Le Mans Series
LMS Paul Ricard – Sunday Morning Test Report
© Planetlemans – Marcel ten Caat
The morning session of the Le Mans Series test at Paul Ricard ended at 1.30pm with the Team Oreca Matmut-AIM a second and a half quicker than the rest of the field. On its official debut the Lola Aston Martin’s were second and seventh fastest. Three cars in the top five were Courage-Oreca.
At 9.30am the track went green and while numerous spectators made their way to the brand new stands along the pit straight. Twenty-seven cars were set to take part in the session, with the new Gulf liveried Lola Aston Martin’s being the highlight for most people. Lots of new names were in the cars and lots of familiar names ran other cars.
The fastest time was set by the #11 Team Oreca Matmut-AIM Courage Oreca LC70 AIM .The car went into the box after setting only nine laps, including the fastest, only to come out again after several hours. The 007 Lola Aston Martin quickly set the second fastest time after it had made its debut. Several teams tried to catch up with the two leaders, but noone caught them.
Eventually the Strakka Racing Ginetta-Zytek secured the third fastest time, just three tenths of a second behind the Lola Aston Martin. The second of the Aston Martin Racing cars, the 009, finished seventh in the first session after being worked on it the pit.
In LMP2 the quickest times were set by the Porsche RS Spyder of Team Essex. The Danish Porsche was only 0.019s quicker than the new Quifel-ASM Team Ginetta-Zytek 09S. Third fastest was the RML Lola Mazda.
IPB Spartak Racing’s Lamborghini Murcielago R-GT clocked the fastest time in GT1 ahead of the Luc Alphand Aventures Corvette, which has Olivier Beretta in the car as well this weekend. The ARC Bratislava-Kaneko Saleen S7R was only 24th overall. The car entered in the first session was not the ex-Larbre car, but the FIA GT G2 spec car.
And finally GT2. Hankook-Farnbacher Racing only went out onto the track in the final stages of the session, but nevertheless the German Ferrari took the GT2 honours in session 1. The only GT2 car on Hankook tyres was half a second quicker than the first of the two IMSA Porsches. Another three tenths of a second separated the two French Porsche 997 GT3 RSRs.
1 – 11 – Team Oreca Matmut – 1:42.109
2 – 007 – Aston Martin Racing – 1:43.669
3 – 23 – Strakk Racing – 1:43.960
4 – 12 – Signature-Plus – 1:44.349
5 – 13 – Speedy Racing Team Sebah – 1:44.412
6 – 10 – Team Oreca Matmut – 1:44.490
7 – 009 – Aston Martin Racing – 1:44.966
8 – 31 – Team Essex – 1:47.208
9 – 40 – Quifel-ASM Team – 1:47.227
10 – 25 – RML – 1:48.954
11 – 33 – Speedy Racing Team Sebah – 1:49.857
12 – 38 – Pegasus Racing – 1:52.727
13 – 35 – OAK Racing – 1:53.295
14 – 55 – IPB Spartak Racing – 1:55.406
15 – 72 – Luc Alphand Aventures – 1:56.074
16 – 89 – Hankook Farnbacher Racing – 1:58.838
17 – 75 – IMSA Performance Matmut – 1:59.302
18 – 76 – IMSA Performance Matmut – 1:59.667
19 – 88 – Team Felbermayr Proton – 2:00.015
20 – 92 – JMW Motorsport – 2:00.333
21 – 84 – Team Modena – 2:00.381
22 – 87 – Drayson Racing – 2:01.395
23 – 99 – JMB Racing – 2:01.938
24 – 51 – ARC Bratislava-Kaneko – 2:03.567
25 – 71 – Easyrace – 2:04.143
26 – 85 – Snoras Spyker Squadron – 2:06.582
27 – 79 – Reiter Engineering – No time
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I expect those times to drop a couple seconds by by the end of the test. But the question is who will be on top?
God I can not wait till the Le Mans 24. Oh hell Sebring….
Nice debut for the Ginetta Zytek. Impressive to be that close to Aston in P1 and Porsche in P2. Let’s hope the car is reliable.
Anyone further informations about the debut of the Gallardo GT2?
Nice to see Hankook get some good tires under the F430
Yeah I can’t wait for the LMS however, from the States its mostly a highlight package and not the full races. That’s LMS’ fault for having a series that is not TV friendly even if purist enjoy longer 1000km races.
Why do you think ALMS has resisted the call for longer events??? Because they know how important TV time is to a series in America!
You may not like Ratel or ALMS’ shorter 2:45 or 2:00 races but there on TV flag to flag, can’t say the same about the LMS and alot of great action especially in LMP1 and LMP2 since the factories have taken their toys elsewhere until Spa 1000km.
I here that, all they show in America is Nascar?…is this true?
Of course not. But just like in Europe, only the top series gets to major channels, in US that probably includes Nascar and IndyCars (and one or two rounds of ALMS). All the rest goes to Speedtv which is pay cable channel.
Altough even I think 1000km makes boring races (Sebring, Petit and of course Le Mans different, they’re simply more special events) I doubt that is the main reason for no LMS… first of all it does not have similar international appeal like ALMS, and secondly a race that starts 6 am in the morning is not very good for live tv anyway, regardless of lenght of the race.
nascar occupies the bulk of car racing in the US. They have Nascar shows, Nascar practice sessions, qualifying, news…
They do show Indy, ALMS, and Grand Am, but only the races.
F1 gets good coverage but only on race weekends.
There is NASCAR everyday, race day or not.
Hope you guys seen the WTCC race this past weekend, good racing. ugh…they show Nascar, but only the major races, like the 500, and all the road course’s, and also this other huge track, where they all crash at one time. And that’s it…
Speed does not show NASCAR every single day. Versus has a multi-year deal to show both the IndyCar Series and the Firestone Indy Lights series. Versus has a one-hour program this month on Saturdays about the IndyCar Series. Versus also showed the 2009 Dakar Rally.
Speed will show the Patron IMSA GT3 Challenge by Yokohama for the first time. Speed will also show 11 hours of coverage of the 12 hours of Sebring and ESPN will show the Truth in 24 movie the day before the 12 hours of Sebring.
Zero 2008 races were shown on Speed of the following: WRC, LMS, FIA GT, WTCC, IRC, Formula 3, and a lot more.
MotorsTV also showed the Dakar Rally, we usually get about 4-5 hours of coverage a day. Depends on the stage. Maybe more coverage, sence there is no other forms of racing on MotorsTV.
As for endurance races, we get live corverage, and also the entire race. No 1 or 2 hour break. Except for Nürburgring 24 hour race. We get most corverage, but not all.
In 2007 we got the 24 hours of Daytona. I dont think they showed it this year.
Wow…you guys miss alot of good and REAL racing.
all i have to say is there is alot more nascar then there is any thing else its horible
but american lemans is pritty intence when its on and very competitive they showed that at lemans by alms cars winning LMP1 GT1 and GT2
most of all i just want to see some FIA GT and LMS