TEAM CADILLAC AND CORVETTE RACING FURTHER IMPROVE QUALIFYING TIMES
LE MANS, June 13, 2002 – Team Cadillac and Corvette Racing further improved their times in today's second qualifying session for this weekend's 70th running of the world-famed Le Mans 24 Hours. Frenchman Emmanuel Collard moved up from 12th to eighth on the grid, improving his time by a massive four and a half seconds. Both Cadillacs qualified in the top ten, improving their May testing times by some six seconds and thus significantly reducing the gap to the lead cars.
"Yesterday's and today's results in qualifying are the result of the intense testing program we have conducted since May 5," Cadillac LMP Program Manager Doug Duchardt said. "We tested the car on the 7-poster rig and worked a lot on the dampers and springs to reduce the porpoising we had in May. We then further reduced that effect with a number of aerodynamic tests in Lake City, on one of NASA's space shuttle landing strips. We then verified all that and tested the durability of the car in Atlanta. In the meantime the different entities involved in this program are working closer together than ever before. We have our design people in the UK, the team in Atlanta and the GM Racing engineers in Michigan, so it hasn't always been easy. But now the team is working closer together than ever before, which of course is as instrumental in our performance as is any of the technical aspects."
At Corvette Racing team and drivers further fine-tuned the race set-up on the cars, Oliver Gavin in the process bettering his time by four seconds. "I wasn't even on qualifying tires when I made that lap," Gavin said. "It was just a soft race tire and we were looking to see if we could run it."
"We haven't put on any qualifying tires this week, because we prefer to concentrate on working towards the best possible race set-up, which is also why we've been running on full tanks all the time," Corvette Program Manager Doug Fehan said. "Goodyear has developed a new tire for us which makes our life a lot easier and the cars a lot faster in race trim, so we're happy with what we've achieved in yesterday's and today's practice sessions."
The 70th Le Mans 24 Hours start at 4pm on Saturday.
70th Le Mans 24 Hours – Times first and second qualifying session combined
| 1. |
Capello/Herbert/Pescatori |
Audi R8 |
3m29s905 |
| 2. |
Biela/Pirro/Kristensen |
Audi R8 |
3m30s219 |
| 3. |
Krumm/Peter/Werner |
Audi R8 |
3m30s801 |
| 4. |
Montagny/Minassian/Sarrazin |
Dallara-Judd |
3m31s828 |
| 5. |
Lammers/Hillebrand/Coronel |
Dome-Judd S101 |
3m32s734 |
| 6. |
Bailey/Blundell/McGarrity |
MG Lola EX257 Le Mans (1st LMP675) |
3m33s254 |
| 7. |
Lamy/Comas/Beretta |
Dallara-Judd |
3m33s403 |
| 8. |
Bernard/Collard/Lehto |
Cadillac Northstar LMP 02 |
3m33s569 |
| 9. |
Brabham/Magnussen/Herta |
Panoz LMP-01 Evo |
3m34s824 |
| 10. |
Angelelli/Taylor/Tinseau |
Cadillac Northstar LMP 02 |
3m35s042 |
| 12. |
Reid/Hughes/Kane |
MG Lola EX257 Le Mans (2nd LMP675) |
3m36s694 |
| 20. |
Knight/Hawkins/Dayton |
MG Lola EX257 Le Mans (3rd LMP675) |
3m47s967 |
| 28. |
Rydell/Menu/Enge |
Ferrari 550 Maranello (1st GTS) |
3m54s091 |
| 29. |
Fellows-/O'Connell/Gavin |
Chevrolet Corvette C5-R (2nd GTS) |
3m54s903 |
| 30. |
Bouchut/Goueslard/Vosse |
Chrysler Viper GTS-R (3rd GTS) |
3m57s116 |
| 32. |
Pilgrim/Collins/Freon |
Chevrolet Corvette C5-R (5th GTS) |
3m57s972 |
| 39. |
Luhr/Bernhard/Buckler |
Porsche 911 GT3-RS (1st GT) |
4m10s803 |
| 40. |
Maassen/Bergmeister/Dumas |
Porsche 911 GT3-RS (2nd GT) |
4m12s698 |
| 41. |
Drudi/Rosa/Riccitelli |
Porsche 911 GT3-RS (3rd GT) |
4m12s908 |
|
