19.08.2004 Jean-Denis Deletraz, Andrea Piccini, Felipe Ortiz AND Beppe Gabbiani have tested the first Lamborghini Murcielago R-GT delivered to DAMS on the Bugatti race track at Le Mans

Jean-Denis Deletraz, Andrea Piccini, Felipe Ortiz and Beppe Gabbiani yesterday drove the first Lamborghini Murcielago R-GT delivered to DAMS on the Bugatti race track at Le Mans ahead of the first race for the French team, at Imola next month, in the 8th round of the FIA GT Championship.

DAMS boss Jean-Paul Driot explained the team, “This first test was very important for us in order to evaluate ourselves what is the potential of the car, but it was also the first work session  with our 4 drivers who never worked with the team before.

"The test was quite good, the car seems to be reliable and the drivers as well as the engineers have already made some big steps in the understanding of the car in order to show as soon as possible the the level of the car which seems to be potentially competitive.”

“We are happy with this test, even if we had a few problems at the beginning of the first day finally we did not have many problems, which is very positive and unusual for a complete new car," added Managaing and Technical Director, Eric Boullier.

"The relation between the drivers and the Team is really nice and this work session had a very good ambiance. Everybody is quite optimistic here in the team," he concluded.

Regular FIA GT series driver pairing Deletraz and Piccini, will drive one of the Lamborghini Murcielagos on the team's debut at Imola, while wealthy amateur Felipe Ortiz will be joined by the experienced Bebbe Gabbiani in a second R-GT, which will be delivered to DAMS by Reiter Engineering in time for the Italian race.

After their Imola debut on 5th September, the remaining races of the season for DAMS will be: 19th September at Oschersleben (Germany), October 9th at Dubai, before they head to China for final round of the season, which will be held on 14th November at Zuhai.