Maybe it's just me but i've always thought that the affiches are giving clues about who has more chance. I know it's no such big deal, though...
2007
2006
2005

What I really want to say is I can't wait for june

And the LMP2 Porsches are missing....shame on the ACO!

Bartus(who has a personal fav in one of those cars)

Oh but he is on the 1000km of Spa poster all over the Netherlands!!!

Purple Predator chaseing Peagoet and a Audi on the poster! Very cool. I've got pics of it, at home. I will upload it later today If I do not forget!

Hmmmm...should look from the back of the poster, than Audi's and Peugeots are chasing the Purple Predator, I'll grab a few of those if I can get hold of'em. Any chance this weekendof seeing Frans out in the Wallonian wilderness?

Bartus(who has already packed his sunglasses and darktanning oil and will leave in an hour for Spa)

Yes of course Bartus.

Hahahaha, I'll be there and will give you a call on the track on sunday or so....

Just thought of it, still haven't uploaded those posters ..... sjeez, I'm lazy.

So a win for Peugeot, with Gene/Minassian/Villeneuve on the top step, but with a massive shunt for Wurz. Going to be interesting to see how the Pug-Audi battles turns out at Le Mans.

Well Done Villeneuve, Minassian and Gene. Shame about Wurz. JV and Wurz are 2 of my favourite retired drivers, so it is good to see Peugeot have got the upper hand over Audi.

Was this JV's first race win since 1997?

He himself said so, not sure if it's true.

Again a good Peugout/Audi battle. Unfortunetely Wurz had a big shunt which retired the second Peugout. In the process he also damaged the senior Audi, which fell back after this. The Gene/Minassian/Villeneuve (who only did very few flying laps in his sole stint) was simply faster than the junior Audi, and there was never really doubt about the win.
Behind them Oreca had an amazing drive. After losing one of their cars in Ortelli's frightening Monza crash, they hit problems in qualifying and had to start from the pits. But Lapierre slowly clawed his way through the field, and surely they eased away from even the Pescarolos. After the Lola-Aston again hit lots of problems, Oreca was by far the fastest petrol car. A really impressive turnaround they have made in the last few weeks. The Pescarolo always used to be better than the Courage Competition team, but with Oreca the Courage is much faster. Oliver Panis is an excellent sportscar driver, and i am looking for a strong Le Mans performance from these guys.


In P2 the Sebah Lola coupe had a really strong race. For the first time Verstappen did not have everything his own way, he was actually passed on track for the P2 lead. Late into the race the Lola swapped lead with the dutch and the Horag Porsche, until the Lola hit problems in the last hour. The final podium position went to the Essex Porsche, who after a disaster of a first hour went on a great drive to pass the rest of the P2 field. Porsche still reigns, but the Lola is getting closer. I would love to see a team like RML get their hands on the coupe to see what they can do with it.

In GT1 the Lamborghini had it's best race ever in LMS. In the hands of Kox it was the fastest car in the class. Unfortunately the front bonnett went open which forced Rusinov to drive really slowly to the pits. After some repairs it lots it chances of a win, which went to Moreau's Corvette.

In GT2 another close Ferrari/Porsche battle. Unfortunately Porsche lost two of it's best bet early, when the IMSA and the Farnbacher car hit problems. In the end it was a race between the dominant Virgo Ferrari and stong running Felbermayr pro car. When Rob Bell in the Virgo was hit by one of the Saulnier Pesca's, the race became really close. After the last safetycar, Marc Lieb was right on Bell's tail for the last couple of laps. However he was unable to get past, and Virgo got a deserved win. They are the dominant GT2 car in LMS, let's see how they stack up when the Flying Lizard and Risi cars come over for the big one.

Well done JV.

Yes it was a great day yesterday in the Ardennes, got a bit sunburnt and sore feet from the long walks.
Good to see that Le Mans Series is getting more and more popular.
Many Dutchies supportering for Lammers and Verstappen and more and more French Peugeot supporters too.

Peugeot had a great rehearsal for Le Mans but still 1000kms is not 24 hours and they tend to get into some sort of trouble (at least 1 of them) every race.
But well in Le Mans they'll have a 3 car line-up with fanatastic drivers, 1 of those is bound to get it right.

The Porsche Spyders again the class of the field in LMP2, I wonder if the ACO forces them to be restricted even more in June.

Virgo impressed in GT2, it will be interesting to see how they match-up against the big teams next month.
Another Dunlop class victory

Still only 33 days to go until les 24 Heures du Mans

It is. Due to the plethora of shite cars he raced after 1997 in F1, then with the break he took and dabbling with NASCAR, this is his first win since late 1997. Hard to believe, isn't it?

Very well done to Peugeot, Minassian/Gene/Villeneuve. Look forward to Le Mans, the one Jacques truly wants to achieve.

Also good to see Villeneuve notch up a win at Spa. A track he's always loved, always pushed the boundaries with and given us fans some thrilling moments there. IIRC he was on pole twice there in F1 but never won, with a best finish of 2nd. So good to see.

Well done, Jacques

The Villeneuve spirit lives on. So happy, if Jacques can do the triple - Indy, F1 WDC and Le Mans. How many drivers have done it before?
Just Monte Carlo will be missing from his trophy cabinet, but then he never did that well at Monaco.

Let's hope he will do some more than just a few flying laps at Le Mans. Lets hope he will win based not only on the merit of Gene and Minassian.

Forza, Jacques ! (too bad he never raced for Ferrari...)

Yeah, Jos did very well indeed!

You might have me down as a Jos hater. In fact I'm a Jos fan hater and have a lot of respect for the man himself. Looking at best sectors for the race his best middle sector blew Elgaard and Lammers into the weeds - fully deserves the championship lead. Peter VM has also improved a lot since the Ricard test.

On a personal note Olivier Pla in our ASM Lola was only 0.1 seconds behind the Boss in the middles sector in qualifying he then had his massive accident on the next lap. Sadly the engine let go inside the first double stint in the race. I can't stress enough how good this guy is - great to work with and damn fast.

Essex drove brilliantly to recover. For those who didn't clock it, they hit the Embassy that went off on the formation lap. Embassy protested and, having lost a lap and a half repairing the damage, Essex then had a 3 minute engine off stop/go penalty. They were only three laps down at the end...

But the race of the day for sure was GT2. The Porsche could run more laps on a tank of fuel so Virgo had to do a good job to hold them off. Rob Bell drive a stunning last stint after he was rammed by the Saulnier Pescarolo.

Just for clarification Virgo are on development rubber, but Farnbacher and JMB are on last year's tyres - this year's customer tyre. Michelin have spent the year saying they're only supplying customer product. Two points to make. 1: Farnbacher set the fastest lap of the race on the aforementioned customer tyre. 2. Michelin are definitely supplying development tyres to Felbermayer (the Lieb car) have been since Monza.

Can't wait for Le Mans test day.

Ben

Graham Hill


If Jacques could accomplish this it really would be something.
Some friends of mine were talking about this the other day.
We all came to the conclusion that a TRUE drivers world championship should take in a combination of different racing disciplines.

Jp

he was cart/indycar or whatever champion too wasnt he?

Has anyone else had problems getting on the Lime Rock Park track site recently? The page has been down this afternoon. I'm looking forward to getting out there for the July 12 race.

And another Jos The Boss win in the pocket!

Very quick he was too. VM had to pit early on softs. Shame Essex spun - would have been a much better race had that not happened.

Real story of the weekend was Virgo Ferrari. They had a fuel line break following a pit stop in FP2 on Friday and the whole 80 litres burned and engulfed the back of the car. They had Ferrari sending spares in a van from Italy and worked in shifts through the two nights to get the car ready for warm-up. Even the race engineer was washing wheels to allow the mechanics to focus on the critical jobs.

They rolled the car out on Sunday morning, proceeded to set fastest time in warm-up and then won GT2 by 2 laps from dead last after starting in the pitlane. Heroes every one of them.

Incidentally, Steve Bunkhall the aforementioned race engineer has been writing a diary series of articles in Race Tech - the Nurburgring one should be a good read!

Ben