COUNTDOWN TO LE MANS 24 HOURS RACE STARTS FOR ALEX YOONG
The countdown to the 2007 Le Mans 24 Hours race began in earnest yesterday at the French circuit with the first two qualifying sessions taking place in the afternoon and evening. A1 Team Malaysia driver, Alex Yoong, is contesting the famed endurance race for the second time, sharing a CRS Lola Judd sportscar with German Stefan Mucke and A1 Team Czech Republic driver, Jan Charouz, finishing 11th fastest at the end of today’s track time.
Celebrating the 75th running of the event, 54 cars will be competing for the Le Mans 24 Hours trophy and prestigious victory, conquering one of the most challenging motor races in the sport.
The first of the sessions, from 7 – 9pm local time, started in cloudy, dry weather, but as the session moved towards the end of the second hour rain at the far side of the track sent all the teams changing to wet, grooved tyres. Yoong was the first of the three CRS drivers to test the conditions of the 13.6km Le Mans circuit today and with the car suffering understeer he felt its effects on a quick lap with an uncharacteristic spin from the Malaysian driver. He kept the car off the barriers and was able to return to the track, pitting for a precautionary check of the car before continuing with his practice laps. Returning to the track Yoong upped his pace to post the team’s fastest lap of the session and of the day, although still compromised by traffic on the track. With all three drivers needing time in the car Yoong then handed the car over to Jan Charouz to continue the team’s preparations for Saturday’s race.
A dramatic accident for one of the Lamborghinis stopped the session for most of the second hour which limited the time available to the CRS team, but they were out on track as much as possible to make the most of their running time and to continue developing the car setup.
Yoong said of the first session, “We didn’t get the amount of running that we had anticipated with red flag stoppages and the bad weather limiting our track time today and never really giving us the opportunity to put in a qualifying run. We’re lying 11th quickest, but I don’t think that’s indicative of our pace and I hope tomorrow we’ll have a chance to go for a time.”
The second session ran from 10pm – midnight local time and with each driver having to qualify both in daylight and darkness the three drivers took turns to put the car through its paces with headlights beaming down on to the track. With light rain and a wet track the session didn’t see much improvement in laptimes. By the end of the second session CRS had turned the 11th quickest lap.
Yoong added, “We had to make sure all three drivers had runs in darkness, and with Stefan and Jan driving at this event for the first time, they needed to experience racing at night ahead of the weekend. In the closing stages of the evening session some teams put on new tyres and went for a qualifying run, but we kept to our programme and made sure my team mates had completed the mandatory night laps.”
“We need some better weather tomorrow so that we can have the full quote of four hours running, as that’s the last time we’ll be in the car before the final warm up on Saturday morning.”
Yoong and his team mates are driving with CRS in an all-new Lola Judd LMP 1B07-17 prototype sports racing car, in the LMP1 category of the Le Mans 24 Hour race. Two further sessions of qualifying take place Thursday from 7 – 9pm and 10pm – midnight. A free day on Friday offers fans the chance to visit the pits and view the race cars close up before the weekend kicks off, with a morning warm up preceding the 24 hour race start at 3pm local time.
The Le Mans 24 hour race will be televised by ASTRO in Malaysia.
