Le Mans Series

Paul Ricard Test Days – Monday morning report

© Planetlemans – Marcel ten Caat

Heavy snowfall hit the South West France but fortunately the Paul Ricard area was not affected by the bad weather and continued this morning at 9:00. Clouded skies and a cold wind greeted the teams again today as the cars went out on the track.

One hour into the session the Team Oreca Matmut Peugeot 908 HDi FAP had posted the fastest lap time, a 1:44.468. The Rebellion Racing Lola was second fastest, a second and a half behind the Peugeot. Third quickest was the Beechdean Mansell Motorsport Zytek, almost four tenths of a second behind the Swiss Lola.

Quickest in LMP2 was the Strakka Racing HPD ARX-01c, while the #43 DAMS was the fastest Formula Le Mans car. The #70 Marc VDS Racing Team Ford GT and the #95 AF Corse Ferrari were the fastest cars in the two GT classes.

In the following hour and a half the lap times kept dropping and at 11:30 the quickest time had been set by the Oreca 01 AIM. In its 50th lap it set a 1:43.310. Just under half a second behind was the second Oreca entry, the Peugeot, which set a fastest lap time of 1:43.756.

At noon the top three was still unchanged with Oreca leading, but the LMP1 cars now made up the top six with the Strakka Racing in seventh place overall being the best LMP2 car. The second fastest LMP2 car was another Honda Performance Development powered car, the RML Lola. Quifel-ASM Team completed the top three in LMP2, with DAMS setting the fastest FLM lap time.
In GT2 the battle kept going between the #95 AF Corse and #89 Hankook Team Farnbacher. Two tenths of a second separated the two Ferrari F430 GTs, with the #94 AF Corse Ferrari in third another tenth of a second behind.

At 13:00 the session came to an end and nothing had changed at the front – further down the list the Ferrari’s were beaten in the end by the ProSpeed Porsche, setting the fastest GT2 lap time of the weekend so far.

The BMW Team Schnitzer BMW M3 that was supposed to run today as well did not take part in the session. Engine related problems that appeared yesterday were deemed to serious and the German team decided to call it a day and return to Germany to check out and fix the problem.

Monday morning results

6 – 1:43.310
4 – 1:43.756
5 – 1:44.633
008 – 1:44.998
13 – 1:45.247
12 – 1:45.307
42 – 1:46.174
009 – 1:46.469
25 – 1:47.808
40 – 1:48.790
35 – 1:49.061
24 – 1:49.715
30 – 1:50.345
29 – 1:50.858
41 – 1:51.706
39 – 1:53.094
44 – 1:54.432
49 – 1:56.009
48 – 1:56.030
47 – 1:56.931
43 – 1:57.011
70 – 1:57.711
61 – 1:58.111
68 – 1:58.597
52 – 1:59.132
75 – 1:59.213
95 – 1:59.651
89 – 1:59.865
94 – 1:59.898
92 – 1:59.922
96 – 2:00.089
46 – 2:00.250
77 – 2:00.530
76 – 2:00.553
91 – 2:00.589
90 – 2:00.825
87 – 2:02.176