The Van Merksteijn Porsche was again the fastest in P2
Van Merksteijn Motorsport
QUIFEL-ASM
Spyker Squadron
Michelin
Click a link to go directly to that story!
Van Merksteijn Motorsport
Van Merksteijn Motorsport claims pole position in Monza
The team Van Merksteijn Motorsport by Equipe Verschuur continues its successful streak in the Le Mans Series. In qualifying for tomorrow's second round of the season at Monza, ex-Formula 1driver Jos Verstappen set a fastest lap time of 1.36.842 minutes at the 5.793 metres long circuit, putting the team's Porsche RS Spyder on pole position in its class for the second time this season. In the overall classification, the Van Merksteijn Motorsport-Porsche RS Spyder ranked in tenth place as the fastest car from the LMP2 category, even in front of five cars from the more powerful LMP1 class.
The three Porsche RS Spyders dominated proceedings in the 20 minutes' qualifying session for the LMP2 prototypes and went on to take a clean sweep of the first three places in the category on the starting grid for tomorrow's race. Just like in Barcelona three weeks ago, the white and purple Van Merksteijn Motorsport-Porsche was fastest of them all. Jos Verstappen, who knows the Monza circuit very well from his days in Formula 1, beat his fellow countryman Jan Lammers in the Horag-Porsche to pole position in the class by 1.003 seconds.
As it was expected, the Grand Prix circuit of Monza with its long straights and its subsequent emphasis on top speed left the less powerful LMP2 prototypes without a realistic chance against the LMP1 cars with their bigger engines. "Our car is more suited for short and twisty tracks, but in general, the balance was good", said Jos Verstappen after qualifying. "You can gain some time under braking when the balance of the car is good and that is what we focussed on during the free practice sessions. My qualifying lap was good as well, I didn't make any mistakes." Asked for his expectations about the race, Verstappen commented: "Our car is particularly good in corners and under braking, although it is fast in terms of speed as well. The battle in the class will be very hard, especially with the other Porsches."
Team principal, Peter van Merksteijn was also quite happy with the results achieved by the team in Monza so far. "We were fastest in our category in all the three free practice sessions and I am confident that we have worked out a good set-up for the race." The Dutchman is quite impressed by the Monza circuit with its great tradition: "Driving here is an incredible experience."
The 173 lap race with a maximum duration of six hours will start tomorrow at 12.50 pm. Eurosport will be reporting from 12.45 till 13.30 h. A review will be broadcast at 11 pm by the pan-European sports channel. Motors TV is broadcasting the entire race live.
QUIFEL-ASM
QUIFEL-ASM Team sets off on fourth line of grid
The QUIFEL-ASM Team today secured a place on the fourth line of the starting grid in the LMP2 class, in qualification for the Monza 1,000 km race scheduled for tomorrow. The Lola B05/40 AER’s lap time was 1:39.998, which was the session’s eighth best performance. The Italian circuit is the venue for the second event in the Le Mans Series Championship 2008.
Qualification die not go well for teams which, like the QUIFEL-ASM Team, opted to take part in only the second half of qualification which lasts a total of 20 minutes. When the team was about to enter the track, an accident left a lot of residue on the track and affected the performance of driver Oliver Pla.
In the morning free practice session, driver Oliver Pla clocked a magnificent time of 1:39.460, which was the sixth best in the LMP2 class, but when driver Miguel Pais do Amaral was preparing to enter the track, the team detected a problem in the exhaust pipe, which led to it missing out on the second half of the session.
The team and Miguel Pais do Amaral hope to carry out final tuning in tomorrow’s warm up session.
The Eurosport channel will broadcast the start of the Monza 1,000 km live Sunday at 11:45 a.m. This channel will also show a race summary at 18:30 and 22:30 Sunday, which will also be broadcast on Monday and Tuesday, 28th and 29th April. The race will also be shown on Motors TV, with two live feeds at 11:35 and 16:00. On Monday, 28th April, this channel will broadcast highlights of the race at 17:55.
Spyker Squadron
SNORAS Spyker Squadron Monza qualifying report
The GT2 team of Dutch luxury car manufacturer Spyker Cars, SNORAS Spyker Squadron, qualified in 9th and 11th position for tomorrow's Le Mans Series Monza round. The 1000km race, the second round in a series of five, will start this Sunday at 12:50 and can be seen live on MotorsTV and Eurosport.
Conditions were excellent for qualifying this afternoon with a temperature in the mid-twenties, a light breeze and clear skies. Immediately after green light was given for the 20 minute GT qualifying session both Spyker's left the pitlane to set their quickest time. The lap times of the 12 GT2 cars were much closer than in the free practice sessions but both drivers managed to find some time and got closer to the leading car.
It was Swiss Benjamin Leuenberger, in his first qualifying session ever with the Spyker C8 Laviolette, to set the 11th time in the #94 Speedy Racing Team car. "Qualifying did not go very well" said Benjamin afterwards. "I asked to change the front splitter to win a bit more top speed but unfortunately it did not work out as planned. According to the data we have just reviewed the engine was also a bit down on performance but nevertheless I am looking forward to tomorrow's race. If we can finish without any problems we should be able to run in a top-5 position".
The other car, the #85, was qualified by German Ralf Kelleners. Ralf: "Everything worked out well for us today. Unfortunately we will start from a ninth position but I am happy with the distance between us and the pole car. We are much closer to the competition than in Barcelona and we have less track issues with the car then in Spain. I enjoyed driving the C8 Laviolette there but here in Italy I like it even better: the car is well balanced, we have more grip and you can really squeeze the last bit out of it and drive it more aggressively. I think from a driver's perspective the race will be a lot more fun as we are able to fight for positions instead of having to drive strategically, keep our act together and stay out of trouble as we did in the 1000 km of Catalunya".
Peter van Erp, managing director Spyker Squadron: "So far we have been able to improve our times in all sessions. Nevertheless it is a bit disappointing to see that it is not enough to gain grid positions. I am very pleased with the performance of Andrea Chiesa and Benjamin Leuenberger but also Alexei is doing an excellent job in the other car. If in tomorrow's race our strategy and pitstops work out well and we can manage to stay out of trouble we will be able to advance into a top-5 position and claim a few valuable championship points".
Immediately after qualifying the mechanics started to prepare the cars for the race; both will get a fresh race engine for tomorrow's 1000 km race. Andrea Chiesa and Ralf Kelleners will start the race tomorrow.
Michelin
POLE POSITION FOR MICHELIN AT MONZA
Peugeot and Michelin today claimed their second pole position of the Le Mans Series season during qualifying on the Italian circuit of Monza, It was the Marc Gene / Nicolas Minassian combination that topped the time sheets ahead of the second Peugeot 908 Hdi FAP (n 8).
The LMP2 category was won by Merksteijn/Verstappen's Porsche RS Spyder, while in GT1 the Luc Alphand Aventures Team set the class-leading time.
Matthieu Bonardel, Director of Four-wheel Competition
"At the end of this qualifying session, my initial reaction is that we came with a range of tyres that are perfectly suited to the Monza circuit. The three types of tyres that we have brought for the prototypes have all been tried and none have been rejected.
The soft tyre definitely brings a little more in terms of grip and performance, however, it tends to over-use the left, because of the layout of this circuit. This choice will not make the possibility of double-stinting very easy.
The hard compound, although a little slower, gives consistency and stability at high speeds, which is of paramount importance in Monza.
In the end, it is our medium compound that offers the best compromise. This tyre was overwhelmingly favoured by the teams. It was better than the soft compound on the fast parts of the track and is quicker than the hard tyre on the slow sections. It seems ideally balanced and operates over a large temperature range. There is a good chance of our using it for double-stinting with several teams. However, team strategies will play their part in the final decisions.
Finally, some teams have tried to mix different compounds across the right and left, but this is not an ideal solution at this circuit. Monza's long straights tend to even out the other constraints. Therefore this is not an obvious choice this weekend.
In the LMP2 category the choice between soft and medium tyres was pretty straightforward and in the end there will be a pretty even split between the teams. We are very hopeful that we can double-stint with almost all the cars in this category. That said, this is a conclusion drawn by looking at tyre wear during practice, which is very different from race conditions. We must therefore be careful.
In GT1 there are two choices of compounds, medium and hard. Both types will be used tomorrow in the race. It looks like the medium compound may come up a little short to consider double- stinting, but the hard tyre seems perfectly capable. We will therefore have to see how teams play out their race strategies tomorrow. "
Olivier Panis, Oreca-Matmut driver
How do you choose between the soft and medium tyres?
"We start by carrying out tests between the three compounds that are available to us to work out what the differences in performance are. Then, even if we have a favourite, we wait to hear what the Michelin engineers have to say, because they are the ones who can tell us if we will be able to double-stint or not in the race, depending on the wear rates. Drivers often make their choice based purely on feeling without taking performance into account.
Is the opinion of the Michelin Engineer essential?
"Absolutely. It is only through the analysis of Michelin's engineers that we can make our choice of tyres for the race, because they take the parameter of endurance into account. The Michelin guys have a fantastic understanding of endurance racing and only they can tell us how a tyre will behave and how reliable it will be during a race. The aim is to cover the 1000km with the best possible grip!
Is double-stinting a priority in Endurance?
"It's true that we do not lose so much time in tyre changes these days, because the teams have made a lot of progress in this area. However, if we can double-stint, we can save 20 seconds, and that's not to be sniffed at! You just have to be sure that at the end of the second stint the performance and lap times are the same and that you haven't therefore lost the benefit of double- stinting.