14.11.2004 "It is frustrating because we had some interesting improvements this weekend after the development we have made" DAMS Lamborghini FIA GT race report from Zuhai

Once again, transmission problems stopped the leading DAMS Lamborghini Murcielago R-GT of Andrea Pccini and Jean-Denis Deletraz during an FIA GT race.

Piccini started well and had no problems staying in the leading group, composed of Maserati, Ferrari and Saleen cars. However, no more that 15 minutes after the start, the car came in with a transmission problem. The crew tried to make a quick repair in order to get back in the race, but when Piccini went back on the track it became clear after only a few laps that the car would not make the distance.

Eric Boullier, Managing and Technical director: “Today we had everything needed to finish in the top five. Our lap times were good, Andrea was running with the quick 575’s and we could have finished in front of them. It is frustrating because we had some interesting improvements this weekend after the development we have made.”

For the first time of the history of FIA GT, three Chinese drivers finished a race. Michael Choi, Philip Ma and Samson Chan managed to run nearly 200 laps in total over the weekend, without any experience of the car, and took it to the finish with big satisfaction for them.

This experience was very positive for both the drivers and the team and everyone is looking forward to doing it again in the future.

The weekend had started on a more positive note for the French team, and along with most of the other cars, the Lamborghini's had set their best qualifying time's during the morning session yesterday. Andrea Piccini set his quickest time only 1.4 seconds from the pole to confirm what the team expected after the work done by DAMS technical department in the last few weeks. The car also showed a big improvement in reliability.

“As the cars came straight from Dubai we could not work on them or test anything during that time”, said Boullier, after qualifying yesterday. “Then we decided to prepare some development parts in our workshop based on the experience of the previous races and bring them to test them here in China. The results are quite good.

"For the first time since the beginning of this program we have spent the two days of practice and qualifying without any problem on either car, and we have never been so close to the top. It is a shame that so many cars are within 1.4 seconds of the pole, with three tenths less we would have been in the top six.”

Andrea Piccini commented after qualifying: “If you look at the performance of the Ferrari 575s, most of them are behind us and they are at a higher stage of development than us. The team has done a very good job, it is the first time we can run the car so long and work on the set up of the car without being stopped by reliability problems. It shows that we are making progress and we expect a good race. Jean-Denis Deletraz is quick and we should make a very good driver team for tomorrow’s race.”

Philip Ma, Michael Choi and Samson Chan from Hong Kong had qualified in 26th position without any problems during two days. They joined the team without any experience of the Murcielago, also they never drove a race car with so much power before.

The team is satisfied with their performance over Friday practice and yesterday's qualifying, as they never tried to go over their limits and take risks that could have ended in bad circumstances. They improved their driving and their lap times step by step, the relation with the team was good.