Le Mans 24 Hours Test Day - Saturday Morning Notes

A couple of reasonably major updates to start the morning as the DSC crew make camp at Le Mans.

First and foremost; every single Le Mans 24 Hours event poster is sporting a pretty major error (well not so much an error as an earlier iteration of the Toyota TS030)

Both cars have arrived here in blue and white livery with silver (heat reflective) roof – based in the first two garages at the top end of the pitlaneand looking remarkably Peugeot-esque! We caught Hugues de Chaunac watching over preparations this morning. “No problems at all” was the initial assessment – Let’s ask him again tomorrow perhaps!

The other excitement yesterday was the impounding of the #16 Pescarolo 03 after legal intervention by a somewhat put-out Julien Jousse; the now ex Pescarolo driver feeling that his contract with the team had not been respected during the move to insert Stuart Hall in the third seat.

The case was heard in court yesterday in Le Mans and, our court correspondent tells us, took remarkably little time to come to a conclusion – Jousse’s father is an influential politician, but Henri is a prominent Le Mans businessman and French national hero. The judge’s assessment of matters was apparently fairly dismissive and the car was reportedly back at the team's workshops last night before being delivered to the circuit at around half-three today.

Other points of interest in the pitlane this morning were all five "additional" cars on site, these being additional cars from Lotus (First LMP reserve), Level 5, IMSA Performance Matmut (First GT reserve and sporting a new darker red to the tricolore livery), Sebastien Loeb Racing and a pair of Oreca entered LMPCs.

The AF Corse Pit garage looks pretty crowded at present, with all four 458s housed in three garages (we think the #81 is due to decamp to the garage occupied here by the Loeb Oreca.

There was the first chance to see the #35 Oak Racing Morgan with the Nissan engine installed and first sight too of the GTE AM Aston complete with its all Danish line-up.

There are no driver updates to report yet but we are expecting a change to one of the WEC LMP2 entries later today. Also, this morning, a first sighting of what we think will be the only "art" car on the grid this year - the newly re-liveried JMW Ferrari.