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April 4, 2009No comments
LE MANS, FR — Thanks to another withdrawal, the Endurance China Team’s Porsche 911 GT3 RSR (LM GT2) has been invited to the most famous race, the 24 Hours of Le Mans starting with practice on June 10th. The team from China is a true mystery team at this writing with little known about who will be driving or the driver’s experience.
Read moreMarch 31, 20091 comment
In compliance with the ACO regulations the place left vacant by the Aston Martin’s withdrawal goes to the first reserve car on the list of invitations, no matter what its category: namely, the Ferrari 430 GT (LM GT2) entered by the Seattle Advanced Engineering team.
Read moreJune 15, 2008No comments
CIRCUIT DE LA SARTHE, France — At the darkest point of the night, a rain squall swept through the most famous race track and opened the door to victory and the No. 2 Audi driven by Allan McNish, Dindo Capello, and Tom Kristensen drove through it to a unbelieveable eighth victory in 10 years of competition at Le Mans, finishing ahead of the faster Peugeots by four and half minutes.
The Peugeot has been faster all year — at pre Le Mans races, in qualifying where they were the top three qualifiers and throughout the first 12 hours of the race when they were able to drive away from the Audis almost at will. At one point the Peugeots turned laps in the race faster than the Audis were able to qualify.
But when the rains came the Peugeot found handling problems of which the Audi Team took advantage. Suddently instead of being three to five seconds slower than the Peugeots they were three to five seconds faster and the tide turned during the night.
Kristensen, who was at the wheel of the No. 2 Audi when it took the checkered flag, picked up his record eighth overall win at Le Mans and told fans after the race,”It was a fantastic race and it was fantastic competition.”
Whereas last year the second place Peugeot was 10 laps behind the Audi, this year they were on the same lap just waiting for the sun to come out and dry track. But that was not to be this year. The 381 laps by the top two teams is a record for distance covered in the race, nearly 3200 miles in the 24 hours.
In LM P2 it was the Van Merksteijn Motorsport team with a Porsche RS2 Spyder garnering a seven lap win over the other Spyder team, Team Essex. A Pescarlo Judd, Saulnier Racing was third in LM P2.
The No. 009 Aston Martin repeated as the LM GT1 champion taking a four plus minute victory over the Corvette in what was race-long battle that the Corvette led early and but for a faulty brake pad might have been a winner. Third place also went to one of CR6 Corvettes, No. 64.
The LM GT2 class was dominated by the Ferrari brand this year, particularly after the two top qualifying Porsches took themselves out of the race with an early race shunt. The Risi Competitizione Ferrari had an eight lap lead over the second place Ferrari. The Flying Lizards Porsche that spent well over 50 laps in the garage making repairs, finished — but 37 laps down to eventual Ferrari winners.
