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Laguna Seca

09/09/2001

Qualifying

Report

© Tom Kjos

Monterey, California, USA—GT and GTS qualifying for Laguna Seca’s round seven of the American Le Mans Series Championship rolled off at one minute past five PM Pacific time under clear skies and in seventy degree (F) temperatures. The first cars on the track were largely those with no pretensions to the pole, or even to the first couple of rows. Nic Jönsson, the one in this group with the most realistic chance of a high grid position led this first pack onto the track in the #6 PTG BMW GTR. Both Racer’s Group Porsche 911 GT3s, one an R and one an RS, joined him, along with Kyser Motorsports, Seikel, and the Barbour Racing Porsche among the GT cars, and American Viperacing’s #44 Dodge Viper GTS entry. Along with the latter came Ron Fellows’ #3 Corvette, perhaps because of uncertainty over the effect of gearing changes yesterday.

The #52 Seikel Motorsports Porsche was back into the pits after a lap for adjustments, and then quickly back on track. The rest of the field decided a sitskrieg was in order. Not surprisingly, none of the early times, in the 1:30 second range for the GT cars, were near those expected to hold up for high grid positions.

Just a few minutes later two real contenders, Boris Said, now paired with Bill Auberlen in PTG’s #10 BMW M3 GTR, and Terry Borcheller, qualifying the Konrad Saleen S7R, joined the fray. They were followed a bit later, six minutes into the 20-minute session, by the “second” cars of two of the top GT teams, Alex Job Racing’s #22 Porsche, driven by Christian Menzel, and BMW Motorsport’s #43 M3 in the hands of Dirk Müller. Now times 'to shoot for' started to be posted, the first a 1:24.432 by Borcheller’s Saleen, while Nic Jönsson put up a GT-best 1:26.951 on his third lap. Unfortunately, Nic’s BMW blew, scattering 'BMW bits' about the corkscrew complex where the #6 car came to a stop causing a black flag at exactly the halfway mark of the session. Schnitzer’s BMW Motorsport team was clearly paying attention. The previously inactive JJ Lehto, in the #42 GTR immediately fired up and moved to the head of the pit-out line. The rest of the field, those on-track and in the pits would now dutifully be waved in behind the Finn. JJ would go out at the halfway mark with a clear track. The green flag came at 5:18, and Lehto led what was now the entire field onto the track for the final ten minutes. The first to post a new GT pole time is not Lehto, though, but teammate Dirk Müller, a 1:26.691, bumping the the #6 BMW, which returned to the paddock on a hook, from the pole position.

Meanwhile, Ron Fellows knocked Borcheller’s Saleen off the GTS pole. The Corvette does the tour in 1:23.674, a time that might be able to hold up. Borcheller comes back with a 1:23.939, then a 1:23.713, still short, and it looked like the Corvette might steal one from the usually faster Saleen. Lehto has now cranked up the newly restricted BMW M3, and turns a 1:26.430 that puts teammate Müller second on the grid. Now three tenths of a second cover four GT cars, BMW’s 42, 43, and 10, and AJR’s #23 Porsche, which Sascha Maassen has taken around the curcuit in 1:26.764 for a fourth place on the grid, with five minutes left in the session. They all go to work in that last five minutes, however. First the two BMW Motorsports GTRs set new standards; JJ puts up a 1:26.265, and Dirk lowers his time to 1:26.402. Boris Said joins the party for PTG with a 1:26.716 good for third. Maassen sets off to dislodge whomever he can from his fourth place time, and comes around to knock off Said while just short of second with a 1:26.444. Dirk Müller’s 1:26.404 will hold up for second on the GT grid.

“Once everything comes together, it’s great,” said JJ Lehto. “The car was really, really good. It’s great to be first and second again (the BMW Motorsport team),” he added. Lehto says the GTR is a little slower with the new smaller restrictor, but this is a handling track not a power track. “Only the uphill before the corkscrew is a real power stretch, and the Porsches are faster there.” Lehto has now driven this track in CART, FIA GT (McLaren F1), ALMS prototypes (BMW LMR) and ALMS GT cars.

How does JJ prepare for qualifying? “A quiet dinner and early to bed the night before,” said Lehto, who is evidently able to resist the attractions of Monterey Bay.

Alex Job is reasonably pleased with the performance of his McKenna-sponsored Porsches. "Our cars were set up just right today, and we are pleased to be only thousandths of a second from second position and a couple of tenths from the pole," said team owner Alex Job. "After the practice sessions yesterday, we were very discouraged and well off the pace, but hard work by the McKenna Porsche crew overnight, and some hard driving by Sascha gave us this position. We hope to stay within striking distance of the factory BMWs during the race, and be in position to win at the end."

Terry Borcheller is still turning hot laps as most of the cars have headed home, and there is less than a minute left in the session when he takes the checkered in 1:22.986 to knock Ron Fellow’s Corvette off the pole. This last lap has put Ron down by .688 seconds, and broke his track record by a similar number. The Saleen S7R has again demonstrated its superiority in practice and qualifying. Thus far, race day has been a different story.

American Viperacing’s #44 qualified at the back of the GTS grid, and behind ten GT entries. This time, there may be more potential, as the team works out the bugs in lost of new bits on the car. The sister #45 car, even more heavily modified during the weekend, did not make it out for the qualifying session.

After a five minute break, the prototypes have the track for their 20 minutes. Similarly, the part of the field expected to be at the rear of the grid opens the bidding. The order of entering the track is very similar to the reverse of the order in which we would expect the grid to be: 38 (Audi), 51 (Panoz), 37 (Lola), 8 (Cadillac), 7 (Cadillac), 1 (Audi), 2 (Audi), 50 (Panoz), and 18 (Audi). Perhaps there are now way too many F1 drivers in this series.

Frank Lagorce sets a surprisingly quick 1:16.680 early in the session. Andy Wallace puts up a 1:17.069 in the Champion Racing Audi, as they seemingly continue to struggle with their set-up. Jon Field tours in 1:18.953, the new old Lola quicker in this session already than they have been earlier in the weekend. Max Angelelli puts the #8 Cadillac in an early third place with a 1:18.91. The Champion and Intersport cars return to the pits after seven minutes and five laps at 5:40. Eight minutes into the session the order is 51 (Panoz), 38 (Audi), 8 (Cadillac), and 2 (Audi), the Audi Sport North America R8s having just joined the fray. Frank Biela’s first flying lap of 1:18.926 is just 1/1000 quicker than Jon Field’s Lola Judd. Capello in the #1 Audi and Jan Magnussen in the #50 Panoz have now joined and move into fourth and fifth fastest times on their early laps. At 5:45, Biela displaces Lagorce on pole with a 1:16.029. Now, with half the session left, the big guns get serious. Jan Magnussen lowers his time in the #50 Panoz to 1:16.490, but Lagorce takes the #51 Roadster S around in 1:16.156 to keep second behind Biela’s Audi. Rinaldo Capello is having none of this nonsense, though, and puts in a 1:15.84 on his sixth lap. The seventh for the #1 Audi is a bit slower, so perhaps the tires are going off. Stefan Johansson takes the #18 Gulf Audi under the 1:16 mark to split the two silver R8s. Meanwhile Jan Magnussen betters his time to 1:16.104, displacing teammate Lagorce for the fourth position. At the end, it seems that Dindo Capell’s tires were just fine, as he lowers the pole time on his last flying lap to 1:15.238 for a greater than seven tenths margin over second-place Johansson. He doesn’t get the record, though, that still stands at 1:15.028; he probably doesn’t care, since it’s his anyway, set last year.

Didier de Radigues took the pole position for the LMP 675 class in a Reynard 01Q-Judd, beating the team car driven by Scott Maxwell by only 3/100ths second. De Radigues, who has already clinched the class championship for 2001, turned a lap of 101.081 mph (1:19.706) in a car he will co-drive with Milka Duno on Sunday. "I wasn't expecting him (Maxwell) to be so close," he said. "It's good to have two cars competitive. We run two different setups, and I was on a more conventional setup."

Capello admitted to hard work for the this pole. "It took almost the entire session to get grip in the tires," said Capello, whose qualifying speed of 107.084 (1:15.238) mph fell short of his track record 107.384 from last year. "The 20 minutes went by quickly and it was at the end before we could run fast." The Audi driver is quite accepting of the pressure to now get the Audi Sport R8s back on track. "We have to win again," he said. "We had a bad month of August, and we have to come back in a good way for the team and for the drivers."

Jan Magnussen will start the #50 Panoz from fourth position, but is positive about the team’s race prospects. "We did a very similar time to earlier and I didn't have any problems on the track - it's just that everyone else gained a bit more than we did. I had no problems with the car so feel positive about the race. We've had good results before when we have started from the second row so we'll have to see what happens tomorrow."