Archiv für den Tag: 8.5.2009

Sykes shines in Monza

Veröffentlicht am von
1

QUALIFYING 1 REPORT

Yamaha World Superbike rider Tom Sykes gave a tantalizing glimpse of his race pace today in the first qualifying session at the historic Monza circuit. The British rider put in strong consistent fats laps for the duration of the session, ending it in second place, just over 0.3 seconds behind leader Michele Fabrizio. Sykes had been fast all day and had spent the morning and the qualifying session fine tuning the set up for the weekend’s racing. He finished the morning ’s free practice session in third place, just behind his team-mate.
Ben Spies was in equally reliable form in the Italian sunshine, focusing on tyre wear and race pace he ran consistent laps all day, finishing the afternoon’s qualifying session in seventh position, less than 0.3 of a second off Sykes. The American rider spent the entire qualifying session on a single set of tyres to test the wear rate on the warm circuit. The morning’s free practice session saw Spies predictably fast on a circuit he’s coming to know well through testing, he finished the session second, less than 0.3 seconds behind the leader.

Tom Sykes

Tom Sykes

Tom Sykes, Yamaha World Superbike Team (2nd, 1’45.758)
"A fairly decent day to day to be honest, we came here with a big change from the test we had here which has taken a fair bit of balancing but I think we’ve done it. Overall I’m very happy with my race tyres, we’re doing consistent fast laps over race distance so I’m confident in the team’s ability and tomorrow I think we’ll come out even stronger. I’m going to have a good sleep tonight and come back tomorrow with a fresh head and be even better!"

Ben Spies

Ben Spies

Ben Spies, Yamaha World Superbike Team (7th, 1’46.013)
"It was a really good session for us. We pretty much found our race tyres , we only ran one set for the whole session and put in some really good lap times. We weren’t really worried about fast lap times today, we just wanted to get consistent laps so we should be good for Sunday. It’s an 18 lap race and our fastest lap today was the 22nd one so it’s looking good. The bike’s working really well so we’ll step it up tomorrow and see what happens."
Massimo Meregalli, Yamaha World Superbike Team Manager
"A good session for us, we were working to find the best set up for the race I think we’re pretty ready. We’ve made no major changes from the previous test here, just some small changes to improve and fine tune. The race pace was good so we’re satisfied, I think we are 90% there for Sunday."

Circuit Length: 5792

Lap Record: 1’47.434 (Troy Bayliss, 01/01/2002)
Fastest Lap Ever: 1’44.931 (Troy Bayliss, 11/05/2008)
Last Years Winner: Noriyuki Haga

FREE PRACTICE REPORT
08/05/2009

Crutchlow and Foret get straight down to it in Monza

Both Cal Crutchlow and Fabien Foret got down to business quickly in Monza today. Crutchlow used the free practice session to familiarize himself with yet another new circuit, something he managed to do in just a few laps as his searingly quick pace showed at the end of the session. A small tumble early in the session did nothing to dampen his enthusiasm. His last lap of the day turning out to be the fastest of the Supersport riders, sending a clear message to his competitors that he means business on Sunday.
Team-mate Foret was well and truly back on form, having picked up his pace dramatically in Assen and showed his old racing style, he got down to it quickly in Monza today and put in consistently fast laps at the top of the pack, leading the session briefly before settling for fourth at the end, less than 0.5 of a second off his team-mate.

Cal Crutchlow

Cal Crutchlow

Cal Crutchlow, Yamaha World Supersport Team (1st, 1’50.594)
"It was good enough for me over the session, but I had a little bit of an off which I’m disappointed about. Every time I stick new boots on I crash! We worked hard this afternoon and done a lot of laps in the session. The race distance was good on the tyres so I’m happy enough, hopefully we can go into the weekend confident now. The second corner is weird, it’s absolutely flat out, you don’t shut off at all on a 600 and it took a bit of getting used to, there’s barrier all the way round and it kind of suck s you in! It’s nice to be quickest on the last lap and on one set of tyres, let’s hope we can keep that up over the weekend."

Fabien Foret

Fabien Foret

Fabien Foret, Yamaha World Supersport Team (4th, 1’50.934)
"It was good for me, I found my pace pretty easily, I used a very similar bike set-up to last year which was very good. Obviously we tried to update it a bit but right now it’s working really well and I’m not pushing 100% yet so I would say everything is under control and good up to now. I enjoyed being out there on the bike and having fun on the track today, . I’m pretty happy and looking forward to tomorrow."
Wilco Zeelenberg, Yamaha World Supersport Team Manager
"It seems to be that Cal likes the track, not bad for his first time here and on provisional pole. Both the riders are happy, Fabien particularly likes this track. They both tried some different things in the session, including an Assen setting and the Monza setting from last year. We have a good direction as a result of the session, we’ve got a good combination of tyres which we didn’t have last year so everything seems to be under control! Cal had a little off, he started with a tyre which was probably not the best and had a small front end slide. The problem here is that anything is a high speed incident but he’s ok, no injuries so we’re looking forward to tomorrow with confidence."

Circuit Length: 5792

Lap Record: 1’52.635 (Chris Vermeulen, 01/01/2003)
Fastest Lap Ever: 1’49.868 (Broc Parkes, 11/05/2008)
Last Years Winner: Fabien Foret

www.yamaha-racing.com

Free practice session: Oreca & Peugeot…in the thousandth near!

Veröffentlicht am von
1

We promised you some surprises for the week-end…you know that we never lie! The proof is that, from the first free practice session, the results are…amazing. The Oreca AIM n°11, driven by Olivier Panis and Nicolas Lapierre, scored the exact same time as the Peugeot n°9 (with Marc Gené, Alexander Wurz and David Brabham) in the thousandth near!

Click here to read more

 

www.lemans-series.com

The Terminator joins Brawn GP at Spanish Grand Prix

Veröffentlicht am von
Antworten

Brawn GP

Thanks to a partnership between the Brawn GP team and Sony Pictures Releasing International, Hollywood’s most famous robot, the Terminator, will make an appearance at the 2009 Spanish Grand Prix to celebrate the release of the forthcoming blockbuster Terminator Salvation.

Directed by McG (Charlie’s Angels) and starring Christian Bale, Sam Worthington and Bryce Dallas Howard, the much-anticipated movie will be released in the UK on 3 June. Christian Bale portrays John Connor, leader of the human resistance against Skynet, in a post-apocalyptic landscape where an army of Terminators roams the earth looking for human survivors to kill or collect.

To celebrate the release of Terminator Salvation, the Brawn-Mercedes cars of Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello will carry the famous Terminator red eyes and imagery around the track during the Spanish Grand Prix weekend.

Brawn GP’s official new website launched

Brawn GP is pleased to announce a new look team website at www.brawngp.com

Designed to reflect the values and spirit of the British based team, the new look website is ambitious and fresh whilst being smart and simple to use. The website will provide fans of the team with updates from the track, alongside exclusive content such as driver diaries and interviews from Brawn GP team members at the track and in Brackley.

Fans can also leave their messages of support, thoughts and suggestions on the Fan Wall section of the website and interact with the team on our social networking pages such as Facebook and Twitter to discuss our latest news.

YouTube twitter Facebook

The Brawn GP Merchandise Store is also available and will allow you to order from the Henri Lloyd interim collection whilst we develop the full range ready for the British Grand Prix weekend at Silverstone in June.

Brawn GP starts European challenge in Spain

After four flyaway races in quick succession saw Jenson Button and the team achieve three race victories and the lead in the Constructors‘ Championship, the team begins its European challenge at the Circuit de Catalunya this weekend.

After such a fairytale start to the season, everyone at Brawn GP is looking forward to continuing the challenge in Europe. I know the track inside out and it feels very familiar to be heading back there for the start of the European season this weekend" says Jenson Button.

His team-mate Rubens Barrichello agrees, adding that The Circuit de Catalunya feels like a home circuit for the drivers with so much of our pre-season testing taking place here over the winter", whilst Team Principal Ross Brawn is confident that the Brackley factory worked hard enough to maintain the performance levels of the BGP 001 car. We look forward to seeing the results of our development work on track in Barcelona this weekend."

Brawn GPBrawn GPBrawn GPBrawn GPBrawn GP

Visit the Brawn GP Team website

Spanish Grand Prix: Bridgestone Motorsport’s Friday Update

Veröffentlicht am von
1

Bridgestone’s soft tyre proved to be the fastest rubber on track at the Circuit de Catalunya near Barcelona for the first day of the Spanish Grand Prix. In warm and sunny conditions, Nico Rosberg’s AT&T Williams set the fastest lap time in the afternoon practice session, a 1min 21.588secs. Track conditions improved throughout the day and 38 degrees Celsius was the hottest track temperature recorded. Brawn GP driver Jenson Button was the fastest driver in the morning session, using the soft compound to set a time of 1min 21.799secs. This was the first time that the current hard compound has been used in Barcelona, although this compound was previously used at the Malaysian Grand Prix. Q&A with Hirohide Hamashima – Bridgestone Director of Motorsport Tyre Development What was significant about today’s running? “Today we saw the track improve a lot during the course of the day as the surface improved with rubber put down. In the morning it was interesting as Jenson Button set the fastest time using the soft compound, but Jarno Trulli was second fastest using the hard compound. The soft compound was on average 0.6 seconds faster than the hard here.”   How do you expect this allocation to work over the weekend? “After one day’s running here we predict that the soft tyre could be the preferred tyre for qualifying as well as the race. Both tyres have performed well today. This is a different hard compound from the one we tested here in the pre-season, but teams have quickly learnt its characteristics. The hard tyre does take longer to warm-up than the soft, and its best lap time is slower. Some teams found the hard compound we used in the winter tests here difficult to warm up, however everyone was able to get reasonable grip today which means our compound changes have worked. The soft compound has not shown any particular issues with degradation so we would expect that to be the preferred tyre for the race.”

www.bridgestonemotorsport.com

WTCC: ROUTE TO: PAU FRANCE

Veröffentlicht am von
1

The 7th and 8th rounds of the FIA WTCC will take place on the next weekend in France, on the historical street circuit of Pau. This is the championship’s third visit to the old city on the Pyrenées, home of the Grand Prix de Pau since 1930.
In 2008 Alain Menu and his Chevrolet Lacetti dominated the first race with a lights to flag victory after setting pole position, while the second race was won by BMW Team Germany’s Augusto Farfus, who completed an amazing recovery after having rolled his car in qualifying at the infamous Monument bend.
Last year BMW obtained a double victory: Farfus encored in the first race, while Andy Priaulx scored his first and only victory of the season mastering his car under torrential rain that forced the field to start behind the safety car.
Like in Marrakech, the competitors will benefit from the street-circuit extended qualifying session. Saturday’s usual 30-minute qualifying will last 45 minutes: the 30-minute Q1 and the 15-minute Q2, split by a 5-minute pause.


WTCC cars negotiate the Virage de la Gare during last year’s event

CHEVROLET ON MAXIMUM COMPENSATION WEIGHT
Robert Huff’s and Nicola Larini’s victories in Marrakech will result in Chevrolet being given the maximum compensation weight in Pau.
The Cruze cars will receive a 40kg ballast like the turbodiesel SEAT cars and the BMW 320si cars, because it was the fastest in Morocco after having received technical help from the Touring Car Bureau.
The compensation weight for Pau has been determined by the lap times set in the three previous events (Brazil, Mexico and Morocco). The SEAT León TDI emerged as the reference model, one tenths of a second faster than the BMW 320si.
All the other cars – LADA 110, SEAT León TFSI and Alessandro Zanardi’s BMW 320si (the only one equipped with a sequential gearbox) – will have 20kg deducted from their minimum weight.

LAUNCH OF THE WTCC RACE OF FRANCE
The WTCC Race of France was launched during a press conference at the city’s Chamber of Commerce attended by the reigning world champion Yvan Muller who reminded: "This year Pau is the only French city to welcome an automobile world championship."
The event also marks the 69th edition of the Grand Prix Automobile de Pau and Jacques Raynaud, vice-president of the Eurosport group commented: "Tradition is not something you can buy. You have to build it and keep it alive." While Marc Jubault-Bregler, town counsillor for the Environment confirmed: "Our aim is to develop and renew the Grand Prix in order to make it perennial."

CAZENAVE REJOINS WIECHERS-SPORT
Laurent Cazenave will rejoin the Wiechers-Sport team for his home WTCC meeting at Pau.
The 34-year old Frenchman will take the wheel of the German outfit’s second BMW 320si car, alongside Stefano D’Aste. This will mark his second appearance in the FIA World Touring Car Championship after last year’s debut at Pau.
In 2008 Cazenave used his racing experience on his home town’s streets to the utmost, claiming an outstanding victory in the Independents‘ class at the end of Race 1.
Now he is back, aiming for more: "This is a very difficult challenge. I know the car a bit from last year, however we will make a test on Thursday before the event at the Pau Arnos racetrack, because I wish to do the best I can."

WTCC T-SHIRTS FOR MOROCCAN CHILDREN
After the season’s opening in Curitiba, when 43 tonnes of food were collected through the ticketing campaign and donated to a charity society, the WTCC continued its program of social contribution activities.
On the occasion of last week’s Race of Morocco, Marcello Lotti, Managing Director of KSO, offered 2000 t-shirts to the Moroccan Ministry of Education. These clothes will be distributed to the children of Marrakech as a symbolic donation in order to associate the population in need with this first-ever successful FIA WTCC Race Meeting in Morocco.

www.fiawtcc.com

LOIX LEADS AFTER SS1 OF SATA RALLY ACORES

Veröffentlicht am von
1

IRC

The 2009 Intercontinental Rally Challenge resumed its fast and furious battle among the ’next generation‘ of top-flight rally cars and drivers today (Thursday) with the start of the Sata Rallye Azores. A total of 50 cars were flagged away from the ceremonial start in the Atlantic port town of Ponta Delgada, with this new event for the IRC promising a feast of action on its combined gravel and asphalt stages.
"This event is unique and in its way quite like the Monte Carlo Rally," said Peugeot UK driver Kris Meeke. "The surface can change from one corner to the next, never mind from one special stage to another so it’s going to be a matter of holding on tight and being there at the finish."
Action got underway immediately with a crowd-pleasing superspecial stage which saw the contenders running two at a time in a gladiatorial start to the event. The biggest cheer of the night was for Meeke and his adversary, Frenchman Nicolas Vouilloz, both in Peugeot 207 S2000s, who virtually dead-heated their run through the purpose-built amphitheatre.
Nevertheless it was Belgian veteran Freddy Loix – the current championship leader – who claimed the overnight lead after a spectacular performance on the 1.7km superspecial, edging out Meeke and Vouilloz in front of the much-fancied Skoda Fabia of Czech driver Jan Kopecky. The action continues with nine timed stages tomorrow and ends on Saturday evening after a final leg of eight special stages.
"We had quite a hard landing that damaged the car slightly, but I’m sure that there is nothing to worry about," said Loix, after setting the fastest time. "It was very close and I’m sure that’s going to be the case again tomorrow."
Finnish driver Juho Hanninen, who will start as car number one tomorrow in his Skoda Fabia S2000, concluded: "The stages are very tough but very nice. There’s really something for everybody on this rally and a lot of variety. One of the most difficult things will be adapting to the way that you can suddenly go from a very fast section to a slow and technical section. There’s a lot to get used to."
Abarth driver Giandomenico Basso, who finished the opening stage in sixth, agreed. "This is going to be a really difficult rally so we have to be realistic about what is possible," he said. "We obviously start every event with the idea of achieving as much as we can, but it’s also a question of being sensible and making sure we are there at the finish. We should know a lot more about how everything looks tomorrow."
The weather will also play a vital role. Although conditions remained dry today, there is a strong chance of some rain during tomorrow’s nine stages. The first stage, Feiteras, gets underway at 08:15. The action continues with nine timed stages tomorrow and ends on Saturday evening after a final leg of eight special stages.
Top 10 positions after Stage 1

1    Freddy Loix/Frédéric Miclotte    Peugeot 207 S2000    1m 45.0s
2    Kris Meeke/Paul Nagle    Peugeot 207 S2000    +0.2s
3    Nicolas Vouilloz/Nicolas Klinger    Peugeot 207 S2000    +0.3s
4    Jan Kopecky/Petr Stary    Skoda Fabia S2000    +0.4s
5    Juho Hänninen/Mikko Markkula    Skoda Fabia S2000    +1.4s
6    Giandomenico Basso/Mitia Dotta    Abarth Grande Punto S2000    +1.6s
7    Bruno Magalhães/Carlos Magalhães    Peugeot 207 S2000    +1.6s
8    Anton Alén/Timo Alanne    Abarth Grande Punto S2000    +2.6s
9    Ricardo Moura/Sancho Eiró    Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX    +3.3s
10    Fernando Peres/José Pedro Silva    Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX    +3.5s
Championship positions after 3 rounds
Drivers
1    Freddy Loix    Belgium    13 points
2    Sébastien Ogier    France    10
3    Giandomenico Basso    Italy    10
4    Carl Tundo    Kenya    10
5    Kris Meeke    UK    10
Manufacturers
1    Peugeot    36
2    Ralliart    26
3    Abarth    14
4    Skoda    5

!cid_a37a9573e18ccc45896b28bc2c086604
IRC series leader Freddy Loix heads the classification after the opening superspecial stage in the Azores

www.rally-irc.com