Shuffling the deck at Le Mans

Porsche were leading the timesheets going into the second qualifying session

We got confusing messages from Audi and The ACO. Suffice to say that it Loic Duval will not be driving the car again at this year’s 24 Hours. The Official Bulletin issued by the ACO says that having taken the views of the team manager and the FIA Medical Delegate, the Stewards have decided to accept the request from Audi to change the driver.  So spaniard Marc Gené will drive in place of Duval. The knock on effect of this is that Gené having moved to the Audi it now leaves the #38 Jota Sport Nissan short of a driver! So Jota have been allowed to draft Oliver Turvey into their car, providing that he passes all the administrative checks, has the correct race suit etc. and has a special briefing from the Race Director. Just to ‘square the circle’ you may recall that Turvey was to have been in the #22 Oreca Nissan that was withdrawn. 

This same bulletin suggests that Duval was ‘seriously injured’.. Which was worrying and while we hope this is not accurate it does make the stewards decision that it is OK to replace Duval a lot easier. Plus the Stewards consider that, quote “...it is more safe to go with three drivers rather than two”, We also gather that a team of engineers came down from Ingolstadt to get on with rebuilding what is now once again known as the #1 Audi. Despite the fact that not much, other than maybe a wheelnut and brake light, might be carried over from the wrecked #1. It is expected to run in the final session tonight.  

Those of you with a semblance of memory left on your mental hard drive will recall the famous ‘replacement’ of the destroyed JLOC Lamborghini that mysteriously evaporated in 2009 only to be replaced by an entirely different car that didn't even look like original ! Even longer ago a Venturi did a similar smoke and mirrors trick and reappeared with different livery and lots of gaffer tape .. Likewise last year the Ferrari of Tracy Krohn was badly damaged and a spare car was rushed in overnight. So there are plenty of precedents to support the Audi situation and we understand that there is a clause in the regulations that permits chassis change at the discretion of the race stewards.

The only other car we were waiting to hear about was the #99 Aston Martin that stopped the last session. We have just heard that it has been withdrawn because it was too badly damaged.

Another car that is technically OK, in other words it hasn't actually crashed yet, is the #0 Nissan. However it has hardly been exposed to any risk out on the track since it hasn't yet completed a lap this week under its own or any other sort of power for that matter! Tony pointed out that so far it must be easily the most eco-friendly car out here because it has done most of its track time being pushed by human beings!! 

Jock Simpson