IN TOUCH THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF DUNLOP MOTORSPORT [ www.injection.tv ] LE MANS RACE EDITION Dunlop came away from the Le Mans 24 hours delighted with the performance of its dry and light wet tyres after a difficult race in which the changing condi- tions contributed to the overall result. “We were pretty competitive in all conditions other than full wet conditions,” says Dunlop’s chief tyre technician Matthew Simpson of the LMP2 tyres. “On the slick tyres and the light wet tyres, we had a performance advantage, but in full wet conditions we struggled to get temperature into our compounds. The Essex car had engine trouble so we were never going to do better than we did, but we have to look at the tyre perform- ance in wet conditions and make it better. “The Virgo Ferrari team were very strong and our development construction at the rear allowed us to double stint safely. There was no sign of difficulty in doing so, and there was zero deterioration from the first lap to the last in a double stint, according to the drivers. Le Mans podiums for Essex Perhaps we could have triple stinted, but we didn’t test that before the race and during the race was not the time to try. Porsche and Farnbacher Ferrari “The Creation team had four punctures and three of them were caused by debris. There was not enough left of the tyre to establish the cause of the fourth.” The 2008 edition of the Le Mans 24 hours produced was difficult to drive because sometimes the power was everything from a record breaking qualifying and race there, other times it wasn’t and we couldn’t know what to John Nielsen, Casper Elgaard and Sascha Maassen pace, a record crowd of 258,500 turning out in eager expect. It was particularly difficult in the wet on Sunday took second place in LMP2 in their team Essex Porsche anticipation for a Peugeot win, and weather conditions morning and we pitted several times to try to solve it.” RS Spyder. It was the first time that the Porsche RS which tested the teams and tyre companies to their limits. In GT2, the Virgo Motorsport Ferrari team battled against Spyder had contested a race of more than 12 hours, and the first time that Porsche factory driver Maassen Dunlop scored podium finishes in the LMP2 class with the the odds to run second in class despite losing the power had driven with the team. Team Essex Porsche RS Spyder, and in the GT2 class with steering system early in the race. “I am going to have arms the Farnbacher Racing Ferrari after a challenging race. like Atlas,” commented driver Tim Sugden, but there was “We had no problems during the day at all,” said heartbreak for the team with little more than two hours of Nielsen. “We felt on top of the race and were leading Much of the race was run in the dry but, shortly before the 24 remaining. Having battled throughout the race, the well. However during the night we did not get the dawn, the rain began to fall heavily. and the teams worked car was retired with an engine failure. performance out of the rain tyres which was a surprise. with their tyre companies to make critical tyre choices. We hadn’t seen the problem before and historically the On a 13.629km circuit, the weather can change from one “We deserved to finish second,” said Tim Mullen. “The Risi Dunlop tyre is extremely good in the rain. section of the track to another. Intermittent rain showers team did a great job and we were not going to catch them. meant that the track remained wet or damp until shortly The guys have done a great job with the car and I just “When it started to rain we thought that the race would before the finish at 3pm on Sunday afternoon. can’t believe it.” come to us, but then we had the engine problem which meant that we lost contact with the leader. The anticipated battle between Audi and Peugeot was The first Dunlop car across the line overall was the realised and the race had its closest finish for 20 years. Rollcentre Pescarolo, driven by Vanina Ickx, Joao Barbosa “We have a big tyre test in July and we are not going Audi’s experience paid off against the speed of the and Stephen Gregoire. Their Judd V10-powered car was to give up. It was nice to be on the podium at Le Mans Peugeots, and the German manufacturer scored its eighth delayed by a gear selection problem, and a puncture with Porsche and Dunlop, but we were disappointed win in nine Le Mans 24 hour races. which was a common feature of the race with razor sharp because we know that we could have won. gravel stones dragged onto the circuit by spinning cars. The Essex Racing team returned a podium finish on “Sascha was the team-mate that we expected he would Porsche’s debut with the RS Spyder at Le Mans. John The Quifel Team ASM finished 20th overall after suffering be. He is a team player. It was good to get it confirmed Nielsen, Casper Elgaard and Sascha Maassen led on gear selection problems, while Farnbacher Racing were that what we were doing with the car was right.” Saturday night before an engine problem set in, robbing 23rd in their Ferrari, and third in the GT2 category with the car of power for around four hours. drivers Pierre Ehret, Pierre Kaffer and Lars Eric Nielsen. Thereafter, the car ran faultlessly to second place in class The Bruichladdich team had an electrical problem, while behind the other Porsche RS Spyder of the van Merksteijn the Autocon Creation lost drive. The Kruse Schiller team team. “We changed everything, but we drove almost re-built their chassis following a qualifying accident, through the night with a loss of power,” said Elgaard. “It but retired with a blown engine during the night. The Chamberlain Lola retired with engine failure. LE MANS 24 HOURS, 2008 RESULTS Dunlop teams in bold Team Car Class Drivers Qualifying time Number of race laps 1. Audi Sport North America Audi R10 TDI LMP1 Rinaldo Capello/Allan McNish/Tom Kristensen 3m23.347s 381 2. Team Total Peugeot Peugeot 908 HDI FAP LMP1 Marc Gene/Nicolas Minassian/Jacques Villeneuve 3m20.451s 381 3. Peugeot Sport Total Peugeot 908 HDI FAP LMP1 Franck Montagny/Ricardo Zonta/Christian Klien 3m18.682s 379 4. Audi Sport Team Joest Audi R10 TDI LMP1 Alexandre Premat/Lucas Luhr/Mike Rockenfeller 3m24.287s 374 5. Team Total Peugeot Peugeot 908 HDI FAP LMP1 Pedro Lamy/Stephane Sarrazin/Alexander Wurz 3m18.513s 368 6. Audi Sport North America Audi R10 TDI LMP1 Emanuele Pirro/Marco Werner/Frank Biela 3m25.289s 367 7. Pescarolo Sport Pescarolo Judd LMP1 Harald Primat/Christophe Tinseau/Bernard Treluyer 3m30.618s 362 8. Team ORECA Matmut Courage ORECA Judd LMP1 Laurent Groppi/Soheil Ayari/Loic Duval 3m30.490s 357 9. Charouz Racing System Lola Aston Martin LMP1 Stefan Mucke/Jan Charouz/Tomas Enge 3m25.158s 354 10. van Merksteijn Motorsport Porsche RS Spyder LMP2 Peter van Merksteijn/Jos Verstappen/Jeroen Bleekemolen 3m32.301s 354 11. Rollcentre Racing Pescarolo Judd LMP1 Vanina Ickx/Stephen Gregoire/Joao Barbosa 3m35.020s 352 12. Team Essex Porsche RS Spyder LMP2 John Nielsen/Casper Elgaard/Sascha Maassen 3m33.441s 347 13. Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin DBR9 GT1 David Brabham/Antonio Garcia/Darren Turner 3m48.994s 344 14. Corvette Racing Corvette C6.R GT1 Johnny O'Connell/Jan Magnussen/Ron Fellows 3m47.668s 344 15. Corvette Racing Corvette C6.R GT1 Olivier Beretta/Oliver Gavin/Max Papis 3m48.539s 341 16. Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin DBR9 GT1 Karl Wendlinger/Andrea Piccini/Heinz-Harald Frentzen 3m49.060s 339 17. Luc Alphand Aventures Corvette C6.R GT1 Luc Alphand/Jerome Policand/Guillaume Moreau 3m52.993s 335 18. Saulnier Racing Pescarolo Judd LMP2 Pierre Ragues/Mathieu Lahaye/Cong Fu Cheng 3m42.545s 333 19. Risi Competizione Ferrari 430 GT GT2 Mika Salo/Jaime Melo/Gianmaria Bruni 4m01.598s 326 20. Quifel ASM Team Lola AER B05/40 LMP2 Miguel Amaral/Olivier Pla/Guy Smith 3m41.193s 325 21. Luc Alphand Aventures Corvette C6.R GT1 Patrice Goueslard/Jean-Luc Blanchimain/Laurent Pasquali 3m55.736s 325 22. BMW Scuderia Italia Ferrari 430 GT GT2 Matteo Malucelli/Paolo Ruberti/Fabio Babini 4m02.080s 318 23. Farnbacher Racing Ferrari 430 GT GT2 Pierre Kaffer/Lars Eric Nielsen/Pierre Ehret 4m01.464s 317 24. Creation Autosportif Creation Judd CA07 LMP1 Stuart Hall/Marc Goossens/Johnny Mowlem 3m35.994s 316 25. JMB Racing Ferrari 430 GT GT2 Alain Ferte/Ben Aucott/Stephane Daoudi 4m03.293s 312 26. Saulnier Racing Pescarolo Judd LMP1 Jacques Nicolet/Richard Hein/Marc Faggionato 3m42.162s 311 27. Team Felbermayr Proton Porsche GT3 RSR GT2 Alex Davison/Wolf Henzler/Horst Felbermayr Snr 3m59.072s 309 28. Larbre Competition Saleen S7R GT1 Christophe Bouchut/Patrick Bornhauser/David Hallyday 3m47.761s 306 29. Barazi Epsilon Zytek 07S LMP2 Juan Barazi/Michael Vergers/Stuart Moseley 3m35.344s 304 30. Team Modena Aston Martin DBR9 GT1 Jos Menten/Christian Fittipaldi/Terry Borcheller 3m53.031s 302 31. Team Bruichladdich Radical AER SR9 LMP2 Marc Rostan/Ben Devlin/Gunnar Jeannette 3m46.631s 297 32. Flying Lizard Motorsport Porsche GT3 RSR GT2 Jorg Bergmeister/Johannes van Overbeek/Seth Nieman 4m00.106s 289 33. Dome Racing Team Dome Judd S102 LMP1 Daisuke Ito/Yugi Tachikawa/Tatsuya Kataoka 3m26.928s 272 Not Classified: 34.