LMS testing results?

[gato]

How Fisi has done at the testing days? the first day is tomorrow and te last on Monday. no statistic yet at lemans.com site until Monday.

[Alianora La Canta]

I guess we'll just have to keep our eyes peeled and listen to Radio Le Mans to keep ourselves up-to-date.

[gato]

I guess we'll just have to keep our eyes peeled and listen to Radio Le Mans to keep ourselves up-to-date.

Thanks Ali for the info . What time Fisi's class is testing today? I think that the time difference is -1h to my country so the testing is about 3 pm today afternoon? There was live timing too at the same site, have you ever tried that? I don't know which language they use at radio broadcasting because I don't understand french.
BTW: The Force India's boss got sack because he relieved to media too early that Fisi was going to Ferrari.

[Alianora La Canta]

Radio Le Mans is in English. Unfortunately it's been broadcasting NASCAR and ALMS races all afternoon, which isn't much help as the LMS test is in progress (the daylight part finishes in 15 minutes).

The night test begins at 6pm GMT and finishes at 11pm GMT. In case you're wondering, the Fisichella/Alesi/Vilander car is #95 (and no, this does not mean there are 94 other entries, or even that there 19 other cars in the GT2 class - there are 12 GT2 cars and 40 cars total).

Other cars and drivers you may find interesting are:

#5 (LMP1) Beechdean Mansell (which has Nigel, Leo and Greg Mansell)
#12 (LMP1) Rebellion Racing (Nicholas Prost/Neel Jani/Marco Andretti)
#13 (LMP1) Rebellion Racing (Andrea Belicchi/Jean-Christophe Boullion/Guy Smith)
#52 (GT1) Young Driver AMR (Tomas Enge/Christoffer Nygaard/Peter Kox)
#61 (GT1) Matech Competition (Thomas Mutsch/Natacha Gachnang/Cyndie Allemann/Rahel Frey/Enrique Bernoldi)
#91 (GT2) CRS Racing (Andrew Kirkaldy/Tim Mullen/Nicola Larini)
#96 (GT2) AF Corse* (Gianmaria Bruni/Jaime Melo)

* - Yes, AF Corse are putting three cars in this year's LMS Series (the Fisichella/Alesi/Vilander one is the second car according to the number system, the Bruni/Melo one is the third). I'm not sure we'll see Jaime Melo though as he appears to have a conflicting engagement in the ALMS race that's happening right now about 4000 miles away from Paul Ricard!

[Alianora La Canta]

Tomorrow's test starts at 8:00 AM GMT, has a lunch/conference break for one hour at 12 noon and finishes at 4PM GMT.

[Alianora La Canta]

Apparently JMW Motorsport was 2nd in GT2 in the daylight session. I'm currently relying on Twitter until Autosport updates and am looking for what happened to the other 11 GT2 cars...

The night LMS session starts now.

EDIT: I've also just discovered that Giancarlo Fisichella, Jean Alesi and Nigel Mansell will be in the pre-season LMS press conference tomorrow.

[Alianora La Canta]

A report on the first LMS test session has been published.

The pace-setter in GT2 was the #96 AF Corse, piloted by Gianmaria Bruni. The Fisichella/Alesi/Vilander car was 8th of 12, 1.366 second off the pace. Given that two-thirds of the line-up is new to LMS, this is perhaps to be expected.

#96- AF Corse - Ferrari F430 GT - 1:59.391
#92 – JMW Motorsport - Aston Martin V8 Vantage - 1:59.962
#77 - Team Felbermayr Proton - Porsche 997 GT3 RSR – 2:00.215
#76 – IMSA Performance Matmut - Porsche 997 GT3 RSR - 2:00.381
#94 – AF Corse - Ferrari F430 GT - 2:00.488
#75 – Prospeed Competition - Porsche 997 GT3 RSR - 2:00:570
#91 – CRS Racing - Ferrari F430 GT - 2:00.632
#95 – AF Corse - Ferrari F430 GT - 2:00.667
#89 - Hankook Team Farnbacher - Ferrari F430 GT - 2:00.784
#78 – BMW Team Schnitzer - 2:01.441
#90 – CRS Racing - Ferrari F430 GT - 2:01.750
#87 – IMSA Performance Matmut - 2:05.287

There is currently a night test session going on. Some of the GT2 teams aren't doing it, but I don't know which ones.

[gato]

Hi Ali, thanks for the results. i studied yesterday the radio le mans site and there must be logged on if you want to listen races as live. There was one free broadcasting on without logging and it was from year 2009. I prefer to follow LMS results from news than give my email address to everywhere. Today the testing continues, i'll check later what is happened to Fisi.

[judy]

The results posted by Ali is for the afternoon session on 7/3/10. For the morning session, car # 95 (Fisi's car) achieved P4 among the GT2 category. There is no info who is driving the car for each session.

I could not find any results for today test session in several websites. 

[Alianora La Canta]

judy, it was even better on Monday morning - Fisi and co. were 2nd in class! They beat an LMP2 car and nearly beat a GT1 car.

The afternoon went less well in terms of time; the Fisichella/Alesi/Vilander car car was 7th of 9. The good thing is that at no stage did the #95 car leave the track or break down, which has happened to several other competitors (notably the BMW GT2 squad, which missed all of Monday due to an engine problem on Sunday night).

Due to the length of the sessions, I would expect that all Fisico, Alesi and Vilander all drove for part of all the sessions they did. What I do not know was who was in the car for each of the fastest times.

Giancarlo is also part of the second reserve squad for the Le Mans 24 Hours. He was in a press conference yesterday as well, but so far I haven't managed to find a transcript.

[judy]

Ali, Thanks for the info on the test results. The morning session results is great.

You said that Fisi will be in the second reserve squad for the 24 hrs Le Mans, that means we will not see him in action in the race unless one of the selected driver is injured or unable to race for some reasons. I am so disappointed with this news. I was hoping that they will see the performance of all the 9 drivers (in the team) based on the first two Le Mans Series race and then select the best drivers. I was hoping that he would take part and we could follow the race (24 hrs Le Mans) in Autosport.com but it turns out that he is only a reserve driver.

[gato]

Thanks for the race results! Fisi was 2nd??? That is great! I am sending to you a pic of Fisi from the testing day:

[judy]

This is Fisi's comment after the test session.

Jean Alesi and Giancarlo Fisichella had a good start. The Italian driver said at the Press Conference: “I know that I have a lot to learn because the GT car is fully different from a Formula One car, but I am very happy to be here for a new challenge.”

[Alianora La Canta]

judy, AF Corse only has one car in the main part of the 24 hour Le Mans GT2 class. It's an automatic entry... ...based on their winning the FIA GT2 series, which should not be confused with Le Mans Series GT2 (same cars, different governing bodies, completely different drivers). So their drivers, as far as possible, must be the ones who won that series (Russo and Companc were in that car and I suspect Vilander, one of the other five drivers in AF Corse, will accompany them if the Fisichella/Foster car doesn't get in).

If Fisico, Alesi and Vilander are in the top two of the GT2 class at the end of this year, they will get the same "automatic qualifying place" treatment.

(Disclaimer - I'm largely guessing in the next paragraph; it appears from the at Planet Le Mans that a lot of people are confused about several aspects of the team/driver selection, ranging from this, via "What's the JLOC LMP2 team doing anywhere near the vicinity" to "What is the point of there being a GT1 class at Le Mans if there's so few entries?". There's probably a good rationale for what happened, or at least one that makes sense to the governing body, but I'm still trying to figure out what that is...)

The non-automatic places may well be issued in terms of the strength of entry, which in turn is largely determined by previous sportscar experience. For all that we know that Fisico is an excellent driver, he's still untried in this particular category of racing. Furthermore, the Le Mans Series pace of AF Corse is currently a question of potential backed by historic strength - they weren't in the series last year, having concentrated on the FIA GT2. The governing body are obliged to attempt objectivity in these matters and they also like to try to get a mix of teams in (AF Corse is a three-car team, but a lot of the teams in Le Mans only have one team and the governing body has historically avoided denying places to competent-but-small teams). That, combined with GT2 being seen as the "Group of Death" (because at least 12 of the 17 that got through are considered viable contenders for the class win before we even start counting the reserves), is probably why he's in a reserve car rather than an automatic starter. Still, he is high on the reserve list - if two cars drop out of the 17-car GT2 class, he's in. And there's a long way to go before June.

[judy]

Thanks for the explanation on the entry for 24 hours Le Mans, Ali. Now I will have to wait for two GT2 cars to drop out to see Fisi in the race.