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FOR RELEASE: June 12, 2002 CONTACT(S):
Team Cadillac And Corvette Racing Have Promising Start to Le Mans 24 Hours
LE MANS - Team Cadillac and defending Le Mans GTS Champions ,Corvette Racing, had a promising start to the 70th Le Mans 24 Hours in the first qualifying session tonight. Italian Max Angelelli qualified the Cadillac Northstar LMP 02 he shares with Wayne Taylor and Christophe Tinseau well inside the top ten overall, bettering their Open Test time by some five seconds. Briton Oliver Gavin put the Corvette C5-R on second place in the GTS class, just two tenths off provisional GTS pole. "The Cadillac Northstar LMP 02 is a completely different car now," Angelelli said. "It is well balanced and smooth to drive and I'm sure I could have gone a lot faster without the traffic I encountered on my fastest lap." To prove his point, the sister car of Emmanuel Collard was third fastest through the speed trap, at 317kph. The second part of the first qualifying session was spent working on the fuel economy of the cars. While the Corvettes were five seconds off the fastest GTS time at the Open Test in May, they now reduced the gap to just two tenths. "It looks like this GTS race is going to be very competitive," said Joe Negri, GM Racing Group Manager. "Our two Corvettes and the Vipers and the Ferrari are all running relatively close times. We really didn't get any very good qualifying laps in tonight because of the red flag at the end. At the start of practice the set up on either Corvette was not quite what we wanted but the crew got them tuned in and we were doing some good laps on long runs at the end. As a matter of fact, our quickest time of today in the No. 64 Corvette car on full tanks." Qualifying resumes tomorrow, Thursday, at 7pm. 70th Le Mans 24 Hours - First qualifying session 1. Capello/Herbert/Pescatori Audi R8 3m30s347 2. Biela/Pirro/Kristensen Audi R8 3m30s701 3. Lammers/Hillebrand/Coronel Dome-Judd S101 3m31s057 4. Krumm/Peter/Werner Audi R8 3m32s531 5. Bailey/Blundell/McGarrity MG Lola EX257 (1st LMP675) 3m33s254 6. Montagny/Minassian/Sarrazin Dallara-Judd 3m34s053 7. Lamy/Comas/Beretta Dallara-Judd 3m34s244 8. Angelelli/Taylor/Tinseau Cadillac Northstar LMP 02 3m35s042 9. Bjork/Derichebourg/Cottaz Courage-Judd C60JX 3m36s942 10. Van de Poele/Wallace/Leitzinger Bentley EXP Speed 12 3m38s036 12. Bernard/Collard/Lehto Cadillac Northstar LMP 02 3m38s181 16. Reid/Hughes/Kane MG Lola EX257 (2nd LMP675) 3m42s835 20. Daoudi/De Fournoux/Bouvet WR-Peugeot (3rd LMP675) 3m47s967 28. Rydell/Menu/Enge Ferrari 550 Maranello (1st GTS) 3m56s730 29. Fellows/O'Connell/Gavin Chevrolet Corvette C5-R (2nd GTS) 3m58s491 30. Belloc/Cochet/Treluyer Chrysler Vipet GTS-R (3rd GTS) 3m59s302 33. Pilgrim/Collins/Freon Chevrolet Corvette C5-R (5th GTS) 4m02s097 38. Luhr/Bernhard/Buckler Porsche 911 GT3-RS (1st GT) 4m11s486 40. Maassen/Bergmeister/Dumas Porsche 911 GT3-RS (2nd GT) 4m12s698 41. Riccitelli/Drudi/Rosa Porsche 911 GT3-RS (3rd GT) 4m14s644 |