The Primat Pescarolo was able to snatch an unlikely podium
Harold Primat
Rob Bell
Hideki Noda
Pierre Ragues
Duncan Tappy
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Harold Primat
Thrilling podium finish for Primat and Tinseau at Monza
Harold Primat and Christophe Tinseau took a superb last-gasp podium finish in a thrilling race at round 2 of the Le Mans Series in Monza, after a stunning drive by the Pescarolo Sport duo.
In an action-packed 1000km race, Tinseau passed the Creation CA07 of Stuart Hall on the final lap with a superb move into the Rettifilo chicane, to take third place overall and finish as the best placed petrol-powered car.
Starting from 13th on the grid, the Geneva-based Primat took the start and made strong progress through the field in the early stages. He was 9th when he handed over to Tinseau at the team's first pit stop, and the Frenchman continued his team-mate's progress, climbing steadily to 6th place overall. Once again the Pescarolo 01-Judd proved its reliability, as Primat and Tinseau continued to scale the field while others suffered mechanical misfortune, and Harold ended a fine second stint within touching distance of the fifth-placed #15 Creation.
The final hour of the race was thrilling, with Tinseau and Hall battling wheel-to-wheel around the high-speed circuit. What was a fight for 5th became a fight for the podium in the dying stages, after accidents for the sister #16 Pescarolo 01 and the #5 Courage Oreca dropped them out of contention. With Tinseau permanently glued to the back of the Creation, British driver Hall looked to have clung on to 3rd place on the last lap, but Tinseau used all of his experience to dive down the inside into the Rettifilo chicane and squeeze his way safely past despite there being slight contact between the two.
A delighted Harold Primat was almost lost for words as he celebrated a terrific result: "What can you say after a race like that? We started 13th, behind two Peugeots, two Audis, a Lola Aston Martin and a whole host of other quick cars, so we never dreamed we could get a podium. To get one, therefore, is absolutely unbelievable and once again we've proved our consistency and the Pescarolo has shown its reliability. We were desperate for a podium this year, but this is the strongest LMP1 grid we've ever seen and so we weren't sure it was possible. To stand alongside the big boys from Peugeot and Audi is a very special moment for me, Christophe and the entire Pescarolo Sport team."
Christophe Tinseau was proud of the achievement and described his final lap overtaking manoeuvre. "I was a bit faster than Stuart, but not much, and every time I caught him I was blocked by traffic. On the last lap though, he got baulked a little bit by the Lamborghini and I decided to go for it. I was alongside and he turned in and touched me, but as he started to spin, I dived to the other side and got past. During my first stint and Harold's second we tried the hard compound tyres and weren't as quick, which was a slight mistake, but otherwise this performance was faultless. I'm so happy about this result because we're not yet running the 2008 aero package which the 16 car has. We hope to have it for the next round at Spa and, when we do, I think we can be even quicker."
Team Principal Henri Pescarolo was equally as thrilled for his drivers. "What a brilliant race and superb result for Christophe and Harold," he said. "They both drove fantastic races today. Harold was right with the Creation during his second stint and was really closing towards the end, and then the battle between Christophe and Hall, and that overtaking manoeuvre on final lap, was something very special!"
Rob Bell
Rob Bell and the Virgo Motorsport team completed the second round of the 2008 Le Mans Series in Monza, Italy on Sunday. After taking a superb pole position during qualifying on Saturday, a series of punctures during the race caused the no.96 Ferrari 430 GT2 to retire whilst running in a strong fourth place with Bell’s team mate Gianmaria Bruni at the wheel.
The weekend got off to a good start with Bell putting the Virgo Motorsport Ferrari on pole during the qualifying session. Bell commented after qualifying, "We were on the podium here last year and its great to be back to try to reward those who have supported us since then. The car and the tyres were pretty good in the session and we’ve come out of it in the best possible position."
Bell was in the car for the first stint of Sunday’s race and after a clean start, Bell began to pull away from the rest of the GT2 pack, gaining a 20 second lead over Kaffer in the F430 and Lietz in the Porsche. However after a routine stop the Virgo Ferrari suffered a left rear puncture as Bell headed into Ascari. Bell managed to get the car back to the pits, where the team changed the deflated tyre and Bell’s team mate Bruni took the wheel.
As Bruni took to the track the left rear once again suffered a puncture, requiring another unscheduled stop for the Virgo team. As Bruni rejoined the track he was almost two laps down on the GT2 class leader, but never one to give up the chase he soon started putting in quick lap times, moving the Ferrari up into fourth place in class. The fast recovery of the no.96 Ferrari was halted after an uncharacteristic third puncture on the left rear tyre, causing substantial bodywork damage to the car and forcing the team to retire from the race.
Commenting after the weekend, Bell commented, "We had a strong weekend up until we suffered the punctures. We don’t know why it happened, but I know there was a fair bit of debris on the track. We also had bodywork damage that might have caused it. It was a shame we didn’t reach the end; our car was well balanced and felt good, and with the setup being similar for the Le Mans 24 hours, there’s positives that we can take away with us.
"We took pole position and the fastest lap of the race in GT2, so we know we are quick, however the opposition were strong this weekend. Luckily, the lead Porsche (No.77) failed to finish too, so we’ve still got all to play for in the championship."
Rob Bell and Virgo Motorsport are now lying 3rd in the drivers and team championship, only three points adrift of the lead. The next round of the Le Mans Series will be in two weeks time at the Spa Circuit in Belgium on the 10th and 11th May.
Rob Bell was unlucky on the weekend and ended his podium streak
Hideki Noda
Having had a difficult couple of days leading into the race the warm up session driven by Hideki's team mate Jean de Pourtales gave the impression that the car was working a lot better than yesterday and the lap times seemed very stable, maybe not showing the absolute speed the team would like to see from the Lola-Mazda package but very stable and consistent lap times to start a 1000 Km. long endurance race.
When the car went on to the track to do the pre grid warm up it was once again driven by Hideki's team mate Jean who notified the team via the onboard radio that there was some problem with the gearbox after which the teams Data Engineer together with the Mazda Engineer did a diagnosis on the engine and car data provided by the Motec telemetry system and found that the gearbox was fine but that there was a sensor of the onboard acquisition system which was malfunctioning leading to miss-shifting of the electronically guided gearbox. The car came into the pit lane and the team's mechanics started to swap the sensors on the car, this cost the team a little bit more time than desired causing a pit lane start for the Kruse Schiller Motorsport Lola-Mazda car.
Jean did a double stint in which he had the difficult job to get back ahead of the numerous GT cars. After this he gave the steering wheel to Hideki who was to do a triple stint. Of course the high speed Monza circuit where the lap times of the LMP cars are much faster than the GT's meant that they had to be passed very often which is always a moment of being careful. Hideki drove a triple stint with very little mistakes and the car handled very reliably which in the end brought the first points for Hideki, Jean and the KSM team. 3 points for a well deserved 6th place in LMP-2 class.
Looking back on the start of the season, the various test sessions, the Barcelona race etc. in all of which the team encountered numerous problems of all kinds and after having had several engine related problems sorted out by the Mazda engineers by checking out the complete engine installation and installing a new swirl bottle before the Monza event. This seems to have the job and the engine has run like clockwork for the entire duration of the race. Achieving this result is a very big satisfaction for the team.
Everybody on the team has given 110% and therefore feels that this result is well deserved, not to mention the moral boost to the whole team that has finally been rewarded for their hard work.
Hideki feels very confident that the team will further improve and that the new engineer Johannes Gruber will be able to learn a lot from the data gathered in this event and will be able to translate this into knowledge of the chassis. Looks like KSM and Hideki are ready to do "serious business" in another 2 weeks during the Spa Francorchamps Le Mans Series round 3.
Pierre Ragues
Pierre misses out on podium finish at Monza
Frenchman Pierre Ragues, who is managed by Quadra Sports, missed out on a podium finish at the Monza 1000 kilometre race, round two of the Le Mans Series, after being handed a three-minute stop-and-go penalty through no fault of his own.
The 22 year-old had a problem with a fuel hose during his pitstop at the Italian race, when it got caught in the bodywork of his car. This caused the Saulnier racing team to be handed a three-minute penalty, costing Pierre and his team mate Matthieu Lahaye the LMP2 podium they would almost certainly have gained otherwise.
The day before, Pierre had qualified the Pescarolo-Judd in ninth place. He was happy enough with his performance, although could not get quite enough temperature into his front tyres as he had hoped.
The race -- held at the fast and iconic Monza circuit -- went extremely well for Pierre and Matthieu, and the car was soon in contention for a podium finish.
Pierre took over for a double-stint in the middle of the race and consolidated his earlier prodigious pace -- until the problem with the fuel hose at the pit stop. Nothing was initially done, but then two hours later it was announced that the car had received a three-minute drive-through penalty, costing the team's expected debut podium finish this year.
"It's unfortunate that such a stupid thing like that meant that we lost the podium, but these things can happen," said Pierre. "Nobody could have predicted it and it was nobody's fault. Without it, I'm sure we could have got third in what was a very tough race. The car was entirely reliable, and we had no problems behind the wheel. The main thing is that we have shown we can be competitive, and we look forward to a strong performance in the next race."
The next race of this year's Le Mans Series takes place at the Spa 1000km in Belgium from May 9-11.
LMP1: Qualified 13th, Finished 7th
Duncan Tappy made his sportscar debut with a strong performance throughout the weekend. With the help of team owner Martin Short and the BRDC Superstars scheme Duncan stood in for Rollcentre regular driver Joao Barbosa who had other racing commitments this weekend. Despite not having driven the car before he impressed Martin and was put in charge of qualifying the car. With under 20 laps experience it was a tall order but Duncan but in a respectable time of 1:38.619 to qualify 13th in class.
Team-mate Vanina Ickx was tasked with starting the 1000km race and Duncan took over after her double stint at the one hour 45 minute stage. Duncan also raced a double stint, experiencing his first ever race pit- stop and his race in a car lasting longer than 25 minutes.
Having started 13th in the Le Mans Prototype One (LMP1) Vanina and Duncan worked hard to put in lap after lap of solid times and were rewarded by a finish in a very creditable seventh place to earn two points for the Rollcentre team. At times they were running as high as fifth but Audi and Peugeot factory cars reclaimed top slots after earlier race difficulties.
The car performed impeccably. It was a textbook race for the Rollcentre squad. Dunlop tyres played their part standing up to the tough conditions. The race was filled with action and the consequent collisions added to the debris accumulating on the track but Duncan and Vanina avoided mishaps and kept their focus right to the chequered flag.
Martin Short, Rollcentre team owner
"Duncan was given a big task having never been to Monza, driven a car like this or driven this particular car at all. He went in and did the double stint, put in the fastest lap of the car and putting in a bloody good effort to get the car the third finishing petrol LMP which I'm really proud of. Hopefully his performance will put him on the radar of other sportscar teams out there."
Duncan Tappy
"That was awesome! It was different to anything I've done before but I felt very at home. I think I adapted to the car very well and while the racing was different to anything I've done before it was the same principle of driving as fast as possible. The traffic was a bigger element here and that's where part of the skill comes in and it was great learning the new aspects that sportscar racing brings.
"Finishing in the points at such a historic circuit amongst such prestigious drivers was a great way to end my first sportscar racing experience. To be racing with and alongside ex-F1 drivers such as Allan McNish, Oliver Panis, Pedro Lamy and Marc Gene has been incredible and an inspiration for what I hope is a long term career in motorsport. I hope more opportunities come along like this and I appreciate how fortunate I've been having the support of Martin and the BRDC Superstars programme."