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Audi Presents Petit Le Mans

06/10/2001

Friday

Wrap Up

© Tom Kjos and Andrew Hartwell

Braselton, Georgia, USA--The day before the last day of the 2001 American Le Mans season was nothing if not eventful. The sanctioning body became IMSA. The 2002 schedule was a blockbuster (if not a Grand Am-buster) with the addition of two of America's traditional heartland venues--Road America and Mid-Ohio. The ELMS was patently ignored. "Sometime later--maybe" was the message. But this is a race, and one of the premier races on the world's sports car calendar. There were folks here to race, and qualifying is a story of some import. One the other hand, Dane Tom Kristensen probably had it right: "All the pole in a ten hour race means is that I have to be here (at the press conference) instead of showering and changing."

Prototype qualifying went pretty much to form (Tom Kristensen), unless you were worried about Panoz' ability to cure a de-laminated carbon fiber tub on the #50, or that the team would fail for the second time to fix a Klaus Graf wreck. Neither was a problem. Only the on-again-off-again weather likely kept a charging David Brabham from capturing at least a spot on the front row; he settled for a very close third. What that means is that we need to look for another Panoz 'hole shot' on the start. Will the Audi Sport drivers see it coming this time? They should. Johnny Herbert gave it a shot, but came up short, yielding the 'best of the other Audis' spot to Stefan Johansson's Gulf / Brocade 2000 R8. Some seem excited to see a Cadillac in 7th. All that really means is that Dyson Racing didn't get it all together in qualifying, as they haven't in practice. A spin by James Weaver at least killed the rhythm. No matter--expect the Riley & Scott Mark IIIC to stay within striking distance of the four Audis and two Panoz, then hope that over 1,000 miles anything can happen. Are we cheering for Rob? Sort of. That would put a cap on the IMSA announcement, wouldn't it? Meanwhile, Jon Field and his Intersport Lola were just plain getting in the way, and doing their best to run faster than the head of the LMP675s, something they did in fact manage to do in the end.

In the 'mini-prototype' class, the Barbour Racing Reynard Judd held serve over the ROC Reynard Volkswagen, the two Barbour cars sandwiching the French Volkswagen on the grid. No one else in the class is even close, the Roock-KnightHawk Lola Nissan nearly three seconds back of the Duno / Maxwell / Graham Reynard. This is a two car race between the pole-sitting Barbour car and the ROC Reynard. If they break the rest have a prayer. But that is why they call it endurance racing, isn't it? Dick Barbour seems buoyed by the competition, even backtracking from his Mid-Ohio certainty that he would abandon 675 for the 900 class, "“We are going to wait and see, and hopefully in another week or two we will know more. I really would like to stay with the Reynard LMP675 program, with a factory engine deal. Even at 350 pounds overweight I think you can see we are competitive. We are running what is essentially last year’s car and I think our times were comparable to the Cadillac today (in Friday morning practice)."

Absent Ron Fellows, Andy Pilgrim took his first pole for Corvette by three-tenths of a second over the Konrad Saleen of Terry Borcheller. In the end, one has to believe that Fellows might well have gone faster; he has all season. So a Corvette sweep was likely on the cards before Fellow's mechanical failure early in the session. The Corvettes have risen to the Saleen challenge all season, when many were ready to award it all to the new 'supercar' after its surprise Sebring win. Corvette has scheduled a press conference for Sunday at Chateau Elan to announce their 2002 plans. Pretty fancy backdrop for anything other than a positive statement, wouldn't you think?

American Viperacing just keeps getting better since they started learning some things around Mosport, whatever Tom Weickardt says. "I know a lot more than I did last year but I’m not able to accomplish a lot more. That is the amazing thing about this sport. Time doesn’t necessarily mean that you are going to be better. I know more but putting that to good use in the racecar is another issue." Well, what he learned has resulted in upgrades starting at Laguna Seca too numerous to catalogue here (see our Laguna Seca reports). That work is now coming to fruition with the help of some top-notch Dutch and Belgian drivers “The first time we got in the car in Laguna, we didn’t have enough time to do testing. This is really the first time we have been able to put some of the things together that we wanted to test there. Our times now, for this race, are starting to get competitive. We are only a second or two behind the Corvette and we expect to get closer to them by race time. We’ve got two great European drivers in the #45 car with Mike Hezemans and Anthony Kumpen and they are getting the car set up now. We know we can get more out of it and we hope to be lapping in the 20s.”

In Friday qualifying, the #45 car stayed a couple of seconds off the pole, but that and the fifth place grid position represent the rewards to date of a lot of hard work. The 'European drivers' may have brought lots of talent (and their own shocks) but the AVR crew has been working their tails off. For the first time this team is running with the big dogs. If they are around at the finish, who knows what might happen?

The much-anticipated Prodrive Ferrari managed a sixth, while the Grand Am champion Park Place Saleen S7R placed third--the second best showing by a car not an ALMS regular after the ROC Reynard in LMP675.

The GT race is for the driver's championship between JJ Lehto and two-year partner Jörg Müller, separated to allow each to win the championship outright--and to all but ensure that Porsche's Sascha Maassen can't overhaul the both of them. Shades of Laguna '97 here - Lehto and Soper. JJ put the BMW M3 GTR - after a major rebuild - on the pole, followed closely by Dirk Müller, Jörg's partner for this race. PTG's #6 GTR, with Hans Joachim Stuck and Boris Said supporting Bill Auberlen's attempt to get out of the ALMS record book, are third. Slipping in ahead of the fourth GTR is the Alex Job Racing Porsche GT3-RS of Randy Pobst and Christian Menzel. Lucas Luhr and Sascha Maassen settled for sixth. To ensure that all is right in ALMS racing, Petersen Motorsports assumed the seventh spot on the grid, not quite with the 'big six', but better than anyone else, as they have all season. Aspen Knoll's Callaway C12-R was only able to garner eighth in class, nearly a second and a half adrift of the Petersen Porsche. Nearly six seconds behind the BMW pole standard was the Ferrari 360 Modena of MSB Motorsport. This descendent of Risi Competizione's famous 333SP team features the experienced Ralf Kelleners and two young Privilege series hotshots, Marino Franchitti and Kelvin Burt. So far they are finding the ALMS field tough sledding.

Find a friend with Speedvision, dial in into Le Mans Radio Web, or follow our regular reports here. This race will undoubtedly be a fitting end to an exceptional ALMS season. "Brutal", predicted Tom Kristensen, with the traffic, the muck and the cautions. Brutally entertaining, we say.