Rising Japanese sportscar star Hiroki Katoh took pole for the fifth round of the FIA Sportscar Championship at Magny Cours this afternoon in the Dome S101 Judd that he shares with John Nielsen.
The impish Tokyo resident emerged four tenths quicker than Audi Le Mans star Christian Pescatori's Ferrari 333SP and immediately extolled the virtues of his playstation that he had been practising on to learn the sinuous French Grand Prix track: "I did many laps on the playstation game and it looks like it has helped me too," said the Den Bla Avis Goh driver.
The Danish/Japanese alliance are proving the team to beat at the moment as they also celebrated their first win at Brno earlier this month. Team principal and driver John Nielsen is now confident of reducing the 19 point gap to series leader Marco Zadra tomorrow afternoon: "Everything has gone really well and both Hiroki and I are very comfortable with the car at the moment. We just have to chip away at the deficit and we would like to start that with taking a good chunk of it on raceday."
Christian Pescatori had made the early running in the 333SP that he has returned too after missing the last two rounds due to clashing GT commitments. The Italian was also part of the works Audi team at Le Mans and finished second, but his heart is still with the Prancing Horse: "I just love driving this car and as we are seeing, we can still give the new cars some trouble. I am fighting for the championship, not for me but for Marco who is in with a good chance."
In a spectacular third was the Kremer Racing Lola of Jean Marc Gounon and Britons Sam Hancock. Gounon, who only sat in the car for the first time this morning, hurled the Roush engined car around the 2.64 mile track and tried with all his might to threaten the the front row positions. It all came to an end on his final lap when he spun wildly at the Nurburgring Esses before collecting it all together and powering off in a blur of tyre smoke and grass.
The second of the Domes driven by 1988 Le Mans winner Jan Lammers and his young Belgian team mate Val Hillebrand starts 4th. Behind them is the Courage C60 Peugeot run by the local Pescarolo Sport team who chose to concentrate more on race set up and trying different compounds of tyres.
Werner Lupberger and Ben Collins will only start a rather disappointing 7th after experiencing extreme oversteer in their Judd powered A410,while the Redman Bright Reynard of Peter Owen and Mark Smithson line up 10th.
The SR2 battle was as close as ever with Massimo Monti once again being the star and claiming both his and the little BM Autosport teams second pole position on the trot. Massimo will do the absolute maximum tomorrow as team mate Renato Nobili has a fever and only completed 10 exploratory laps in the morning free practice session.
Just behind them was the Lola of Thed Bjork and Larry Oberto who ended the session just six tenths shy of top spot. Bjork was on schedule to grab the pole but did a Gounon and spun dramatically albeit in the rather safer environs of the slow right hander before the pit straight.
Audisio & Benvenuto drivers Roberto Tonetti and Massimo Saccomanno are 4th on the SR2 grid and the other Lucchini of Giuseppe Peroni and local ace Jean Bernard Bouvet are 5th.
Martin O'Connell will start 3rd with Irish team mate Warren Carway in their Pilbeam Nissan, knowing that they have to win to keep in the championship hunt. The all British team of series debutant Phil Andrews and young team mate Michael Mallock start 7th in the Roy Baker run Tampolli Alfa.
Click pic to go back to homepage:
Email me with comments or visit my guest book Guest Book
Created and Designed by Joe Favata
