Ferrari overcame the challenge from Porsche to record a 1-2-3-4 in GT2
Ferrari
Trading Performance
Loic Duval
Johnny Mowlem
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Ferrari
Clean Sweep for Ferrari in GT2
Montezemolo: "I am proud of this all-red podium"
Maranello (Modena) 16th June 2008 - Four cars in the top four places in their class was the result achieved by the 430 GT2 cars in the Le Mans 24 Hours. Victory went to car number 82, run by the Risi Competizione team and driven by Jaime Melo, Mika Salo and Gimmi Bruni, who completed 326 laps to finish nineteenth overall. Also on the podium in second spot, the all-Italian crew entered by BMS Scuderia Italia, made up of Paolo Ruberti, Matteo Malucelli and Fabio Babini, with 318 laps to their name. Third was the German Farnbacher Racing team of Pierre Kaffer, Lars-Erik Nielsen and Pierre Ehret, who completed 317 laps. Another 430 GT2, the JMB of Ferte-Aucott-Daoudi crossed the line in fourth place after 312 laps.
"I am particularly proud of this splendid result for the 430 GT2 in the Le Mans 24 Hours," commented Ferrari President, Luca di Montezemolo. "Four cars in the top four places at the end of such a difficult and interesting race confirms just how extraordinary a car is the road-going F430, that provides the basis of the race version which is capable of wining the most important grand touring races in the world. It is the continual technology transfer between racing and road cars which has given birth to cars like the 430 Scuderia, the perfect expression of Ferrari's technical excellence. I would like to thank all our teams who contributed to this fantastic clean sweep in the most prestigious endurance race in the world. It is also down to people like these that the Ferrari legend was created and continues to be upheld on race tracks all around the world."
The four cars that completed the 24 hours of this endurance race covered a total of 1273 laps, equivalent to 17376.45 kilometres. However, some cars did not see the flag: the Virgo Motorsport car (crewed by Sugden-Bell-Mullen) went out less than three hours from the finish when lying second. The AF Corse machine, in the hands of Biagi-Montanari-Vilander and the second 430 GT2 entered by Giuseppe Risi, driven by Kohn-Jonsson-Vande Poele also retired.
Trading Performance
Everything seemed to be on track for Swiss team Trading Performance to get a good result in the 76th edition of the Le Mans
24-Hour Race when cruel luck hit its Zytek car. Accelerating hard out of a fast bend, Claude-Yves Gosselin got shunted by another car over which its driver had completely lost control. The shock of the shunt sent the Normandy driver into the safety barrier. Thankfully he emerged unscathed from the cockpit of the car but quickly realised that after just 100 minutes of racing there was no way he could continue.
Yet the Le Mans week had started so well for the Normandy-based team. Two thumbs up in the air would be the best way to describe the way qualifying had gone. Karim Ojjeh said he was well pleased with the way the two qualifying sessions had panned out, with work on setting up the car progressing well. "It all went fine", he said. "We were getting to know Michelin's soft and medium tyres. We could easily have got our lap times down to under 3'43 without using our qualifying tyres, and according to the computer readouts I was well on the way to doing it when I got baulked going through the Ford chicane." The midnight blue Zytek qualified 9th in the LMP2 category, and 29th overall, after improving lap times by 3''5 between Wednesday and Thursday night.
This positive impression was reinforced during the warm up on Saturday morning, as the car moved up three places overall, leading Karim
So as the grid was being set up the team was serene. After the start, Claude-Yves Gosselin executed the cautious instructions handed down by the wise heads in the pits, Lucien Monte / Franck Larue... But in the end he called them up on the radio to ask if he could up the pace, because he was lapping easily at 3'52 instead of the 3'58 initially planned! Proof if ever there was that confidence was running high in car No.41 at that time. 45 minutes into the race, Claude-Yves completed a slow lap. However, the problem was quickly resolved in the pits by a change of electronic control box and the Zytek Trading Performance car was soon on its way again. Still, the curtain was to come down on his hopes less than an hour later. As he was about to complete his 23rd lap, Claude-Yves got shunted by Lola No.12, with German driver Klaus Graf at the wheel, just as he was accelerating out of the fast left curve before the Ford chicane. "I was on a normal line, picking up speed out of the bend, when he ran into my real wheel, propelling me into the barrier on the left hand side of the track. Unluckily for me, there are no tyre piles at that point, only concrete! I soon realised the extent of the damage. When the mechanics arrived they could only confirm my worst fears. We had no choice but to sign the retirement sheet."
Neither Adam Sharpe, who joined Trading Performance especially for this event, nor Karim Ojjeh got a chance to take the wheel in the race. The team was totally dejected. Team Boss Luc Andre said: "We were expecting all sorts of things, but not that. You can understand when this sort of thing happens if someone breaks too late but in the acceleration phase ... well, it's hard to take. It's a terrible shame because everything was going so well up to that point, and Le Mans was our No.1 objective this season. So we are left with two more Le Mans Series races in which to repeat the good results we got in Barcelona and Spa."
The whole team will be hoping to put this bad luck behind them out on the Nurburgring next August 17.
Loic Duval
L.Duval finishes 8th overall on first-ever Le Mans attempt, running with prestigious French team!
Loic Duval, who entered the Le Mans 24 Hours for the first time as a member of Team Oreca Matmut, drove the No. 5 Courage Oreca LC70 along with Soheil Ayari and Laurent Groppi. Duval maintained a strong pace despite occasional rainfall, with steady driving, rarely seen in a first-timer, on his way to taking the checkered flag in 8th place overall.
Official qualifying for the Le Mans 24 Hours involves two sessions from 19:00-21:00 and 22:00-00:00, spanning the Wednesday and Thursday before the race.
However, Loic's team was greeted by bad luck on Thursday, June 12th when the second day of qualifying began. Laurent Groppi lost control of the No. 5 Courage Oreca LC70E at the Michelin chicane, crashing into the guardrails. The machine was damaged and stopped in the middle of the track. Fortunately, Groppi was not injured, but the accident brought out the red flags, stopping the session.
Despite the accident, the best time for the No.5 was the 10th (3:30'490) recorded by Le Mans veteran Ayari, this being his 7th time at the La Sarthe circuit. The team's other car, the No.6 Courage Oreca LC70E (Olivier Panis, Marcel Fassler, Simon Pagenaud) set a best time of 3:31'243, recorded by Panis, to grab 13th on the grid for the start.
The Le Mans 24 Hours was again a heated battle among the diesel-powered machines such as the Audi R10 TDI and Peugeot 908 TDi FAP, but the petrol-powered cars also gained some attention. Teams expected to do well included Pescarolo Sport, Team Oreca, and the Dome Racing Team from Japan.
On Saturday June 14th at 15:00, the legendary 24-hour race finally began! As expected, the Peugeots went ahead, with the Audis trailing. The 6 diesel machines were exceptionally fast, continuing to drive at a record pace originally set in 1970 on the 6km straight, before the two chicanes were installed. The No.5 car, with Ayari as starting driver was at 10th at the first hour. It battled with the Pescarolo and Dome entries for the top position among the petrol-powered cars, and was up to 6th overall after 4 hours.
However, around the time the clock ticked past midnight, Team Oreca experienced a number of unfortunate incidents. The No.6 car crashed and retired. Then the No.5 ran into gearbox problems. Repair work slowed them down a bit, but the No.6 remained in the top 10. Once night fell at Le Mans, rain started to fall intermittently, making the conditions harsher. At dawn, the starter motor of Ayari, Groppi and Loic's No. 5 car had to be changed, though they maintained pace and their position of 9th. The track surface was slippery, causing many cars to go offline and spin off track. Loic was assigned the night session and showed excellent stability in his driving. An hour and a half away from the finish, minor problems were found with the clutch, leading Loic back to the pits. However, the mechanics completed a speedy repair to return his machine back on track without too much delay. The No.5 continued to drive consistently to finish 8th at 15:00 on Sunday June 15th.
Loic Duval:"I don't think 8th overall and 2nd among the petrol-powered cars is bad at all. I'm also very happy that we were able to meet our goal of finishing. This was my first time at Le Mans, but if the night had been dry, there really wouldn't have been anything to be afraid of. After all, my best times were set at night. There were minor problems with the gearbox, starter and clutch, but it's a great feat to complete the race with the team. It was a great thing for me to enter the Le Mans 24 Hours with a team like Oreca, and I am truly grateful to the team and sponsors. I hope that a year from now, I will be back."
Johnny Mowlem
LE MANS, France -- Johnny Mowlem and his Creation AIM teammates fought the elements and the rest of the field to finish in the top half in the 2008 running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race.
Mowlem, along with co-drivers Stuart Hall, also from England, and Marc Goosens, of Belgium, finished 11th in the LMP1 class for the world's fastest prototype sports cars. The car completed 316 laps around the famed eight-mile road racing circuit that includes public roadways.
Their race however, was not without high drama, as a sizeable accident for Stuart Hall in Thursday's free practice session, left the Creation AIM boys with a huge task to try and get the car back together in time for the Saturday morning warm-up. They did a fantastic job to achieve that, but then as ever with these situations, more gremlins appeared to limit Stuart to only one flying lap in the warm-up.
However, it was a testament to all the team's hard work, that once the race started, the car was handling pretty well and running very reliably, allowing them to climb up into the top 15 overall within the first few hours of the race.
However, first a blow out to the left rear tyre for Stuart, causing him to spin going into the famous Indianapolis corner started a sequence of events that would eventually drop the #14 car down the order to an eventual 24th overall from the 55 starters.
Probably the most sizeable problem was when Mowlem also suffered a left rear blow out at over 300kmh, which pitched him off into the Armco barriers.
"I'd just straightened the car out of the second kink going down towards Indianapolis and then with no warning the left rear tyre exploded, which initially turned me sharp right so that I was heading directly towards the Armco barrier some 50 ft away! I must admit that at that precise moment I thought our race was over, if not worse! But fortunately I somehow, more by luck than talent, got the car straighter before it careered of the track, and so when I actually hit the Armco barrier I was at a much shallower angle and kind of slid down the barrier instead of going over it. The Creation stood up remarkably well to the impact, which was still pretty hard, but the visible damage was relatively light. Unfortunately the biggest problem was the impact de-laminated the carbon floor, so the team had to re-bond it, which lost us a huge amount of time in the pits, putting us completely out of contention for a top finish. Having said that, from then on the car kept going really well and at Le Mans to just make the finish is a great achievement for the whole team, especially after all the dramas, and my hat goes off to them for that."
Mowlem also enjoyed his first time at Le Mans in the Le Mans prototype class:
"Despite not doing more than a handful of laps prior to the race, I have to say that I still felt quite comfortable in the car. I hadn't even had a chance to drive in the new seat that I'd made on the Friday, so my seating position in relation to the pedals was new to me when I did my first stint in the race, but after 2 or 3 laps I got used to it again and then found a rhythm and began to actually enjoy myself. When the rain arrived, it was like driving on ice, so I was very careful, but the rest of the time it was fun!"
Mowlem returns to his regular ride, the Corsa Motorsports Ferrari, and the American Le Mans Series July 12 when the series resumes its season at Lime Rock Park in Connecticut. Mowlem is among five drivers tied for eighth place in the GT2 drivers' standings.
"I'm grateful to Steve Pruitt for allowing me to race at Le Mans in this one-off event," Mowlem said. "I was honored to drive for Mike Jankowski and the Creation AIM team, but I have a season-long agreement with Corsa Motorsports and I would not have taken the added opportunity without their enthusiastic support."
Pruitt attended the race as an observer with the idea that his team would compete at Le Mans in 2009.