Zytek stars in qualifying

The factory Zytek team shone on its debut in the opening round of the LMES at Monza last month where it qualified second and briefly led the race in front of the Veloqx Audis. So it was always going to be a threat for pole at Le Mans. Only ninth after first qualifying (Wednesday) the team decided to save its pole attempt for the final two sessions, and when Brabham set his 3m33.923s lap, he immediately shot to the top of the times.

"We deliberately saved our qualifying attempts for tonight," said Brabham, who could not hide his enthusiasm for the car. "We spent yesterday working on race set-ups. This car, on qualifying tyres, is fantastic. It's so light. It makes it very easy to drive and it's very rewarding."

What made the lap even more special was that Brabham, the designated qualifier for the team that includes former winner Andy Wallace and Japanese driver Hayanari Shimoda, only managed one true flying lap all night.

"I went for a quick lap and got caught behind this Prodrive Ferrari that was just sitting in the middle of the road, I don't know what he was doing," said Brabham. "But I ought to thank him really because he did me a favour. I had to abort, backed off, and that gave me a totally clear lap next time round. Do you know how rare that is here?"

A new team, Zytek's definitive 04S development programme is still young, and while it has no worries in terms of speed, it should be less confident with regards reliability. But Brabham is not concerned. "We're not worried because we don't really know what to expect anyway," he said. "The car isn't even in Le Mans-spec really. We only have a short-tail sprint track body so what we have achieved so far is very good. It would be interesting to see what the car could do in long-tail trim.

"We are just going to run our race and see what happens, but so far we have had no problems at all so we'll see. We're not going to stop unless we have to."

If the car lasts, Brabham, Wallace and Shimoda are in with a chance of being best of the rest behind the Audis, and perhaps even better given the in-fighting expected between the four R8s, but Brabham is cautious about predictions for the race.

"We have to run our own race and not get carried away with what the Audis are doing," he said. "If we maximise everything that we are doing then we can see where we are at the end of it."