Pescarolo
Oak
RML
Zytek
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Pescarolo
A very promising 2009 edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans for Pescarolo Sport

Two superb prototypes were entered by Pescarolo Sport : a Pescarolo-Judd, designed and built during the winter season by the whole team. It already allowed Pescarolo Sport to lead the LMS Championship in both Team and Drivers classifications; and a Peugeot 908 HDi FAP entrusted by the Manufacturer to the Sarthe team in order to face up to the Audi armada in le Mans.

The 'Le Mans week' had started well, the audience and the media were enthusiastic about the two Pescarolos, #16 and # 17 in their new attractive livery. Qualified in good position on the grid, they both made a good start on Saturday.

Until 04.03 on Sunday morning, the whole team was following the race of the two cars; the 908 HDi FAP was running in a solid 4th position and a step on the podium was within reach. Jean-Christophe Boullion at the wheel for the start of the race was teamed up with Simon Pagenaud and Benoit Treluyer; they proved to be on the same level as the offical team. Unfortunately, in the middle of the night, for a still unknown reason, Benoit Treluyer went off the track and hit severely the armco at Tertre Rouge. The shock was terrible but luckily Benoit was safe and sound.

Once reassured on the condition of the driver, the retirement of the 'Pescarolo-Peugeot' was felt as a great disappointment by the whole team.

Meanwhile the Pescarolo-Judd #16, in 7th position overall was fighting with the Oreca-Courage for 5th position. During the night, due to accidents and oil leaks, the race was neutralised by a serie of outings of the Safety Car. For #16, the one and only problem came from the necessity to proceed to the replacement of the brake discs and pads, there again for unknown reasons. So close to the end of the race, it was too late to catch up the two positions lost during the pit-stop. The crew Tinseau/Jouanny/Barbosa, finishes the race in 8th position overall and in 3rd position in the 'petrol' category.

This is definitely not the type of result the team was expecting but in Portugal, at the end of July, the two Pescarolo-Judd will take their revenge in Le Mans Series.
Oak
OAK Racing finish on the LMP2 podium for a second successive year

For the second year in a row OAK Racing scored an LMP2 podium at the Le Mans 24 Hours as Jacques Nicolet, Richard Hein and Jean-Francois Yvon guided their #24 Pescarolo-Mazda to third in class, the three gentlemen-racers driving a solid, intelligent, error-free race. The result is a huge reward for the team, who have worked non-stop since the beginning of the year, as well as the French squad's partners Mazda USA, Mazda France and Dunlop.

"I am very pleased for all of the team," said Team Manager Francois Sicard after stepping off the podium. "We've had a very busy winter as our partnerships with Mazda and Dunlop were confirmed quite late. We had to adapt the chassis to the Mazda engine and then to the new Pescarolo aero package, all of which represented a significant programme. To be on the podium at Le Mans, following our top three finish in the Spa 1000kms in May, is exceptional and shows the quality of OAK Racing, its staff and partners.

"Pre-race we may have thought that the younger crew in the #35 car were more likely to reach the podium, but unfortunately they had several technical issues during the race and were forced to retire at 8.30 this morning. Nevertheless it is absolutely fantastic that our trio of gentlemen drivers have sampled the podium as they made no mistakes during the race and followed the strategy they were given perfectly. This year's race is the third participation at Le Mans by the team, so to finish on the podium twice in a row just confirms how professional we are. The result is very promising for the rest of the season."

Car #24

Jacques Nicolet: "This is a childhood dream come true. I am extremely proud for the whole team and it is a just reward for the huge amount of work that we have undertaken alongside Pescarolo Sport, Mazda and Dunlop this winter. We are a privateer team and the 2009 programme has handed a lot of responsibility to our drivers and partners. I am delighted our team was able to put a Pescarolo, with a Mazda engine, Dunlop tyres and three very passionate drivers on the podium."

Richard Hein: "Our objective was always to finish the race. We came here full of ambition but we were determined to enjoy ourselves at the same time. OAK Racing, Mazda and Dunlop gave us a reliable car which allowed us to finish the race without any problems."

Jean-Francois Yvon: "It is great to score a third place finish. OAK Racing is a fantastic team and everybody worked hard to achieve this result. The chassis was perfect during the race and even in the morning the car felt good to drive. It's a pleasure to drive for this team, which possess a real human spirit and terrific work ethic."

Thierry Guillemot, General Manager of Mazda France: "To finish on the podium of the Le Mans 24 Hours is a massive achievement for Mazda France and Mazda USA. OAK Racing prepared for this event with great maturity and their race management was very intelligent, so a big thank you to the entire team. I would like to dedicate this result to the memory of Neil Warrior, Director of Public Relations for Mazda Europe, who was amongst the passengers lost onboard flight AF447 from Rio de Janeiro."

John Doonan, Competitions Manager of Mazda North America: "We have just lived a very special moment full of emotion for Mazda. We are not a massive car manufacturer and our resources are limited, so to score a podium with our partners Mazda France and OAK Racing in our first Le Mans 24 Hours together is simply exceptional. Robert Davis and all the management of Mazda North America are keen supporters of our race programme and to score such a result at Le Mans means a lot for the group."

Car #35

The #35 Pescarolo Mazda couldn't repeat its exploits of 2008 and had to retire just over 17 hours into the race due to an engine problem.

Matthieu Lahaye: "The race started well for us. We were competitive and the chassis was exceptional in all the fast corners. Unfortunately, in the early hours of the morning we started to have some concerns with the engine. We had the potential to make the podium again, and that makes me confident for the rest of the season, and I am also delighted for my team-mates in the #24 car."

Karim Ajlani: "Our mechanics did an exceptional job to try and help us finish the race and I am very thankful to them. Le Mans is a real challenge of both man and machine and I learned a lot this week. We have done a lot of kilometres this week and this will be beneficial to us for the remainder of the season."

Guillaume Moreau: "We were competitive and the car was simply fantastic to drive, with lots of downforce. The team has been first class all week and I am delighted to have been able to play my part in this adventure with OAK Racing. It is a superb, friendly team that is also very professional."

RML
Entering the Porsche Curves, Saturday afternoon. Photo: David Lord / Dailysportscar Mike Newton, Thomas Erdos, Chris Dyson and the entire RML pit crew, lead by Team Manager Phil Barker, suffered the frustration of a third engine failure of the season when the team's Lola B08/96 retired from last weekend's Le Mans
24 Hours. This time, however, the disappointment was even more intense, not only because the engine gave way during the most important race of the motorsport year, but also because the Lola Coupe had, until that point, excelled itself.

Aside from a brief glitch for a replacement set of plugs at 2:15 on Sunday morning, the car had run faultlessly for the best part of eighteen hours. "Everything was going so well, and the engine was pulling strongly and felt very good," said Thomas Erdos. "We'd been able to run at a competitive pace throughout the race, and we were still in contention for a podium right up until the moment the engine let go."

Erdos had taken the race start, and challenged hard for third in LMP2 throughout his opening triple stint, constantly harrying Jonny Kane in the #33 Speedy Racing Team Sebah Lola-Judd. Aside from the inevitable consequence of making out-of-sequence pitstops, the #25 Lola-Mazda retained fourth in class for more than ten hours, and while the pair of Porsche RS Spyders consolidated their hold on the top two positions, the two Lola coupes looked equally comfortable in third and fourth. "Until the lap before the engine let go, I was feeling really chuffed with the way the car was going," admitted Thomas Erdos. "To be running so strongly at such a late stage in the 24 Hours is always a special feeling, and we were beginning to think we might make it."

Into the Dawn, Sunday morning. Photo: David Lord / Dailysportscar "The chassis is obviously excellent," stated Ray Mallock, Founder and Chief Executive at RML. "Apart from the plug change and the eventual engine failure, the car ran like clockwork. After the problems we've experienced previously this year (in the Le Mans Series) it was perhaps expecting a great deal to hope for a better result here, but the team did a superb job -- as usual -- both in the garage and on the track."

Mike Newton was perhaps the most disappointed of anyone within the team, and found it difficult to express his emotions. "It's terribly frustrating, when we'd been holding a strong fourth place, and closing on third," he said. "We knew that even the smallest problem for any of the cars ahead of us and we'd have been into a podium position, but as soon as I heard the noise from the engine, I knew it was all over."

Through the Esses, Sunday morning. Photo: David Lord / Dailysportscar His co-driver, Thomas Erdos, searched for something positive from the result. "Setting aside the enormous disappointment I feel now, we have to be encouraged by how much we've achieved," he said. "After the problems we've had previously this season in the Le Mans Series, if the engine had failed after just two or three hours, that would effectively have been the end of our season. Now we must consolidate, think through our strategy for the rest of the year, and see where we go from here."

"We also have to consider the team as a whole," said Mike Newton. "The guys do a great job, and they put their heart and soul into every aspect of their work. It's an absolute passion on their part, and the engineers and mechanics behind the scenes are the ones who make all this possible. In situations like this, their disappointment is every bit as great as ours as drivers, and over the coming weeks we will be working closely with Mazda to seek a resolution to the problems at AER."

The exact nature of the fault will not be established until the unit can be taken back to the workshops and dismantled, but the RML Lola-Mazda covered a total of 273 laps of the 13.629 kilometre circuit at an average speed of 192 km/h; some 3721 kilometres in total. The class was eventually won by the Team Essex Porsche RS Spyder #31, with the Speedy Racing Team Sebah Lola #33 second, and the Oak Racing Pescarolo #24 a distant third.
Zytek
Zytek Engines Once Again Prove Reliable at Le Mans

New 4.5-litre completes 24-hour race; 3.4-litre makes it three in a row

The Strakka Racing and Barazi-Epsilon Ginetta-Zytek prototypes have today survived a particularly grueling Le Mans 24-hour race. To get to the end of the endurance classic is a major feat and both teams have to be applauded for this achievement.

The British-entered Strakka LMP1 GZ09S, which was making it Le Mans debut, finished fourteenth in its class, an impressive outcome for a chassis that had its race debut just two months ago. It was also the first time that Zytek's new LMP1 4.5-litre ZJ458 engine had competed over this distance. In the LMP2 class the plucky French-based Barazi-Epsilon squad finished fourth. This once again underlined the reliability of Zytek's LMP2 3.4-litre ZG348 engine, which has now completed three consecutive Le Mans races, finishing first and second in 2007.

The other two LMP2 Ginetta-Zyteks of the Quifel-ASM and GAC Racing teams showed well during the early hours of the race before succumbing to attritional nature of the race. Team LNT also made steady progress in the early hours of the race with its LMP1 until a fuel line ruptured during the night.

John Manchester, Zytek Engineering operations director said, "This is a tremendous result for the ZJ458 engine. It entered its first race at Road Atlanta in late-2008 where it also finished. However, Le Mans is a far greater challenge and for the engine to finish in its first 24-hour event is a testament to all the staff at Repton."