There have been huge sighs of relief since news has reached us that Loic Duval survived that huge accident with no broken bones and is in hospital taking interest and has been speaking to the team. The only injuries appear to be the odd graze here and there. Great credit is due to Audi who have clearly built an immensely strong car with a tub that looked after the driver.
This is where things start getting serious. These are proper qualifying times and they now ‘ count ‘ and should the weather change they could well decide the final grid positions. However it still rather strange that surely over a 24 hour race a grid position here or there would not seem to matter… but these guys are racing drivers and the teams are massively professional. Also of course appearing on TV is a major feature as well.
It was a lovely evening with a fine sunset. As the action began to get into a bit of a rhythm the Red Flags came out again, this will be the 4th time today.. The car involved with this Red flag was the #37 Oreca driven by Minassian went off at the Porsche Curves. We didn’t know how serious this accident was but it seems to take a long time to clear up the mess each time.
Just when you thought it was safe to go racing again we had yet another Red Flag.. This was caused by the #99 Aston Martin V8 Vantage driven by Fernando Rees. It was unclear what happened but the car was ‘parked’ across the track! We were told that Fernando was fine. These stoppages were ruining any continuity the teams might have been hoping for, this important session was becoming very fragmented.
A bit of trivia.. I noticed that when the Corvette pitted they peeled off a layer of windscreen, rather like visor rip offs. I wonder how many they will use in 24 hrs?!
At 23:30 hrs with 30 minutes still left in the session it has been abandoned. It seems the barriers were too badly damaged after the #99 Aston Martin accident. This is a great pity all round since over the years this last part of night qualifying has always give us some fabulously quick laps.
There be a #1 car out tomorrow but Loic Duval will probably not be driving it. It comes as a bit of a surprise to see that the two Porsches are lying 1st and 2nd with #20 on provisional pole and #14 beside it. Then came the two Toyotas #7 & #8.. Maybe Audi were working a plan but they might be a bit disappointed to be behind the Porsches and Toyotas. However there are two more sessions tomorrow so watch this space..
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LM P1-L #13 Rebellion fastest from #12 Rebellion
LM P2 #26 Morgan fastest from #36 Alpine and #47 Oreca
GTE Pro #51 Ferrari fastest from #97 Aston and #92 Porsche
GTE Am #72 Ferrari fastest from #61 Ferrari and #77 Porsche
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