Le Mans Series

LMS Nürburgring 1000 km - Third practice

© Planetlemans - Marcel ten Caat

The third and final free practice session for the Nürburgring 1000km race ended with a Peugeot 908 in first place. Pedro Lamy lapped the 5.137km long circuit in 1:39.023, the fastest lap time by far in the session. The VM Porsche Spyder was the quickest LMP2 car, in sixth overall!

Lamy’s lap time was 1.324 seconds quicker than the Audi R10 of Alexandre Premat and Mike Rockenfeller, while the sister car of Marc Gene and Nicolas Minassian had to settle for third place, 1.792 seconds behind their team mates. The lap time was also 1.7 seconds quicker than yesterday’s fastest time and almost three seconds quicker than last years pole time.

Surprisingly quick again was the Van Merksteijn Motorsport Porsche RS Spyder of Jeroen Bleekemolen and Jos Verstappen. Not only did they beat their LMP2 opponents, Barazi Epsilon was 0.797s and Speedy Racing Team Sebah at 0.918s, but the lap time of 1:43.901 meant the Dutch squad was sixth overall, beating eleven LMP1 cars.

Team Modena was again quickest in the GT1 category, this time with a 1:53.602. The Tomas Enge and Antonia Garcia driven Aston Martin DBR9 was just over half a second quicker than the Luc Alphand Aventures Corvette C6.R of Olivier Beretta and Jerome Policand. The second Alphand Corvette (Alphand/Moreau/Goueslard) was third fastest.

GT2 saw Porsche on top. Alex Davison and Marc Lieb in the Team Felbermayr-Proton Porsche 997 GT3 RSR #77 stopped the clocks at 1:58.082. Behind the Porsche the two Farnbacher Racing cars took second and third place this session. The #90 Ferrari 430 GT2 was the quickest of the team again, beating the #91 Porsche. Both cars were some tenths of a second behind the Felbermayr Porsche though.

Apart from the Virgo Motorsport Ferrari, which suffered serious damage yesterday and the team is still working on that, all cars went out this session. There were some spins and small offs, but nothing serious this time fortunately.

Top 5 per class

LMP1
8 - 1:39.023
2 - 1:40.347
7 - 1:40.815
1 - 1:42.255
10 - 1:42.732

LMP2
34 - 1:43.901
32 - 1:44.698
33 - 1:44.819
25 - 1:45.040
31 - 1:45.464

LMGT1
59 - 1:53.602
73 - 1:54.131
72 - 1:54.328
55 - 1:54.406

LMGT2
77 - 1:58.082
90 - 1:58.451
91 - 1:58.611
99 - 1:58.788
76 - 1:59.523