Lola in Le Mans running

That's the view of the boss of top sportscar team DAMS, Jean-Paul Driot, after the B98/10 came close to scoring a debut victory in the International Sports Racing Series at Monza last weekend.

Driot claimed his team's Judd-powered chassis has 'great potential' for the enduro classic. 'We might surprise people at Le Mans,' he said.

'The engine is good and the chassis is reacting to changes nicely. The car had good speed on the straights and handled well in the chicanes.'

DAMS drivers Eric Bernard and Jean-Marc Gounon led the first half of the Monza 500Km race until the Lola was delayed by an exhaust failure. The car recovered to third place before retiring with gearbox failure.

Ex-Grand Prix driver Bernard, who qualified the car on pole position, said, 'We were surprised to be at the front, but we were not surprised by the performance of the car and the team. We knew the car would be good.'

DAMS will now head to Paul Ricard for eight days of intensive running to prepare for Le Mans pre-qualifying held on May 2. Driot said, 'We will confirm how competitive the car is when we go to Ricard.'

Driot did admit that he had his doubts over the Lola when it proved uncompetitive in the hands of other private teams at the Daytona 24 Hours in February and the Sebring 12 Hours last month.

'At one stage I was sceptical,' he said. 'You start asking questions sometimes. But after 10 laps of testing the car at Dijon last week, the doubts went away.'

Central to the increase in competitiveness of the Lola was a new low-downforce aerodynamic specification designed for Le Mans. Teams running the chassis in the US have complained they were unable to significantly reduce downforce with the original aerodynamic package.

Lola business development manager Nick Langley said, 'We always knew the car had potential from the first time we tested the car, so we are very happy.'

The DAMS chassis is one of two Lolas at Le Mans. The German Kremer team will run a solo Ford-engined car.