The codriving ranks are not as special as perhaps they could be either... I presume from the big stickers up the sides, that at least the tyres are free?
There is a hot Dunlop-shod Ferrari with Bell/Sugden/Kirkaldy in the field... they likely have as much shot... Maybe it will rain?
One coverage is as follows (Perth times) Saturday 6am-7am: 2008 Official Le Mans film Saturday 8.30pm-12pm: 2009 Le Mans race Sunday 4.30am-8.30am: more Le Mans coverage Sunday 6.30pm-9.10pm: the finish of the LeMans race
One coverage is as follows (Sydney times) Saturday 8am-9am: 2008 Official Le Mans film Saturday 10.30pm-2am: 2009 Le Mans race Sunday 6.30am-10.30am: more Le Mans coverage Sunday 8.30pm-11.10pm: the finish of the LeMans race There seems to be some NASCAR and DTM stuff around that too...
Same same. Its looking more and more a porsche year though. Will be hard to beat them in GT-2 spec. Rob Bell says he is confident the JMW Motorsport team will be able to challenge for honours in the GT2 class of the Le Mans 24 Hours. Bell will form an all-British line-up in the team's Ferrari 430, with Tim Sugden and Andrew Kirkaldy also on driving duties. Bell will be keen to make amends for the disappointment he endured twelve months ago, when his Virgo Motorsport entered Ferrari was forced out of second place in the closing hours, and he admitted that a podium at least had to be the aim this time around. I'm really aiming for a podium this year, he said. We suffered a retirement during last year's race, whilst running in a competitive position, so this year I will be out to finish the full race distance. We know we are up against it with the Porsches though. They have the straight line speed advantage over us. However last year the top two Porsches crashed into each other and the GT2 category was dominated by the Ferrari's, so we know anything can happen at Le Mans. The car has had some updates over the winter. The new rule changes are the biggest change for us. The ACO have implemented changes to slow down the GT2 category because we were heading under the four minute a lap mark. These changes hurt us more than the Porsches, in effect we have been penalised twice as much as them in terms of our aero efficiency. However we can still look at the data from last year and have a rough idea of what to expect and we are going into the race relatively confidently.
Gosh another year where Ferrari,fail to take on Audi.Just like the old days once Porsche came on ,they dropped out.
Yep. I love the NASCAR's. Its the one thing I want to do before I die is take my boys to a Daytona 500 in Florida.
Sam Collins tells us that apparently there was honest hope amongst the R15's competitors that the car would be thrown out and fail tech yesterday. People are apparently really furious behind the scenes. When was their complaint when the RS Spyder was deemed eligible or are imaginations not that sharp and memories not that clear? It certainly wasn't any stretch to see that what was deemed legal on the RS Spyder would have applications on other areas of the car. But yet not a peep then, well, at least not publicly. The ACO took a full 2 and a half hours to tech the car and probably this was simply to appease Audi's competitors, but it doesn't sound like there was ever any serious threats to the car's eligibility. In the mean time Peugeot is set to go through tech today, and by the sounds of it, don't be surprised if they unveil a "Audi-esque" front end solution (or at least one that utilizes the symmetrical wing profile principle [as deemed legal in Art 3.6.1 back in late '06, see '07 RS Spyder--yes, still banging on about that] in one form or another--though ultimately don't be looking for a literal Audi solution). Clearly Peugeot and Aston Martin are concerned about race performance, hence all the *****ing about the ante that Audi has upped. But in the end it appears Peugeot is the only one prepared to respond in some manner. This might have been the other reason the car was absent yesterday. I guess we'll know more later.
Mmmmm, interesting he is registered as Australian, and yet he usually has the Danish flag on his racing suit. Any idea behind that?
Was a great qualifying session but only the one session to qualify the car and three drivers. Many of the GT2 class were playing conservative. Third out of ten Ferraris isn't too bad as they were for most of the 6 hours. Only fell back in the last 20 mins when Alan was out of the car..
How many hours is Mr Simonsen allowed to be in the car? 12 1/2 springs to mind... still leaves 11 1/2 hours for his codrivers to go backwards
All the Ferrari F430 GTs at Le Mans have been obliged to fit carbon-fibre gurney flaps to their front and rear wheel-arches following a rules clarification issued on Tuesday. "It may give us a little bit more drag," Rick Mayer, Risi Competizione technical director told AUTOSPORT. "We'll set up something better for the race but they [the ACO] won't let us run in the qualifying sessions unless we do something. "It's just an inconvenience - we're running the same car that won the class last year and it's been legal all this year." It is understood that the Risi cars passed scrutineering on Monday, but all the Ferrari teams were informed on Tuesday that new bodywork had to be fitted in order to comply with a rule stipulating that the tyre must not be visible above the centre-line of the wheel when viewed from the rear. "Michelotto had to run off these carbon-fibre gurney flaps for everybody in a hurry," said Mayer. "I thought it would be a homologation thing but apparently it's not, so we're going to make our own parts."
