Under blue skies and with soaring temperatures during the day, the Care Racing supported Ferrari 550 Maranello of Christophe Bouchut set pole position time for the second round of the FIA GT Championship at Magny Cours this weekend.

The Frenchman, driving the Cirtek Motorsport-prepared Russian Age Racing Ferrari, set his time in the cooler and faster morning qualifying session to head the 31-car field by three tenths of a second.

The weather, and consequent tyre choice, is expected to play a large part in the outcome of the race, with drivers anticipating temperature-related problems for the 500km event. As the thermometers nudged 27 degrees Centigrade for qualifying, the prospect is for even higher temperatures during the race.

"Setting the pole position anywhere is very nice," said Bouchut, who will share the car with Russians Nikolay Fomenko and Alexey Vasiliev. "The car was on the limit and we had a perfect set-up. We have three drivers, which is not the ideal number for a three hour race, but we will do our best. Our objective was to do well in qualifying, and we expect to be in a good finishing position tomorrow."

Tyre choice will be critical in the outcome of the race. Bouchut's qualifying time was set on softer compound Michelin tyres, compared with the Larbre Competition Ferrari 550 Maranellos, which both opted for medium compound tyres.
 

Both of the Larbre cars suffered understeer problems which improved during the day, but they will line up ninth and 11th for tomorrow's race. "We still have some understeer and we have to take a decision now whether to make more changes to the car," said Pedro Lamy. "Perhaps we should have gone for the harder compound tyres, which might have helped tomorrow, but we will see."

Enzo Calderari, who will line up 11th on the grid in the car he shares with Steve Zacchia and Lilian Bryner, also improved the set-up of the car for the afternoon session. "The car has improved, but it will be a long race," said the Swiss. "I think there will be a lot of issues during the race due to this weather, so we will just have to see."

Care Racing supported Ferrari 550 Maranellos: Larbre Competition: Car 11: Pedro Lamy (P) / Gabriele Gardel (CH); Car 12: Lilian Bryner (CH) / Enzo Calderari (CH) / Steve Zacchia (CH); Russian Age Racing: Car 17: Christophe Bouchut (F) / Nikolay Fomenko (RUS) / Alexey Vasiliev