Testing over - next step the 24Hour
Sunday, June 04, 2017
Eight hours of testing later and the Journee Test for the 2017 Le Mans 24Hour is now over leaving us onlookers with little information - as expected!
For all teams, todays test was all about ticking off items from their 'to do list' as there would be little point in looking for a perfect set up considering the proceedings for the main event is still over a week away. For Aston Martin Racing's five car package there was of course the small issue of getting three Le Mans rookie drivers through their mandatory 10 laps prior to Qualifying.
For Beechdean AMR, that driver was Ross Gunn who soon posted eleven competitive laps times straight from the box this morning. Likewise, the two driver line up of Salih Yoluc and Euan Hankey aboard the #90 TF Sport car each completed their own obligation with emphasis on seat time being placed on Yoluc. Daniel Serra in the #97 Pro car was the final driver with this pre requirement and he also completed his 10 laps first thing this morning.
As with any event many of the AMR cars experienced 'episodes' on track - first a puncture for Yoluc before having to stop out on track minutes later, track limits and speeding in the pit lane for the #98 as well as the continual trading of the fastest lap times throughout the classes.
The biggest concern for the team was to come early in the afternoon session after Nicki Thiim in the #95 car brought out the Safety Car after hitting the tyre wall at Mulsanne. The extent of the damage appeared to be relatively minor.
With laps times ultimately meaning little (todays best AMR lap being still two seconds slower than the top AMR race lap last year), the test was brought to a premature conclusion when an LMP2 dropped oil at Tetre Rouge, bringing out the red flag with ten minutes still remaining.
Just for the record, the #95 was the fastest AMR car P5 in the GTE Pro class with the #97 sister car just fractions of a second behind. The #98 was the fastest GTE Am class car with a time only just slower than all four Ford GT's!!! The #99 Beechdean AMR and #90 TF Sport car finished the day P6 and P7 respectively.
Photo credits - AMR / ACO
