Team NASAMAX
Thursday Qualifying Report 12.06.03

To everyone’s relief, the start of Thursday’s session was not to be a repeat of the previous day’s events, with Robbie Stirling ready to go as soon as the pitlane lights turned green at 7.00. At the end of his installation lap, the Canadian reported that the car felt great and the team decided to fill it up and let him go for it.

Famous last words! The team was about to experience a feeling of deja vu, as the session was red flagged following Jamie Campbell-Walters’ shunt in the Lister Storm. The operation to extract the driver was quite rightly a thorough one, and the green didn’t fly for 20 minutes more. The news was later to come through that Jamie was okay, but that the Lister had been withdrawn from the race. As a fellow team, Team NASAMAX extend their sympathies at this unfortunate news.

Robbie was building up for his attack once the session was live, but he suddenly found his windscreen full of spinning GT car: “The (#84) Porsche just lost it in front of me and stuffed it into the barrier. There was so much smoke and bodywork flying about that I couldn’t actually see the car. In the split-second I had, I had to go through the clearest route and that meant running over part of the Porsche’s splitter. Fortunately, it didn’t do any damage.” The Porsche had shunted after running over another car’s dropped oil (the same oil that caused the PK Porsche to go off).

Once more the red flags flew and the Reynard sat motionless in the pitlane; “It’s not really fair, is it?” was John McNeil’s comment. Werner Lupberger looked at the long line of cement dust into the first chicane that was showing on the screen; “We’re never going to be able to get a laptime in with all that oil out there!” he groaned. This time, though, the team could take heart from the fact that all the delays so far were nothing to do with them.

At 7.50, the pitlane whistle blew and numerous engines started, the NASAMAX Reynard among them. This time Robbie was determined to set a good time. “The car feels fantastic! The gearbox is great; the chassis settings are much better and that’s given us a lot more downforce. We’ve also made an adjustment to the rear anti-roll bar, and the car feels like a different machine!”

His enthusiasm was rewarded with a 4:01.048. On the next lap, the sector times showed that he was finding a lot of time, and the screen flickered to show that the car had broken the four minute barrier with a 3:59.274 showing. Romain Dumas had been watching the screen and punched the air in delight when he saw it; “Yeah, Robbie!” was his enthusiastic shout as he went off to spread the word. So where had the time been found? “The car’s brakes are working really well - I was braking off the racing line going into the first chicane from 150 metres, which is encouraging. We’re also really good through the Porsche Curves. The time’s coming everywhere,” was Robbie’s explanation.

Werner Lupberger took over shortly afterwards, with instructions from Brian Ireland to do an outlap and an inlap only. Having duly followed these instructions, Werner went looking for some of the extra seconds that he knew could be found.

He didn’t have to look far as his first timed lap was a 3:57.732, followed swiftly by a 3:57.450. Presumably he would be happy? “That was so frustrating! The car was perfect, but every time I arrived at the Porsche Curves there was a traffic jam of Porsches and Ferraris and that cost me so much time” was his exasperated verdict. “The telemetry is showing a theoretical time of 3:52 and I know I can do it if I can just get a clear lap! I’m very disappointed with a 3:57.”

If further evidence were needed that the car had not yet reached its potential, Romain Dumas reduced that time to 3:56.309 in the two laps he could squeeze in during the last few minutes of the session.

After the hour break, Romain took the car out to give it a real bash. The sector times were immediately faster as the Michelins did their stuff. The result of his endeavours was an excellent 3:54.320. Romain stayed in for a few more laps before Robbie climbed aboard to clock up his qualifying laps.

During his debrief with John McNeil, Romain reported that the engine was starting to behave differently in the cooler air. It now seemed unlikely that any further improvement would be made to the time. With the car and drivers safely qualified, the team could concentrate on a race set-up.

Lupberger so very nearly went faster with a 3:54.475 with 30 minutes to go, but the time was destined not to be beaten. He did however wet laptimes consistently in the 3:54s for the remainder of his stint. Werner was now on race tyres and John told him to stay out on them for the rest of the session.

With the exception of the two red flags, the Team NASAMAX Reynard 01Q-Cosworth had run trouble-free for four hours. Werner may not have got his time, but the whole team had delivered when it mattered. John McNeil summed up the evening; “We had a good second session and we know we could have done 3:52. We’re where we wanted to be and the car is now well set-up for the race. They did a good job today!”

Thanks all round from John and it was off to bed.

Next stop - the race!

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