Sears Point Raceway X-Factor 22/07/2001   Saturday Second Practice   © Tom Kjos Sonoma, California, USA--The day here near the California coast, though still breezy, has turned much warmer under now clear skies as the second and last practice gets underway. A few minutes in, Timo Bernard bends a wheel on the Petersen Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3-RS badly enough on a kerb that the wheel damages the right front fender. The damage in minor enough that it is expected they will return to the track before the end of the session. Before the field can wind itself up, we have a black flag, as we did this morning. This time Frank Lagorce's 51 Panoz has gone off course. Later, the team is hesitant to talk about the incident, but it is their view that Frank was "cut off by a Porsche." That is "pending further review" (on tape). The field is not back on track again until fifteen minutes later at 2:10 PM. After yesterday's testing sessions, PTG's drivers, racing their new M3 GTRs for the first time here at Sears Point, commented on the entirely new car. Bill Auberlen, "The car is like a tuning fork. It gives you very positive feedback--a definite yes or no--which is the sign of a very good racing car." Driver Hans Stuck put it in the perspective of his long career in the sport: "The M3 GTR is handling and braking great. In this moment the car is better than the driver--which of course does not often happen in my life." Coming from Hans, you have to believe that. Audi Sport North America's R8's continue to set the pace; we can now hardly remember a time when that wasn't so. Just two years on, and we have to accept that Le Mans Series and Sports Car Racer has not jumped the gun with its July cover feature entitled "Audi's Golden Era." Andy Wallace and Johnny Herbert hold pace with their Champion R8 closely behind the Joest Team. The Champion car is a 2000 model R8 (Tim Crete, of Fast Details, close to the Champion team, informs us that the 2001 chassis the team raced at Le Mans was a "loaner", sort of like your rich uncle letting you take his supercar for a spin--you have to promise to bring it back in one piece.). Cadillac is bracketed by the two red Panoz, the latter last year's LMP1, and that foursome is followed by the Intersport Lola, which has punched the clock in the hands of Rick Sutherland at 1:26.282 almost identical to its best in the earlier session. The first black flag was followed barely a half hour later by another, the cause this time being a transmission failure by the #23 Alex Job Racing GT3-RS in turn 11. This follows a similar problem for the #22 car yesterday, and is a repeat of difficulties Porsche teams had earlier in the season. That well oiled the track almost the length of the pit straight, and the extended stoppage has brought the session to a close. Most of the field appears a little slower this time, which may be attributable to the warmer weather or because the session has had little uninterrupted track time. According to Emanuele Pirro (Joest Audi R8 #2) "The track was very slippery at the beginning [of yesterday's session] but I don't expect this to change so much." Top times by class for the second practice session: 1 LMP 900 Audi Sport North America R8 1:23.466 2 LMP 675 Dick Barbour Racing Reynard 01Q-Judd 1:32.761 3 GTS Corvette Racing Corvette C5-R 1:33.356 4 GT Prototype Technology Group BMW M3 GTR 1:34.573 Copyright ©2000-©2023 TotalMotorSport