Jox Jottings - Thursday qualifying

A Summary of the thrills and spills of Thursday evening’s first qualifying session.

This is where things start getting a bit more serious. With the weather forecast threatening rain there was a bit of tension in the air because this session may well be the one that decides the grid positions for the race. Traditionally this tends to happen during the last knockings of qualifying in the night. Quite how these guys can match their daylight times is a bit of a mystery.. even more so when you look at the in-car TV pics. Incidentally after a rocky start due to a bit of ‘local technical difficulty’ things got far better today and our Kangaroo TV is proving a bit of an asset, more of this later.

It didn’t come as much of a surprise that nowt changed at the top .. Peugeot are still easily holding the first four grid places ahead of the Audis. Their times were about three seconds slower than last night mainly because the circuit started off rather soggy but gradually a dry line began to emerge right at the end of the session. This is when Alexander Wurz in the #1 Team Peugeot Total LMP1 Peugeot 908 gird up his loins and decided to have serious if ultimately fruitless stab at pole. It didn’t come off by quite a margin, not only was the track still hiding a few wet patches but there was fair of traffic that had the annoying habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the #2 Team Peugeot Total LMP1 Peugeot 908 Stéphane Sarrazin was harbouring similar ambitions and quite fancied his chances of a fourth pole in succession but had the same problems with traffic and getting off the dry line onto the wetter bits.

What about the Audis? Well all you Audi fans out there it is not good news! Frankly they are still off the pace by a fair old margin. They simply didn’t find anymore speed in this session. So, the PR machine vors-sprang into action and the story emerged that they were not really all that concerned about pole position, or presumably the next three places either.. no.. instead they would settle down and be very diligent about sorting out a very impressive race strategy.. got a feeling this is what they say every time they can’t crack pole! It is worrying that they seem resigned to the fact that they won't be beating the Peugeots on raw speed. (or any sort of speed for that matter) So, they will have to rely on some very cunning plan .. The precise nature of this plan remains a bit unclear..

Every now and then there comes a moment when a driver must wish the tarmac would open up swallow you (and the car) to avoid embarrassment.. it could be Jonny Cocker felt this might be the case when the #11 Drayson Racing LMP1 Lola Judd Coupe simply expired after it passed the end of the pit lane. It ceased to progress in a forwardly direction after the exit so the team were not allowed to push it back down the pit lane. The symptoms indicated that the crank case sensor had ceased to ‘sense’… So the radio crackled into action and the team explained to Jonny how to mend it by using a sensor that did ‘sense’ and he limped back to the pits. Also very early on in the session the #85 Spyker Squadron LMGT2 Spyker C8 Laviolette stopped out on the circuit but they got going again lets hope this wont cause any repeats of those rib tickling quips about a whole load of rivets flying for moments at a time in hopefully in close formation.

Now devoted fans of Jaguar (even if this particular one comes from across the pond) will be concerned to hear that the #81 Jaguar RSR LMGT2 Jaguar XKRS was having a torrid time in ‘hospital’. last time it was the clutch you may recall but his time it was a gremlin in the engine wiring loom which really is the stuff of nightmares. The only solution is to rip its heart out and put in a new loom .. not the work of a moment but it had to be done. They did eventually get out and do some 22 laps thus getting most of the way towards getting their drivers qualified. There is possible glitch with Paul Gentilozzi but there is still the second session and he should be OK if the ACO play fair.

Having got some worthwhile laps under its belt it was time for The #26 Highcroft Racing team to try and find some more speed by tweaking the aero package on the LMP2 HPD ARX.01 hoping for a bit more speed later in the session when Brabham was due to have crack at pole.

The commentary mentioned that the crowds at The Porsche Curves had been building up after all the accidents there this time. They were not going to be disappointed because the next car to hurl itself at the scenery was the #13 Rebellion Racing LMP1 Lola Rebellion Coupe with Jean-Christophe Boullion at the wheel. He went off and hit the wall causing rather hard causing some pretty extensive damage, so there is a chance that it may not be out in the final session, the team are working on it. It seems that Boullion was pedalling along heading for a fast lap when he caught up a slower Porsche and fell off..

Some of the teams have now qualified all their drivers in the dark and daylight and reckon to have gone as fast as they are going to go so can set about rebuilding the car in readiness for the race. The #92 JMW Motorsport LMGT2 Aston Martin Vantage driven by Rob Bell, Tim Sugden and Bryce Miller falls into this category .. It is struggling for top speed and not looking like making spectacular progress later so the team have now changed the engine and gearbox and they didn't go out in the session.

Remember that bl**dy rain we have been banging on about? Well it seems that this was a bit of myth.. It never turned up in this session!
The weather was playing a part though because the track was still damp in places just to keep drivers on their toes. But it was #14 Kolles LMP1 Audi R10 driven by Manuel Rodrigues that found one of these and spun and with a bit of skill or maybe luck just brushed the concrete wall with the nose cone. I am sure it was skill! The damage was not serious and Rodrigues rejoined the race a wiser man.
WTCC fans will be delighted that Andy Priaulx is here in a BMW and that BMW are back at Le Mans after an eleven year break with a pair of BMW Motorsport BMW M3 GT2s. Andy was able to tell radio Le Mans that they were struggling with the pace, at the same time he but he did say it is their first visit to Le Mans and apart from anything else they were up against some highly experienced teams who had been coming to Le Mans for years. Presumably their busy saloon car commitments have meant that the team are having to do their development and testing in public which is not ideal. But it was all coming together pretty well and it is a long race. (it has taken a couple a days for that cliché to appear!) He freely admitted that they have a lot to learn as rookies.

The more experienced teams were making progress and rather at the last minute with around fifteen minutes left in the session a dry line was definitely beginning to appear so David Brabham took off in the LMP2 #26 Highcroft Racing LMP2 HPD ARX.01 and grabbed pole from the #42 Strakka Racing LMP2 HPD ARX.01 driven by Nick Leventis.

This was pretty darned brave because, as Mike Newton proved. while he was spinning his #25 RML LMP2 Lola HPD Coupe, there were still slippery bits to be found! .The next car to limp into the pits was the #008 Signature Plus LMP1 Lola Aston Martin driven by Pierre Ragues. He had done a brilliant job nursing the car home with a puncture without tearing the bodywork apart.

What was going on in LMGT1? Are you sitting comfortably? Then we can have a rant… for some reason that I just can’t fathom the Peugeots and the LMP1 battles totally overwhelm the media here .. after all the Peugeots are .. er .. let me think .. don't tell me.. French .. the ACO are … French… and so on. There is rarely any mention of the LMGT1 and LMGT2.. they rarely appear on TV and as a result it is very hard to know what is going on .. so , sorry people .. We do try but its bl**dy annoying because the Ford/Ferrari/Corvette/Porsche battles are great and involve cars that many of us know and understand. We will try and get some more meat tomorrow..

As is often the case some of the fastest times are set just as it is getting dark and it was Wurz and Sarrazin who both set off for a serious attempt to nudge fellow Peugeot Pagenaud off pole position but with too much traffic, a damp track and not enough time the order stayed the some until the chequered flag came out.