le mans: maison blanche qualifying report

["Dave Eaton" <Dave.Eaton@clear.net.nz>]

qualifying session 2 report.  note that the audi r8r's were working on race
pace,not qualifying pace throughout the session and still went faster.  i
think joest might be pretty pleased now...

dave
'95 rs2
'90 ur-q
'88 mb 2.3-16
-------------------
The big news is unfortunately of another accident. Thankfully, this time the
driver suffered just bruising. Mark Webber was 30 minutes into the first of
the days sessions between Mulsanne corner and Indianapolis, one of the
fastest stretches now the chicanes split the Mulsanne straight, when
following an Audi, he moved aside to overtake and air obviously got under
the car and it replicated Yannick Dalmas' frightening backflip at last
year's Petit Le Mans. The car apparently flipped right over and landed back
on all four wheels, breaking the suspension on all four corners and splaying
the wheels. The undertray also became detached. Norbert Haug told us that
Mark Webber's thoughts during the accident were concern that the car didn't
scale the barriers. The team are feverishly working to get the car race
ready - it will be touch and go to get it ready for the warm-up on race
morning.

Toyota didn't get drawn into a fight, assuming (correctly) that Martin
Brundle's time would be safe. The team just concentrated on race set-up.
Another to do that were Audi who found both R8Rs went faster!

Performance of the session went to JJ Lehto in the number 17 BMW, who had an
enthralling battle with Bernd Schneider in number 6 Mercedes in the closing
stages of the first part of the session. Lehto nipped in for fastest overall
for this session right at the end, pipping Schneider by 0.332 seconds for
the honours. The Mercedes driver tried to reclaim the position at the start
of the last part of the session but to no avail. The car was yet again using
parts of the track not intended for racing to gain those valuable tenths and
looked very ragged at times.

Panoz dropped from third to fifth with the number 12 car as both cars
concentrated on race set-up. Audi UK had a mixed session. Number 9 only came
out towards the end of the first part after a major geometry re-jig, but
managed to take over two seconds of it's Wednesday time. Number 10 was
stranded for a while at Mulsanne corner with no drive, but ultimately
managed to take over six seconds of the previous day's best to move into
20th.

The surviving R391 Nissan improved by four seconds to move into 12th, having
increased the downforce and the car now feels good on both full and empty
tanks according to Satoshi Motoyama.