11.09.2004 Pedro Lamy qualified the no 86 Larbre Ferrari 550 Maranello 2nd in GTS, as the team, running two cars, bid to wrap up the title tomorrow: Larbre Competition LMES qualifying report from Spa

A race-winning Ferrari 550 Maranello of Larbre Competition, entered in the LMES in association with Care Racing, owners of the car, is ideally placed to secure the GTS title in tomorrow’s final round of the series having been qualified second in class by Pedro Lamy this afternoon.

It is supported for this race only by a second 550, in the hands of Tomas Enge, Patrick Goueslard and Robert Pergl – Enge reunited with the same car in which he set the stunning GTS pole position time at Le Mans in June.  

It could easily have been different, thanks to a number of red flag incidents which interrupted both qualifying sessions.

A damp track awaited the competitors this morning so team principal, Jack Leconte, elected to hold back both the Ferrari 550s until a dry line appeared.

Just ten minutes of the session remained when cars 86 and 87 took to the track. They had barely managed to complete a full lap when the session was red-flagged and there was not quite enough time to get the tyres fully up to optimum temperature with a clear lap once the session was re-started.

As Jack Leconte wryly noted, “We needed just one more lap.” This afternoon’s 45 minute session included two stoppages for red flag incidents, but not before Pedro Lamy had managed to set his best time of 2m19.301. He was unfortunately not able to better this during the session and neither was Patrice Goueslard who was tasked with qualifying the second car.

Pedro Lamy (P), car 86: “My quickest lap was spoilt by the red flag. On my first lap out I had a lot of traffic, the second was better but then I got the flag which was a real shame. There was another one [red flag] just five minutes later which meant that we didn’t get a proper chance to have another go. The car feels good and the lap was not bad. I’m not too unhappy as we’ve won races before without being on pole – we can do it again.”

Patrick Goueslard (F), car 87: “The car feels very different here to the one we have in the FFSA French GT series, particularly the tyres and the suspension system, but that’s not a bad thing at all!

"I was very comfortable with the car in free practice yesterday but this morning it was damp and then this afternoon I only had one lap before it was red flagged. I’m a bit disappointed but a six hour race is long enough that anything can happen.”

GTS qualifying times of combined sessions: 1st Alzen/Bartels/Konrad Saleen S7-R 2:18.221, 2nd Bouchut/Lamy/Zacchia Ferrari 550 Maranello 2:19.301, 3 Biagi/Bosch/Sullivan Ferrari 575 GTC 2:21.198, 4th Bennett/Leslie/Whight Saleen S7-R 2:22.417, 5th Enge/Goueslard/Pergl Ferrari 550 Maranello 2:24.511, 6th Deletraz/Hezemans Ferrari 575 GTC 2.33.495