02.07.2004 A brief but extremely heavy rain storm at the wrong time spoiled Friday’s quALIFYING for the Larbre Competition Ferrari 550 Maranello: FIRST LMES QUALIFYING SESSION REPORT FROM THE NURBURGRING

One of the four classic races of the Le Mans Endurance Series, the 1000kms of Nurburgring will see a field of 41 cars competing on the 5.137km Grand Prix track this weekend.

Night racing produces hallmark images of endurance racing and, with the six-hour race expected to finish at 10pm tomorrow, Saturday, after dusk on a summer night, the prospects for another classic event are excellent.

Larbre Competition will once again be campaigning the Care Racing owned and Prodrive built Ferrari 550 Maranello with which they won the GTS category at Monza’s opening round of the 2004 Le Mans Endurance Series in May. 

The team will benefit from the same driver line up, Christophe Bouchut (F), Pedro Lamy (P) and Steve Zacchia (CH).

They are hoping to make use of the wealth of knowledge which Lamy will have accumulated in the recent 24 Hours of Nurburgring where the Portuguese driver finished 2nd in a BMW.

Qualifying 1: Friday, 2nd July  2004

A brief but extremely heavy rain storm spoiled Friday’s qualifying session for the Larbre Competition team. Christophe Bouchut had left the pits in his Ferrari 550 at the start of the 45 minute session, when the track was dry, but the electronic readout on his dashboard was not working correctly so he returned to the pits for it to be fixed. By the time this was done, in only a matter of minutes, the rain had set in and the times set in the first ten minutes would not be improved upon for the remainder of the session.

The Frenchman was philosophical afterwards. “I didn’t think it would be safe for either me or the car to attempt a qualifying lap without all the dashboard data available so I came in. What a catastrophe! For us, qualifying will definitely be tomorrow.” 

GTS Friday Qualifying Times: 1 Bartels/Alzen/Konrad  Saleen S7-R  1:58.139, 2 Hezemans/Deletraz  Ferrari 575 GTC  1:59.437, 3  Kumpen/Hallyday/Besson   Chrysler Viper  2:01.876, 4  Gabbiani/Bennett   Saleen S7-R  2:04.720, 5 Biagi/Sullivan/Bosch  Ferrari 575 GTC  2:05.157, 6 Stanco/Knapfield/Abbelen   Saleen S7-R  2:06.048, 7 Bouchut/Lamy/Zacchia   Ferrari 550 Maranello  2:07.083