Le Mans Series

LMS Nürburgring 1000 km - Second practice

© Planetlemans - Gabriel Portos

The second free practice session for the “ADAC 1000KM-Rennen” at the Nürburgring circuit saw a Peugeot on the top of the timing sheets again. After one hour it was the Sarrazin/Lamy driven number 8 car that was quickest. Team mates Gene and Minassian completed a Peugeot 1-2.

Premat was the first of the LMP1 diesels to post a fast time, but the Peugeots quickly took back the first place and the gap was too big for Audi to catch up in this session. Sarrazin’s fastest lap time turned out to be too quick for anyone.

In the LMP2 category the battle for first place was a battle between the Van Merksteijn and the Team Essex Porsches. The Dutch Porsche was quickest for most of the session, but as the end of the session was approaching Casper Elgaard in the Danish Porsche managed to beat Bleekemolen’s time of 1:45.242. When the checkered flag came out the Dane had set a 1:44.645.

GT2 was really interesting again. The Felbermayr-Proton #77 Porsche and the IMSA Performance Matmut #76 Porsche, both fitted with the new 4 litre engine were setting fast laps, closely followed by the #85 SNORAS Spyker Squadron Spyker C8 Laviolette GT2R, which is also running its new engine. For a while it looked like these three cars would be the quickest, but right at the end of the session the #90 Farnbacher Ferrari 430 GT2 went even quicker, stopping the clocks at 1:58.525.

There was drama in the GT2 session for the Virgo Motorsport Ferrari 430 GT2. The Ferrari caught fire and lapped the track with flames coming from the back of the car. When Rob Bell, who was behind the wheel at the time of the incident, noticed the flames at the back of his car he immediately parked the Ferrari near a marshall post. Right as he stopped the flames shot out of the back of the car, but the marshalls quickly extinguished the fire.

In GT1 the Modena Aston Martin beat the two Corvettes. The DBR9 was a second quicker than the two C6.Rs.

The Lavaggi did not set a timed lap, the team working hard on solving the problems that hit the car this weekend again. At James Watt Automotive the team was working hard on the car and towards the end of the session the Porsche 997 GT3 RSR finally took to the track, albeit slow.

Top 5 per class

LMP1
8 - 1:40.726
7 - 1:41.296
1 - 1:41.607
2 - 1:42.310
10 - 1:44.070

LMP2
31 - 1:44.645
34 - 1:45.214
40 - 1:46.321
27 - 1:46.408
35 - 1:46.620

LMGT1
59 - 1:55.227
73 - 1:56.258
72 - 1:56.766
55 - 1:58.098

LMGT2
90 - 1:58.525
77 - 1:58.624
76 - 1:58.970
85 - 1:59.717
91 - 1:59.833