LM Qualifying 3 Times & Report

QUALIFYING SESSION 3 TIMES & REPORT

Photo Courtesy:ACO With the sun beating down on the Le Mans circuit, few people expected times to improve during the first half of Thursday's qualifying session. But after the first hour, the Audi team began to gradually work on their times, battling between themselves for the coveted pole position.

Allan McNish was the first to improve, removing Rinaldo Capello from the overnight pole, before relinquishing the top spot to Tom Kristensen in the #8 car. McNish proceeded first to equal Kristensen's time of 3:36.650. McNish's next improvement took him to exactly the same time as Kristensen, before regaining provisional pole with fifteen minutes remaining. His best lap was 3:36.124.

After spending much of yesterday in the pits with a power problem, Philippe Gache took out the #17 SMG Courage C60 and proceeded to confirm the speed the car had shown in April's preliminary test sessions. Gache first knocked nearly three seconds off their time to move up into the top ten, before further improving to fifth with a time of 3:39.917.

Le Mans rookie Guy Smith, driving the #24 Johannson Matthews Reynard, also improved, setting a time of 3:43.495, and moving up to seventh, before being knocked down to eighth by Gache's Courage C60.

There were mixed fortunes for the Cadillacs. The #1 Team Cadillac Northstar slid to fourteenth place, while, despite an improvement of more than a second, the #2 car lost a place for eighteenth overall. Emmanuel Collard, in the #3 DAMS Cadillac Northstar, knocked four seconds off their Wednesday time, rising to tenth overall. But the #4 DAMS car, which already lost much of the second half of yesterday's session after an engine failure, was stranded by the side of the track with an electrical problem, with Kristian Kolby at the wheel.

Fastest car on the track in the GTS class was the #64 Corvette C5-R, driven by Pilgrim, Collins and Freon. Their time of 3:58.615 was over two seconds faster than their previous best, and moved the car up to second in GTS, behind Karl Wendlinger's provisional pole, set on Wednesday evening in the #51 Oreca Chrysler Viper. With two hours of qualifying remaining, the two Corvettes are currently sandwiched between the two leading Oreca Vipers, promising a great class battle for Saturday's race.

Le Mans winner Christophe Bouchut set a stunning lap of 4:09.712 to take provisional pole in the GT category, demoting the favourite Dick Barbour Racing Porsche to second. There were plenty of improvements amongst the masses of Porsche 911 GT3-Rs, with the Aspen Knolls and Haberthur cars both knocking over five seconds off their Wednesday times.

Jacquie Groom


Pos # Class   Car                                 Drivers                      Time

1   9 LMP     Audi           Allan McNish /Stephane Ortelli/Laurent Aiello    3:36.124
2   8 LMP     Audi           Frank Biela /Emanuele Pirro /Tom Kristensen      3:36.650
3   7 LMP     Audi           Michele Alboreto/ Christian Abt /Rinaldo Capello 3:37.523
4  11 LMP     Panoz          David Brabham /Jan Magnussen /Mario Andretti     3:39.156
5  17 LMP     Courage-Judd   Philippe Gache /Gary Formato /Didier Cottaz      3:39.917
6  12 LMP     Panoz          Johnny O’Connell/Hiroki Katoh/P.H. Raphanel      3:41.359
7  21 LMP     Lola-Judd      M. Schiattarella/Didier De Radigues/E. Naspetti  3:42.188
8  24 LMP     Reynard-Judd   Stefan Johansson /Jim Matthews /Guy Smith        3:42.466
9  20 LMP     Lola-Ford      Jan Lammers /Tom Coronel /Peter Kox              3:43.188
10  3 LMP     Cadillac       Eric Bernard / Emmanuel Collard/ Franck Montagny 3:43.442
11 23 LMP     Panoz          Masahiko Kageyama/Masami Kageyama /Toshio Suzuki 3:44.599
12 22 LMP     Panoz          Masahiko Kondo /Keiichi Tsuchiya /Akira Iida     3:44.627
13  5 LMP     Reynard-Mopar  Yannick Dalmas/Nicolas Minassian/ J.-P. Belloc   3:44.807
14  1 LMP     Cadillac       Franck Lagorce /Butch Letizinger/Andy Wallace    3:44.854
15 16 LMP     Courage        O. Grouillard/Stephane Bourdais/Emmanuel Clerico 3:45.771
16 10 LMP     Panoz          John Nielsen / Mauro Baldi /Klaus Graf           3:46.179
17 34 LMP 675 Reynard-VW     Jerome Policand /J.-C. Bouillion/Jordi Gene      3:46.202
18  2 LMP     Cadillac       Wayne Taylor / Max Angelelli / Eric v.d. Poele   3:46.935
19  4 LMP     Cadillac       Marc Goosens /Christophe Tinseau/Kristian Kolby  3:47.056
20 33 LMP 675 Reynard-VW     Ralf Kelleners /David Terrien /J.-D. Deletraz    3:48.006
21 15 LMP     BMW            Thomas Bscher /Geoff Lees /Jean-Marc Gounon      3:51.390
22  6 LMP     Reynard-Mopar  Didier Theys / Jeffrey v. Hooydonk/Didier Andre  3:52.522
23 35 LMP 675 WR-Peugeot     Stephane Daoudi /Xavier Pompidou /J.-B. Bouvet   3:52.664
24 51 GTS     Chrysler Viper Dominique Dupuy /Karl Wendlinger/Olivier Beretta 3:56.327
25 64 GTS     Chevy Corvette Andy Pilgrim /Kelly Collins /Franck Freon        3:58.615
26 63 GTS     Chevy Corvette Ron Fellows /Chris Kneifel /Justin Bell          3:58.636
27 52 GTS     Chrysler Viper Marc Duez /Patrick Huisman /Tommy Archer         3:59.199
28 53 GTS     Chrysler Viper Ni Amorim /Anthony Beltoise /David Donohue       4:02.837
29 32 LMP 675 Lola-Nissan    Scott Maxwell / John Graham /Greg Wilkins        4:03.184
30 56 GTS     Chrysler Viper Walter Brun / Toni Seiler /Christian Gläsel      4:04.058
31 54 GTS     Chrysler Viper Boris  Derichebourg/Guy Martinolle/J.-C. Lagniez 4:04.312
32 36 LMP 675 WR-Peugeot     Sylvain Boulay /Richard Balandras /Yojiro Terada 4:04.777
33 57 GTS     Chrysler Viper Mike Hezemans /David Hart /Hans Hugenholtz       4:05.643
34 59 GTS     Porsche GT2    Wolfgang Kaufmann/Yukihiro Hane/K. Iketani       4:09.299
35 77 GT      Porsche GT3R   Christophe Bouchut /P. Goueslard /J.-L. Chereau  4:09.712
36 83 GT      Porsche GT3R   Dirk Müller /Lucas Luhr /Bob Wollek              4:10.008
37 30 LMP 675 Debora-BMW     Patrick Lemarie /J.-F. Yvon /Yann Goudy          4:11.237
38 60 GTS     Porsche GT2    Tommy Kendall / C. Slater /Jürgen von Gartzen    4:11.615
39 71 GT      Porsche GT3R   Shane Lewis /Cort Wagner /Bob Mazzuoccola        4:15.652
40 76 GT      Porsche GT3R   Michel Neugarten /Tony Burgess /Max Cohen-Olivar 4:16.208
41 81 GT      Porsche GT3R   Gabrio Rosa /Fabio Babini /Michel Ligonnet       4:17.442
42 82 GT      Porsche GT3R   Johnny Mowlem /David Murry /Sascha Maassen       4:19.234
43 72 GT      Porsche GT3R   G. Lavaggi /T. Saldaña /Jesus D. Villarroel      4:20.476
44 73 GT      Porsche GT3R   Hideo Fukuyama /Atsushi Yogo /Bruno Lambert      4:21.040
45 79 GT      Porsche GT3R   Thierry Perrier /J.-L. Ricci /Romano Ricci       4:21.382
46 80 GT      Porsche GT3R   Philip Verellen /Rudi Penders /Kent Dujardin     4:22.432
47 78 GT      Porsche GT3R   J-L Maury-Laribiere/Bernard Chauvin /A. Zadra    4:25.078
48 75 GT      Porsche GT3R   Michael Lauer/Michael Brockman/Gunnar Jeannette  4:27.726

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Last updated June 15,2000