Le Mans Test: Audi Dominates, Aston Struggles
Audi look on fine form after official Le Mans test day, with Peugeot close behind, but the new Aston is beset by engine problems
Audi proved a dominant force...
Audi still looks to be the pre-eminent team, however, taking three out of the top four time spots.
The third-placed Peugeot in the hands of Stephane Sarrazin was a mere 0.2secs off the Audi of Tom Kristensen's time of 3m27.7s, however, so the Audis won't have it all their own way.
...but Aston has yet to find form
"We had a cylinder plasma lining failure on 009," reports our source at Aston. "We then ran 007 cautiously, however all our engines are at the same point of development so we retired 007 to protect it. Christian and Darren who got some time in the 007 AMR-One reported good balance, and good progress with the balance and handling of the car."
The fastest petrol-powered runner was the Pescarolo LMP1 contender at 3m37.6s. The British flag was waved by the Zytek of the Greaves team, who put in the fastest LMP2 time, while the fastest of the GTE entries (formerly GT2) was he Ferrari 458 of Allan Simonsen.
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Better to miss the race and come back on the pace later in the year.
Too far behind at the momment, with very little time to put things right.
Lets see what they have to say about the weekend but it doesn't look good
Better to miss the race and come back on the pace later in the year.
And there's an argument for saying that any running at Le Mans, no matter how brief, is better than nothing and could give them some useful insights into the problems they're facing.
I will confess, however, that I'm surprised at they issues they're encountering - I thought they'd had engines running on the dyno since early this year, if not earlier, so to encounter these sorts of problems when you try to run the car in anger on track seems surprising.
How much of the Audi / Peugeot pace, for example, is down to very well developed chassis / aero with the best drivers sat behind the wheels ?
Aston are clearly struggling and the Toyota engine in the Rebellion Lola is a) new and b) in a customer chassis (with updates), so I don't think we'll ever really know whether petrol cars can compete with manufacturer diesels until a Toyota or other big manufacturer steps up to the plate and has a proper crack at Le Mans.
Three friends of mine are continously complaining about build quality and engine problems with their respective Astons - having said that another two are very happy with them - luck of the draw I suppose?!
To each his own, I guess. I think they look seriously serious, and I rather prefer them in paint to their preliminary matt black scheme.
Tom Kristensen was fastest with a lap of 3 minutes, 27.687 seconds. He said that "It was a very good day . . . we ran though our [test] programs and at the same time got good lap times, but we were not going out in qualifying trim."
Glad to hear they have some time in hand!
Read more: http://www.autoweek.com/article/20110425/ALMS/1104...
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