LM Qualifying 4 Times & Report Final Grid

QUALIFYING SESSION 4 TIMES & REPORT &
FINAL GRID

Photo Courtesy:ACO The sun set long ago, and now the garage doors have come down. The grid has been set for the 2000 24 Heures du Mans, and it's not much of a surprise - Audi have qualified 1-2-3.

The Aiello/Mcnish/Ortelli car claimed pole, courtesy of a 3:36.124 lap by Allan McNish. The other Audis pushed him close - less than a second covers the lead car, and the sister cars of Biela/Kristensen/Pirro and Alboreto/Abt/Capello.

The puzzle is, why are the times so slow - relatively, of course. The team reckon the Audi is significantly better than last year's car, yet McNish's time is over a second slower than they qualified last year - and over 6s off Martin Brundle's killer pole lap, in the Toyota GT-One, from 1999. McNish was at a loss to explain, saying that the warmer temperatures might have something to do with it, and also that the track may offer less grip.

The nearest challenger to the Audi dominance was the Panoz LMP1 of Brabham/Magnussen/Andretti, and that was just over 3s away from pole. The Lola-Judd of Schiattarella/de Radigues/Naspetti is a further half a second back in fifth. The Courage-Judd of Gache/Formato/Cottaz was sixth - an impressive performance, given that the French team has no works backing. The Cadillac team made some progress, with the DAMS-run car of Collard/Bernard/Montagny ninth overall. Leitzinger/Lagorce/Wallace were a couple of places further back, but Wallace claims they didn't get everything out of the car. "On my first run, the tyre compound was too soft - the qualifiers didn't even last a lap," he explained. "On my second run, the tyres lasted two laps - on the first, I came across two slower cars, and on the second lap, I got put on the grass at Indianapolis by a slower car that shut the door. We could have run a 3:40 if everything had gone our way."

In the GTS category, the Beretta/Wendlinger/Dupuy Chrysler Viper remained on top of the heap, even though they didn't get within 5s of Wednesday's time. 1.6s back was the Chevrolet Corvette of Fellows/Kneifel/Bell - and, impressively, it was Ron Fellows who did the time, despite this being his first visit to Le Mans as a racer. The sister Corvette of Pilgrim/Collins/Freon was third quickest, less than 0.7s slower than Fellows' best lap, with the Viper of Archer/Duez/Huisman fourth quickest. The final two hours of the session was punctuated by a red flag, caused when the Porsche 911 GT3-R of Fukuyama/Yogo/Lambert rolled at Arnage. But by then the track was fully dark, and improvements were few and far between. The Debora LMP team will be sweating overnight - the Goudy/Lemarie/Yvon car failed to meet the 110% requirement within the LMP 675 category, falling a tantalising 0.113s short. The team must hope that the ACO decide to allow them to start the race, despite this minor detail.

Regards, Martin Buck, Jon Baker, Adam Fox & 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 3:37.086
4  11 LMP     Panoz          David Brabham /Jan Magnussen /Mario Andretti     3:39.156
5  21 LMP     Lola-Judd      M. Schiattarella/Didier De Radigues/E. Naspetti  3:39.651
6  17 LMP     Courage-Judd   Philippe Gache /Gary Formato /Didier Cottaz      3:39.917
7  24 LMP     Reynard-Judd   Stefan Johansson /Jim Matthews /Guy Smith        3:40.124
8  12 LMP     Panoz          Johnny O’Connell/Hiroki Katoh/P.H. Raphanel      3:41.359
9   3 LMP     Cadillac       Eric Bernard / Emmanuel Collard/ Franck Montagny 3:42.616
10 20 LMP     Lola-Ford      Jan Lammers /Tom Coronel /Peter Kox              3:43.188
11  1 LMP     Cadillac       Franck Lagorce /Butch Letizinger/Andy Wallace    3:43.598
12 23 LMP     Panoz          Masahiko Kageyama/Masami Kageyama /Toshio Suzuki 3:44.599
13 22 LMP     Panoz          Masahiko Kondo /Keiichi Tsuchiya /Akira Iida     3:44.627
14  5 LMP     Reynard-Mopar  Yannick Dalmas/Nicolas Minassian/ J.-P. Belloc   3:44.807
15 10 LMP     Panoz          John Nielsen / Mauro Baldi /Klaus Graf           3:44.964
16  2 LMP     Cadillac       Wayne Taylor / Max Angelelli / Eric v.d. Poele   3:45.655
17 16 LMP     Courage        O. Grouillard/Stephane Bourdais/Emmanuel Clerico 3:45.771
18 34 LMP 675 Reynard-VW     Jerome Policand /J.-C. Bouillion/Jordi Gene      3:46.202
19 33 LMP 675 Reynard-VW     Ralf Kelleners /David Terrien /J.-D. Deletraz    3:46.319
20  4 LMP     Cadillac       Marc Goosens /Christophe Tinseau/Kristian Kolby  3:47.056
21 15 LMP     BMW            Thomas Bscher /Geoff Lees /Jean-Marc Gounon      3:47.493
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   3:52.645
24 51 GTS     Chrysler Viper Dominique Dupuy /Karl Wendlinger/Olivier Beretta 3:56.327
25 63 GTS     Chevy Corvette Ron Fellows /Chris Kneifel /Justin Bell          3:57.933
26 64 GTS     Chevy Corvette Andy Pilgrim /Kelly Collins /Franck Freon        3:58.615
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 59 GTS     Porsche GT2    Wolfgang Kaufmann/Yukihiro Hane/K. Iketani       4:03.825
31 56 GTS     Chrysler Viper Walter Brun / Toni Seiler /Christian Gläsel      4:04.058
32 54 GTS     Chrysler Viper Boris  Derichebourg/Guy Martinolle/J.-C. Lagniez 4:04.312
33 36 LMP 675 WR-Peugeot     Sylvain Boulay /Richard Balandras /Yojiro Terada 4:04.777
34 57 GTS     Chrysler Viper Mike Hezemans /David Hart /Hans Hugenholtz       4:05.643
35 60 GTS     Porsche GT2    Tommy Kendall / C. Slater /Jürgen von Gartzen    4:08.706
36 30 LMP 675 Debora-BMW     Patrick Lemarie /J.-F. Yvon /Yann Goudy          4:08.935
37 77 GT      Porsche GT3R   Christophe Bouchut /P. Goueslard /J.-L. Chereau  4:09.712
38 83 GT      Porsche GT3R   Dirk Müller /Lucas Luhr /Bob Wollek              4:10.008
39 76 GT      Porsche GT3R   Michel Neugarten /Tony Burgess /Max Cohen-Olivar 4:15.170
40 71 GT      Porsche GT3R   Shane Lewis /Cort Wagner /Bob Mazzuoccola        4:15.652
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      4:19.329
44 79 GT      Porsche GT3R   Thierry Perrier /J.-L. Ricci /Romano Ricci       4:20.046
45 73 GT      Porsche GT3R   Hideo Fukuyama /Atsushi Yogo /Bruno Lambert      4:21.040
46 80 GT      Porsche GT3R   Philip Verellen /Rudi Penders /Kent Dujardin     4:21.320
47 75 GT      Porsche GT3R   Michael Lauer/Michael Brockman/Gunnar Jeannette  4:22.981 
48 78 GT      Porsche GT3R   J-L Maury-Laribiere/Bernard Chauvin /A. Zadra    4:25.078

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Last updated June 15,2000