Lammers is looking very relaxed, without the pressures of running his own LMP team. He was preparing to try the Cytosport Charouz Lola (that’s what Sam Hignett recommends we call it) this afternoon, “with a temporary seat. They’ll make one for me this evening, for tomorrow.

He hasn’t tried Fredy Lienhard’s Porsche RS Spyder yet, “that will be in a week’s time at Sebring”. The Dutchman is sure that the RS Spyder is a very different proposition from the Dome he has been used to, “because that was developed from a 2001 car, whereas the Porsche is of course a much more recent design”.

Team-mate here Klaus Graf pointed out that he is the first European driver to race in the Nextel Cup, “at Sonoma in 2004”, but we’re more familiar with Klaus racing the Cytosport Lola last year, in the ALMS. Incidentally, the plan was to bring that car to Europe, as a spares car, but that plan changed, and it remains in the ALMS. There is no definite plan, yet, for a racing programme for Greg Pickett’s team after Le Mans.

“You can’t compare the two Lolas and the two engines (AER and Judd), because we run so much downforce in the ALMS,” pointed out Graf. “The Judd is more linear than the AER: you have to be more precise with the turbo engine, but both engines are great. We were on the podium four times in a row in the ALMS last year.”

Still with Lola – and the new LMP2 coupe. Hugh Hayden and the Speedy Sebah team have had a very good day. Andrea Belicchi, Xavier Pompidou, Robbie Kerr and Steve Zacchia all drove today, the car covering an impressive 45-50 laps. The only problems were a slightly sluggish downshift and “we’ve bled the brakes,” said Lola’s Dave Scotney. “It hadn’t turned a wheel before today, and we’ve covered 250 km without touching the car.”

Scotney indicated that the main difference between this car’s bodywork and the LMP1 coupe’s is that the LMP2 has a shorter tail, because of the shorter engine, “but all our LMP2s are shorter anyway”.

The Lola was running with too much downforce and the wrong gearing, which was fine for day 1. The team stopped at 17.00 to give the mechanics time to begin to make some adjustments.

Robbie Kerr went all coy when I asked him about the car, but Andrea Belicchi called it “very easy to drive, there’s a lot of assistance for the driver and the downforce is beautiful. My first feeling is that it is a very nice car.”

At this point the Epsilon-Euskadi appeared on a flatbed, having not set a time yet. Apparently the Spanish car, the other new coupe, is in starter trouble, but a request to allow it to be bump started was declined. It was running this evening, and set a time of 1:49.946 – so not too bad, for day 1 on a track, after just 31 laps all day (this evening, really).

Porsche Spyder news: the Team Essex car has had Casper Elgaard at the wheel all day, and has been involved in set-up work this morning, and trying new Dunlop rubber after lunch. Big John Nielsen will drive tomorrow. Elgaard has been in the 1:45s.

The van Merksteijn Porsche has been running for most of the evening, Peter van Merksteijn telling us this afternoon that the team was aiming to complete a six hour run. He’s very happy with his own pace: “I can be between a second and two seconds off these guys (Bleekemolen and Verstappen).” The car will be developed during the year, and he expects it to get quicker… but from what we’ve seen, the RS Spyders are not finding their speed through the speedtrap, but rather through the corners, thanks to the brilliant Porsche chassis. These two LMS cars are fitted with 2008 engines, we believe, but perhaps another Porsche privateer team hasn’t had that benefit yet, but will do very soon?

It’s approaching midnight as we write this, and neither Audi has run this evening (one was due to). The Joest team is packing up, job done.

The Chamberlain-Synergy team is always a fascinating place to be, and Bob Berridge, with the yellow Lola displaying Dunlop stickers, is very happy with a ‘race pace’ here at Ricard “two seconds quicker than last year. I can run consistently as fast as I could manage on one banzai lap here last year. The car has run like clockwork, as usual – and it’s very fast in a straight line. I’m passing LMP1s past the pits, before the first corner, and we’re faster than anything else, including Audis, in a straight line.”

Hugh Chamberlain confirmed that: “I saw 312/313/314 kph from other cars, a 315 once, but Bob and Amanda were doing 317/318 kph, and that isn’t with low downforce.”

Amanda actually clocked the 318 kph, husband Bob the 317, Hugh suggesting that Amanda’s smaller mass having a significant effect. So Amanda Stretton is the fastest driver here – in a straight line, anyway.

Back to the Sebah Lola, and the other Hugh, the Hayden variety, is happy, and he’ll pick the final driver line-up for the Speedy Sebah car “in a couple of days”. Hugh spent 25 years as a civil engineer in Dubai – “We built the first bridge over the creek” – hence the Sebah name. Sebah is Arabic for seven, which is the aRAbic lucky number. So now you know.

Deborah Dudley will have news of French teams tomorrow, but we’re exiting the media centre now, and heading off to find a refuge in the Creation truck – and their coffee machine. Night night for now.