Free practice: Audis 1-2-3 but not in expected order
Audi locked out the top three positions in free practice for Saturday's opening round of the European Le Mans Series at Donington, but the Johansson Racing R8 split the works cars and the new Chrysler Oreca proved itself a worthy adversary on its debut outing
The Rinaldo Capello/Tom Kristensen works Audi set the pace at the East Midlands venue, lapping in 1m21.004s. Its time was almost a second clear of the pack, led by the Gulf-backed, Johansson-run car of Stefan Johansson and Guy Smith.
"The car is going well, no problems," said Kristensen. "We're just fixing small things for qualifying. It's a problem with the cold, because the rear tyres heat up first so the car understeers in the early part of the session. Your set-up has to be a compromise because of this. If it was hotter I could push harder."
The second of the silver Audis, that of Emanuele Pirro and Frank Biela, was two-tenths shy of the privately-run R8 and just a tenth ahead of the new Chrysler Oreca of Yannick Dalmas and Olivier Beretta. They are still suffering a few teething problems with the Dallara-built, Mopar-powered machine, but hope to iron these out in time for Saturday's two and three quarter hour race. The car was second fastest early in the session.
"The car has shown a lot of potential," said Beretta. "I'm confident that we're going to have a good weekend."
The flame-spitting Courage C60 of Jean-Christophe Boullion, Laurent Redon and Sebastien Bourdais was fifth quickest, 2.8secs off the leading pace. Panoz continues to struggle, with the David Brabham/Jan Magnussen LMP07 down in sixth and over 3secs off the top Audi.
The Oliver Gavin/Franz Konrad Saleen S7R leads the GTS class in 10th overall, with its only opposition coming from the RML-run Saleen of Bruno Lambert and Ian McKellar Jnr, which is 13th fastest. Martin O'Connell and Warren Carway head the LMP675 class in their Pilbeam MP84.
BMW leads Porsche in the battle for GT category supremacy, with Fredrik Ekblom/Dirk Muller leading the way for the Munich marque, ahead of the second Schnitzer-run car of JJ Lehto/Jorg Muller. The Alex Job-run Porsche of Randy Pobst/Christian Menzel leads the chase for Stuttgart.
1 Rinaldo Capello/Tom Kristensen, works Audi R8, 1m21.004s
2 Stefan Johansson/Guy Smith, Johansson Audi R8, 1m22.028s
3 Emanuele Pirro/Frank Biela, works Audi R8, 1m22.231s
4 Yannick Dalmas/Olivier Beretta, Chrysler Oreca, 1m22.372s
5 J-C Boullion/Larent Redon/Sebastien Bourdais, Courage C60, 1m23.842s
6 Jan Magnussen/David Brabham, works Panoz LMP07, 1m24.372s
7 Jay Cochran/Peter Boss, Westward Panoz LMP07, 1m25.022s
8 Werner Lupberger/Ben Collins, Ascari A410, 1m25.150s
9 Klaus Graf/Gualter Salles, works Panoz, 1m27.317s
10 Franz Konrad/Oliver Gavin, Konrad Saleen S7R, 1m29.354s
11 Martin O'Connell/Warren Carway, Pilbeam MP84, 1m 30.438s
14 Fredrik Ekblom/Dirk Muller, Schnitzer BMW GTR, 1m34.072s
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