Audi has dominated qualifying for round 2 of the FIA World Endurance Championship at the famous Spa-Francochamp circuit. Marcel Fässler (CH), Benoît Tréluyer (F) and André Lotterer (D) are on pole with a four lap average of 1m 59.961s. The number 1 Audi R18 e-tron quattro were the only driver squad to break the two-minute mark. An impressive performance by Lucas di Grassi (BR), Marc Gené (E) and Oliver Jarvis (GB), they share the number 3 car which has been aerodynamically optimized for the upcoming run at Le Mans. But even on the track in the Ardennes that is less suitable for this body version, they qualified for the front row with a time of 2m 00.236, missing the best time by only 0.274s. di Grassi even set the fastest time of the day at 1m 58.934s. Third place is shared by the series leaders Tom Kristensen (DK) and Allan McNish (GB). They are contesting the race together with Loïc Duval (F). As Audi’s best immediate rival, the number 7 Toyota in position four missed the best time by 0.986s. It was a frustrating day for Toyota as its two TS030 HYBRIDs qualified fourth and fifth for the race.
Continue reading...Monday, April 15, 2013
Radio Le Mans are reporting that Mark Webber has signed a five year deal to drive for Porsche in thee company’s long awaited return to Le Mans. The news came after the Australian endured another disappointing race in China. After starting from pitlane after a fuelling problem in qualifying, Webber was forced to retire after making contact [...]
Continue reading...Tuesday, April 2, 2013
The start of the inaugural Asian Le Mans Series has been delayed, and the number of rounds cut to only four. In a media statement from the series organisers said that while they have been very encouraged with the number of entries in both the Prototype and GT categories, the organisers feel that due the current economic climate there is a strong demand from all parties to streamline the 2013 Series in terms of both overall cost and number of races. According to the statement the later start to the season will enable teams to finalise more efficient operating budgets thus opening up entry to even more teams to take part.
Continue reading...Saturday, March 30, 2013
Australian V8 Supercar driver Jason Bright has taken his first step towards fulfilling his dream to race at the Le Mans 24 hour race with a test of the Ferrari 458 Italia that he will drive at the classic race in June. Bright currently has a fastest lap of 2:01.011, just outside the time set by [...]
Continue reading...Thursday, February 28, 2013
The famous Porsche 936/81 Spyder that dominated the 1981 Le Mans 24-Hour is again racing the clock – this time to make a ‘fashionably late’ appearance at the 2013 Phillip Island Classic Festival of Motorsport from March 8-10. The 360km/h open Porsche is currently en route from the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, but the ship carrying [...]
Continue reading...Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Italian football great, and current Sydney FC A=League star, Alessandro Del Piero is heading to Le Mans. The race, not the football team. Del Piero is joining forces with US actor and reguler racer Patrick Dempsey to race at the Le Mans 24 Hours in June. Dempsey/Del Piero Racing have submitted an entry for one car to the [...]
Continue reading...Saturday, January 12, 2013
The Black Falcon team Mercedes SLS of Jeroen Bleekemolen, Sean Edwards, Bernd Schneider and Khaled Al Qubaisi have won the 2013 Dubai 24 Hour race. It was a dominant performance by the team finishing the race two laps ahead of the AF-Corse Ferrari of Lorenzo Carvalho, Lorenzo Case. Marco Cioci and Mika Salo. The winners completed a total of 600 laps of the 5.390 kilometres long Dubai Autodrome, a distance of 3,234.000 kilometres, the equivalent of almost three and a quarter Bathurst 1000 races. The win was all the more impressive after a tough week when their original Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG cars was damaged beyond repair due to a crash in testing. The team bought a spare car from the British Preci Spark outfit and converted that to endurance racing specifications, but that meant the mechanics had already worked two nights before the race even got underway. In the race, the car was in the top five for almost all of the 24 hours and as various other contenders either lost time or retired with numerous incidents and accidents, the SLS AMG gradually moved up through the ranks and went on to an impressive win. It was a great debut for the Hong Kong based Craft Racing AMR Aston Martin Vantage GT3 of Darren Turner, Stefan Mucke, Darryl O’Young, Frank Yu and Tomonobu Fuijii who finished in third place.
Continue reading...Thursday, November 22, 2012
One of the great pleasures of going to Le Mans has been the opportunity to spend some time in the town and the surrounding regions. We've never been able to stay long enough to see and experience everything but this film gives you an idea of what the region has to offer apart from the world's greatest car race. <iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/53663755?autoplay=1" width="398" height="224" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe>
Continue reading...Sunday, October 28, 2012
Toyota have followed up their pole position at their home track in Fuji with a second consecutive pole in Shanghai. Alexander Wurz put the Toyota on pile with a lap of 1:48.273. He headed Allan McNish in the Audi R18 e-tron quattro by a tenth of a second and the gap between the Japanese manufacturer and the third placed car, the Audi of André Lotterer, was just three tenths. “We know we have to put in a good performance to beat the Audis in qualifying and the TS030 HYBRID was better today than the driver to be honest." said Mr Wurz. "In Brazil I got the perfect pole lap but here I didn’t have the best last sector and lost a few tenths. I didn’t calculate enough for the change in wind direction so lost some time there. Nevertheless it was good enough to fight the Audis for pole position so I am very happy." The LMP1 Privateer teams followed, with just a hair between the first three in the category...just three hundredths of a second. There was a gap of only 0.016 seconds between Karun Chandhok’s JRM HPD ARX 03a and Neel Jani’s Rebellion Racing Lola-Toyota, the Swiss entry being the interloper between the JRM car and its HPD ARX 03a twin at Strakka Racing. It’s the first time this season that JRM has been quickest amongst the LMP1 Privateer teams.
Continue reading...Saturday, October 27, 2012
Toyota Racing continued their good run of form setting the pace in practice for the final round of the FIA World Endurance Championship, the Six Hours of Shanghai in China. Following an exciting home victory at Fuji Speedway two weeks ago, Alex Wurz and Nicolas Lapierre return in the TS030 HYBRID, although Kazuki Nakajima is absent [...]
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Saturday, May 4, 2013
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