Aston Martin qualifies fastest of the petrol cars at Le Mans
Published on 13 June 2009 by Niels Hendrix
Qualifying for the 77th Le Mans 24 Hours took place on Thursday evening during two sessions, from 7pm to 9pm and from 10pm to midnight. After a rain-affected free practice on Wednesday night, conditions for qualifying were dry, enabling the cars to run on slick tyres for the first time on the 13.4-kilometre circuit.
Although start position is not so critical at the Le Mans 24 Hours, during which the cars are expected to cover more than 5000 kilometres in approximately 360 laps, all the teams are eager to benefit from the prestige of pole position. With the diesel cars enjoying their expected margin of superiority, Aston Martin Racing's three factory LMP1 entries will line up seventh, eighth and 17th on the grid for Saturday's race.
The 007 car of Jan Charouz (CZ), Tomas Enge (CZ) and Stefan Mücke (DE) was the quickest Aston Martin with a time of 3m27.180s, qualifying in eighth overall. The sister 008 car of Anthony Davidson (GB), Darren Turner (GB) and Jos Verstappen (NL) was ninth with a time of 3m27.704, while the 009 car of Stuart Hall (GB), Peter Kox (NL) and Harold Primat (CH) qualified 17th after setting a time of 3m33.968s.
The Speedy Racing Sebah team, running last year's Aston Martin-powered Lola, was third quickest of the petrol cars, meaning that Aston Martin engines occupy the top three petrol-powered places on the Le Mans grid this year.
"I used the first two hours of the session just to get used to driving the car in the dry," said Stefan Mücke, who set the 007 car's best time to place it eighth on the grid. "With free practice having been held in mixed conditions yesterday, this was our first chance to have some normal dry running. In the second part of the session I wasn't really going for a quick lap time, as our focus is firmly on the race. But the car felt very good and I was pleased with the time we produced, despite the fact that we were held up by a lot of traffic. It's a sign of the progress that has been made but the gap remains too big: there are clearly still two classes in LMP1, petrol and diesel. Our aim was always to be the quickest of the petrol cars and I'm delighted that we have achieved our goal so far. This makes me quite confident of our race pace, so I think we have the chance to do well."
The 007 crew encountered a setback towards the end of the session, when Jan Charouz went off at the second chicane on the Mulsanne straight and damaged the car. However, initial examination shows the chassis to be intact, so the car will be repaired in time for the start of Saturday's race. Anthony Davidson set the fastest time in the 008 car, on his debut with Aston Martin Racing. "I'm very pleased with our performance, although it was far from an ideal lap," said the Englishman. "I had serious traffic and this is still a different style of racing to what I have been used to recently. However, I think our race pace is more indicative of our potential than qualifying, so this is very encouraging for the weekend. We've got very good straight line speed, which is going to help us deal with all the traffic during the race."
Peter Kox set the best time in the 009 car on his final timed lap of the session just before midnight. In GT1 the customer Jetalliance Racing team was third, while the Drayson Racing team qualified their Vantage GT2 ninth in class.
The 77th Le Mans 24 Hours will get underway at 3pm on Saturday 13 June.
1 8 LMP1 Team Peugeot Total Peugeot 908 Hdi-FAP 3:22.888 - 2 1 LMP1 Audi Sport Team Joest Audi R15 TDI 3:23.650 0.762 3 7 LMP1 Team Peugeot Total Peugeot 908 Hdi-FAP 3:24.860 1.972 4 17 LMP1 Pescarolo Sport Peugeot 908 Hdi-FAP 3:25.062 2.174 5 9 LMP1 Peugeot Sport Total Peugeot 908 Hdi-FAP 3:25.252 2.364 6 2 LMP1 Audi Sport North America Audi R15 TDI 3:25.780 2.892 7 3 LMP1 Audi Sport Team Joest Audi R15 TDI 3:27.106 4.218 8 007 LMP1 AMR Eastern Europe Lola Aston Martin 3:27.180 4.292 9 008 LMP1 Aston Martin Racing Lola Aston Martin 3:27.704 4.816 10 13 LMP1 Speedy Racing Sebah Lola Aston Martin 3:28.134 5.246 11 23 LMP1 Strakka Racing Ginetta Zytek 3:29.798 6.910 12 16 LMP1 Pescarolo Sport Pescarolo Judd 3:30.466 7.578 13 15 LMP1 Kolles Audi R10 TDI 3:31.192 8.304 14 14 LMP1 Kolles Audi R10 TDI 3:31.548 8.660 15 10 LMP1 Team Oreca Matmut AIM Oreca AIM 3:33.514 10.626 16 11 LMP1 Team Oreca Matmut AIM Oreca AIM 3:33.860 10.972 17 009 LMP1 Aston Martin Racing Lola Aston Martin 3:33.968 11.080 18 6 LMP1 Team LNT Ginetta Zytek 3:35.804 12.916 19 4 LMP1 Creation Autosportif Creation Judd 3:35.960 13.072 20 31 LMP2 Team Essex Porsche RS Spyder 3:37.720 14.832 21 5 LMP2 Navi Team Goh Porsche RS Spyder 3:37.802 14.914 22 12 LMP1 Signature Plus Oreca Judd 3:39.326 16.438 23 33 LMP2 Speedy Racing Sebah Lola Judd 3:41.724 18.836 24 25 LMP2 RML Lola Mazda 3:41.952 19.064 25 40 LMP2 Quifel ASM Team Ginetta Zytek 3:42.012 19.124 26 30 LMP2 Racing Box Lola Judd 3:42.848 19.960 27 41 LMP2 G.A.C. Racing Team Zytek 3:44.830 21.942 28 35 LMP2 OAK Racing Pescarolo Mazda 3:45.032 22.144 29 32 LMP2 Team Barazi Epsilon Zytek 07S 3:52.956 30.068 30 39 LMP2 KSM Lola Mazda 3:53.072 30.184 31 63 LMGT1 Corvette Racing Corvette C6.R 3:54.230 31.342 32 64 LMGT1 Corvette Racing Corvette C6.R 3:54.702 31.814 33 26 LMP2 ruichladdich Bruneau Radical AER 3:55.320 32.432 34 66 LMGT1 Jetalliance Racing Gmbh Aston Martin DBR9 3:56.126 33.238 35 72 LMGT1 Alphand Aventures Corvette C6.R 3:57.170 34.282 36 24 LMP2 OAK Racing Pescarolo Mazda 3:57.524 34.636 37 73 LMGT1 Alphand Aventures Corvette C6.R 3:58.564 35.676 38 80 LMGT2 Flying Lizard Motorsport Porsche 997 GT3 RSR 4:03.202 40.314 39 77 LMGT2 Felbermayr Proton Porsche 997 GT3 RSR 4:03.232 40.344 40 82 LMGT2 Risi Competizione Ferrari F430 GT 4:04.056 41.168 41 99 LMGT2 JMB Racing Ferrari F430 GT 4:04.084 41.196 42 97 LMGT2 BMS Scuderia Italia Ferrari F430 GT 4:04.222 41.334 43 76 LMGT2 Imsa Performance Matmut Porsche 997 GT3 RSR 4:04.648 41.760 44 78 LMGT2 AF Corse Ferrari F430 GT 4:04.938 42.050 45 92 LMGT2 JMW Motorsport Ferrari F430 GT 4:05.168 42.280 46 87 LMGT2 Drayson Racing Aston Martin Vantage 4:06.482 43.594 47 89 LMGT2 Hankook-Farnbacher Ferrari F430 GT 4:06.612 43.724 48 85 LMGT2 Snoras Spyker Squadron Spyker C8 Laviolette 4:08.348 45.460 49 84 LMGT2 Team Modena Ferrari F430 GT 4:08.508 45.620 50 83 LMGT2 Risi Competizione Ferrari F430 GT 4:08.758 45.870 51 70 LMGT2 Imsa Performance Matmut Porsche 997 GT3 RSR 4:10.014 47.126 52 75 LMGT2 Endurance Asia Team Porsche 997 GT3 RSR 4:10.456 47.568 53 96 LMGT2 Virgo Motorsport Ferrari F430 GT 4:10.664 47.776 54 81 LMGT2 Advanced Engineering Ferrari F430 GT 4:13.920 51.032 55 68 LMGT1 Y JLOC Lamborghini 4:21.812 58.924
