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Lammers happy with Dome pace

Jan Lammers was the surprise star of the first half of Wednesday's practice at Le Mans. The 1988 winner put his Racing for Holland Dome in third place at the session break, behind only the two works Audis

Although it was early days, the fact that the private entry achieved a competitive time with such ease has given the little Dutchman cause for optimism.

"It's bloody good," he told Autosport.com. "It's really, really nice, and I'm enjoying it. I missed a shift big time in front of the pits starting that lap, so maybe that was half a second. The car is lovely actually. I'm so close to the front now that I'm anxious to get a good run, and I might as well go for gold! Wherever we are, we're probably going to drop three or four places tomorrow, because we won't be in qualifying trim after today."

Lammers says that although he doesn't have a works entry, he gets good support from the chassis manufacturer. He drove for Dome in the 1991 Japanese F3000 series, and had a good relationship with the company.

"It's a customer car, but the customer support is phenomenal. It's top material, and we're very, very lucky."

The Dome is painted in an unusual chequered flag colourscheme, and the white squares have been sold to sponsors. Although some are still blank, the plan has worked surprisingly well.

"The colourscheme really came from desperation! We were faced with losing our title sponsor at the beginning of the year. We had a lot of orders outstanding, and we still had no money at all! You know how it is. If you're stood with your back against the wall, creativity is close! So we came up with this idea. It was a bit scary, because you don't know if it's going to work. But it definitely helped us. The car is not totally sold out, but it helped us to get this far.

"Not everything is sold. We've had some foreign interest, especially from Japan. There are 400 squares on there, and maybe the last ones will be signatures that we sell on the grid or something! It's $2000 or £1500 each. So any Brits that come over are more than welcome to join in!"

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