LMS – Spa 1000 Km – First Session Report
Guess What Was Fastest?

Bright sunshine, but then with a hint of drizzle at the 40 minute mark of the first 60 minute practice session - go on, guess what was quickest?

Not too difficult really, as the pair of 908s easily topped the timesheets seemingly at a canter, both posting times in a classic Peugeot tribute-like 2:05.

Indeed Pedro Lamy rather rubbed it in, topping the times in the first half of the session with a 2:05.934 and following up next time around with a 2:05.935! He would finally improve to a 2:05.799 with Nic Minassian joining him in the 2:05s too. Again both the diesel coupes were lapping quickly throughout the session, often posting fast times in sectors 1 and 2 - but then pitting without completing flying laps.

Third fastest was the #15 Charouz Lola, Stefan Mucke producing the only petrol-fuelled lap in the 2:06s.

As a ride height change was made to the Charouz Lola, Sam Hignett referred to Stefan Mucke as “awesome”. It was impressive to see the German driver set a 2:06.561 so early in the session.

For most of the session we then had a gaggle of cars in the 2:08s behind this trio with both factory Pescarolos, the Creation and the #13 Courage ending up in that bracket, before Emmanuel Collard finally broke into the 2:07s. Hayanari Shimoda then leapfrogged all of the above with a low 2:07 in the last few minutes of the session, after Stefan Johansson had brought the Arena Zytek into the 2:09s.

There’s bad news meanwhile for the #13 Courage squad, Jean-Marc Gounon and Vitaly Petrov will have to do without the assistance of Guillaume Moreau this weekend, the youngster having broken his hand in a minor shunt in a Renault World Series practice session yesterday. He will be permitted to qualify in the single seater today, but any further mileage this weekend in the Courage has been ruled out on medical advice.

The Chamberlain-Synergy Lola failed to figure in the session as the team worked to fix a fuel leak (“It wasn’t there yesterday, but it is today,” commented Hugh Chamberlain) while the Lavaggi appeared to be struggling with a haze of oil smoke visible, the car pitting after a four lap run and then seemingly stopping out on the circuit after a further single lap. A 2:11.021? Did it set that time?

Martin Short described the Rollcentre Pescarolo as “good straight away. We’re trying different compounds of Dunlops today. I’ve just tried two with very positive results, and we’ve got another three to try.”

The other Rollcentre task today is to get Stuart Hall some laps around Spa – because he’s never raced here before, let alone driven a prototype here. His first flying lap? A 2:15: that’ll do nicely.

In LMP2 the initial running was all made by Lolas, with the Horag Racing car ahead of the RML and ASM cars. Michael Vergers in the Barazi-Epsilon Zytek then popped up as first man in LMP2 under 2:10, a 2:09.611 would be good enough to top the order at the end of the session. Both Radicals were next up until the final 15 minutes, Warren Hughes in the Embassy Racing car and Stuart Moseley in the Bruichladdich machine both into the 2:10s - before Thomas Erdos got within a whisker of Vergers’ best effort and de Castro finally bettered the Radicals too, in the closing minutes of the session. It’s quite close though in LMP2, apart that is for the Lucchini which passed the Bus Stop “sounding horrible”: the year or so off hasn’t so far seemed to have produced any major progress, sadly.

Stuart Moseley found some clear road at the start of the session, “then I was blessed with slow cars in some really handy places – such as Eau Rouge.” Moseley described the pit lane entry as “bizarre. Cars entering the pits slow just as you want to get on the throttle.”

“It feels like we’re in the ballpark,” said Warren Hughes, after his 30 minutes in the Embassy Radical. “We’ll be well into the 9s in qualifying, maybe even an 8.”

The drivers were told at the briefing this morning not to go over the strip of Astroturf at the exit of the Bus Stop, and Warren Hughes didn’t see anyone even try it.

GT1 saw Antonio Garcia lead the session from the start. His efforts in the team Modena Aston would see the #59 car as the only class runner to break into the 2:17s, with Stephane Ortelli’s best effort in the #55 Oreca Saleen almost a second and a half short of the DBR9’s 2:17.042 – until the Saleen slipped in a late 2:16.905.

GT2 initially saw the Ferraris dominate, Rob Bell, Fabrizio de Simone and Johnny Mowlem all pipping Tom Kimber-Smith’s very early effort in the #81 LNT Panoz. Thereafter though the Porsches took control of the session, Marc Lieb the first into the 2:24s, then the 2:23s and finally the 2:22s (a 2:22.775 – very impressive) in the #77 Felbmayr Proton Porsche, with Richard Lietz and Dirk Werner second and third fastest, but substantially slower than Lieb. In the final 10 minutes Rob Bell restored some Ferrari pride, grabbing third fastest spot.

Sean McInerney was "well pleased to split the LNT cars" with the Chad Panoz, Richard Dean volunteering that LNT was trying radical things on the orange Esperantes. The engine change on the white Panoz (before the recent test at Donington) was the team's first of the season, "scheduled, after 25 hours". Chad's green credentials are further improved by Sean McInerney driving a diesel car on the road and "we recycle all our water at home."