Le Mans Test- 2002 - 05/05/2002   05/05/2002 MG Notes   MG ZS EX257 Car no 26 Jonny Kane & Kevin McGarrity 8th Overall (2nd in Class) 3.35.348 MG ZS EX257 Car no 27 Julian Bailey & Mark Blundell 5th Overall (1st in Class) 3.33.414 In contrast to last year's race the official test for the 2002 24 Heures Du Mans remained dry. The two "MG XPOWER Hot Wheels Racing" works MG Lola EX257's, entered in the LMP675 Class, headed their field by over 14 seconds. This placed car 27 in 5th place overall with a blistering lap from Mark Blundell. Car 26 completed the excellent day for MG with an 8th place. Jonny Kane "We've had a few little problems this morning but this afternoon things have gone a lot better. Kevin and I have been evaluating tyre wear and I'm still learning the circuit as I didn't do much running last year. Today's been really good, two complete stints and a few other laps as well. I was P6 on old tyres and the lap time really speaks for itself. So, very positive and very pleased with the way the days gone." Kevin McGarrity "It's gone really good and we're trying all sorts of things on set up. This time last year we hadn't even competed and now I've done two complete stints. As far as the engine goes it's flying and we haven't even got it on full power. Lap times are affected because there's so much traffic. Everything is looking good to come back to qualifying in June." Julian Bailey "We've worked on the car and the set up over the weekend. The main thing is the engine's running nicely and we've got a lot more to find. At the moment we've closed the gap considerably on the front runners. We've tried some different things on the car and everything seems to have worked and put us in the right direction. We are in so much better shape than last year, the car is really quick and nice to drive. It's been a fantastic day." Mark Blundell "So far so good. A little frustrated that we didn't do the amount of running we wanted to this morning. We had a few small problems, which we've corrected so were starting to run a lot faster. We're optimistic that we're going to be a lot closer. Everything's gone very well and the team worked efficiently and put the car into a configuration, which we are all a lot happier with. It's taken us a while to understand it with a limited amount of testing and we're now in a situation where we can really begin to make big steps forward." Rob Oldaker, managing director, MG Sport & Racing "Overall this has been a good day for the MG. We had a few small niggles this morning which cost us track time, but we have still been able to gather much valuable data about the set up of the car. However we must remember, to do a few quick laps is one thing, but this is a 24 hour race and the first priority has to be to finish, we will see what happens from there." Official website of the Le Mans 24 Hours Copyright ©2000-©2023 TotalMotorSport