Le Mans 24 Hours, Race Morning Notes

Morning warm-up came after a dramatic start to the day for the dsc crew - one of our number was robbed just before daybreak - saw one overnight rumour quashed - Heat exchanger issues for the Norma had put their participation in doubt but the car was out and running this morning though the team are still having cooling issues - It seems that there is some - shall we say - 'discussion' between Norma and Judd about the current cooling configuration. Watch this space!

No sign of the Race Performance Oreca this morning the team still working on the car this morning.

The #65 Lotus has a fuelling problem (solved) plus some post rebuild niggles (solving).

There was trouble though for the #71 AF Corse Ferrari, Rui Aguas pulling off at Mulsanne Corner, seemingly with no drive - the team suspect a diff problem and preferred to have Aguas stop rather than risk further damage.

All in all the morning's action was a tricky one for AF Corse - Their #61 Ferrari 430 also stopping on track and the Pecom Racing Lola was also in trouble - Kaffer going straight on at Arnage and having difficulty restarting before finally resuming his race preparations.

The Robertson Ford was another one in trouble, #68 stopping in three Porsche curves mid-session - The #68 car will start from the back of the grid, we think for a second engine change.  

The pace at the head of the field was blistering throughout the session Audi dominating until the very last lap when Bourdais stole the early morning headlines in the #9 Audi - 3:27.228 over half a second faster than the #2 Audi with the other R18s in line astern - We did see the #3 Audi twice setting faster sector times before pitting during the session.
 
LMP2 saw Signatech again atop the times -3:43.449 - Fastest GTE Pro was Toni Vilander, some good news then for AF Corse, with Nic Jonsson fastest in GTE Am in the Krohn Ferrari.

The weather this morning is very 'English' very pleasant, not too hot high cloud but no sign of rain.

Not with us here at Le Mans but here in spirit is Daily Telegraph top letter writer Malcolm Cracknell.

He's been number crunching after qualifying and has come op with some very telling stats:

Here are the best sectors and best ideal laps, for the diesels from the qualifying:
 
Audi
Sector 1 32.194 (Dumas)
Sector 2 1:19.607 (Dumas)
Sector 3 1:33.198 (Treluyer)
Audi's ideal lap 3:24.989
Best sector times from one Audi 3:25.384 (#2)

Peugeot
S1 32.300 (Pagenaud)
S2 1:19.405 (Pagenaud)
S3 1:33.823 (Pagenaud) - not all on same lap, clearly
Peugeot's ideal lap 3:25.528
Best sector times from one Peugeot - 3:25.528, of course
 
The sector times are very close - but Peugeot has a slight advantage on the Mulsanne, Audi a more significant advantage in sector 3, which is the Porsche Curves type stuff. There is a sector time just for the Porsche Curves and Audi's best is 15.638 (Lotterer) vs. Peugeot 16.085 (Minassian)
 
Peugeot then has the higher top speeds

#7 342.9 kph - presumably a low downforce try out
#8 337.5
#9 336.4
#3 334.4
#1 333.3
#2 333.3
 
The rest of the P1s, in order, are a bit surprising

#16 326.3
#15 322.4
#10 319.5
#13 319.5 - Rebellion never seem to go for high speeds, preferring more downforce
#22 317.6
#12 316.7
#24 315.8
#20 311.2
#5 300.8
#007 291.1 (slower than four GTEs and nine P2s)
#009 284.2 (slower than 20 GTEs and eleven P2s)
 
And then there's the top speeds of the best GTEs

#55 BMW 292.7
#74 Corvette 291.9 (the other two Corvettes are in the 285 kph bracket!)
#77 Porsche 291.9
#56 BMW 291.1
#89 Ferrari 290.3
 
..and the slowest
#64 Lotus 281.2
#65 Lotus 280.5
#60 Aston Martin 279.8
#79 Aston Martin 279.8
#68 Ford 279.1
 
Incidentally, #55 BMW's ideal lap was a 3:57.093, while the two factory Corvettes' ideal laps were very close to their best qualifying times - mid 3:59s.