Qualifying: Oreca takes pole...
Team ORECA celebrated its second pole position in as many weeks at Estoril this afternoon (Saturday), but whereas their Barcelona time-topper seven days ago was disallowed for an airbox infringement, this one survived post qualifying scrutineering.
Olivier Beretta's Dallara-Judd set the time of 1m29.401s to beat the Racing For Holland Dome of Jan Lammers by six tenths of a second. Beretta was delighted after the session, especially as the team had encountered problems earlier in the day during free practice.
"The whole team did a great job today as we had a problem this morning when the throttle cable broke," said the Monagasque. "The car felt very good and we have a nice balance with the Goodyear tyres in both a qualifying and a race situation."
Beretta will be partnered tomorrow by ex-Champ Car racer Nicolas Minassian who has returned to the team that he raced for at Le Mans in 2000.
Lining up alongside the Dallara will be Jan Lammers and Val Hillebrand's black and white Dome. Jan conducted the qualifying work and got to within two tenths of a second off Beretta's time before the ORECA Dallara pulled away. Lammers was also recovering from dramas in the mornings free practice session when he collected an SR2 car and suffered broken steering and cosmetic damage to the front of the car.
The second row of the rolling grid will be an all-Courage affair with Yves Courage's team beating the Henri Pescarolo-fronted C60 Peugeot of Jean Christophe Boullion and Franck Lagorce. Boris Dereichebourg set the time for Courage Competition while Boullion concentrated on race set up for Pescarolo.
Henri himself explained the team's philosophy during the qualifying period: "We had 30 kilos extra to carry in success ballast here so we decided that even if we ran soft tyres and little fuel we would not beat the Dallara and Dome," said the four time Le Mans winner. "Jean Christophe went out on full tanks and hard tyres and set a time that we are very pleased with going in to the race tomorrow."
SR2 saw another Lucchini 1-2 with Mirko Savoldi winning the all Italian battle over experienced GT racer Fabio Mancini. The SportsRacing Team Sweden Lola B2K/40 Nissan of Mattias Andersson and Niklas Loven came in third.
British racers Sam Hignett and John Stack are fourth in their Team Jota Pilbeam-Nissan despite losing most of the second free practice session when Hignett crashed the car.
1 Beretta/Minassian, Team ORECA Dallara Judd, 1m29.401s
2 Lammers/Hillebrand, Racing For Holland Dome Judd, 1m 29.936s
3 Cottaz/Dereichebourg, Courage Competition C60JX Judd, 1m31.568s
4 Boullion/Lagorce, Pescarolo Sport Courage C60 Peugeot, 1m32.753s
5 Venturi/Battaglin, Durango GMS Judd, 1m34.203s
6 Baldi/Caffi, R&M Judd, 1m35.260s
7 Peroni/Savoldi, Lucchini Alfa, 1m35.862s
8 Mancini/Collini, Lucchini Alfa, 1m35.895s
9 Andersson/Loven, SRTS Lola Nissan, 1m37.616s
10 Hignett/Stack, Team Jota Pilbeam Nissan, 1m38.502s
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