Team LNT’s Panoz’s head into Europe

Last Thursday and Friday (1st and 2nd December) Team LNT took their two new Panoz Esperante’s to Nogaro in the south of France on a continuation of the extensive testing programme.

Supported by Derrick Peacock, Elan Power’s engine guru and with Lawrence Tomlinson and Warren Hughes to share the driving duties the team also gave Rob Bell another opportunity.

Thursday morning saw thick fog and a heavy frost greet the team. Mid morning the cars ventured out with none of the drivers having experience of the track. The first dozen laps saw drivers referring to data and the onboard cameras to pick lines and gears.

Wets were the choice of both engineers Alan Mugglestone and Rodney Farrell. The sun soon burst through, the fog dispersed and the track dried not long after all three drivers were acclimatized.

Pre lunch was some more development of the impressive Bosh Electronics traction control. The post lunch program was split between tyres and dampers, chassis and electronics for the two cars, Tomlinson and Hughes sharing the duties respectively and presuming the benefits were being rewarded with laptimes.

After a little investigation the team found the laptimes from the March FFSA event for comparison, an impressive day ended with both cars below the pole time for GT2, Hughes almost a second up on the French entry.

Friday the team awoke to a little drizzle, in the hope this would blow off the team warmed the wets again and the drivers set to. Again more electronics development.

Over the morning the conditions proved stable. Only two cars present allowed plenty of track time and with regular light rain, Team LNT started the evaluation of various tyres. The different manufacturers had supplied various compounds, so this coupled to different set ups gave broad feedback.

The data, on board video, and driver feedback all now started to amass to into a puzzle for the engineers to pick through for the perfect car.

After a tough year it's refreshing for Team LNT to work with Panoz and - what is already turning into a consistent world beater - can only get better judging by the initial turn of speed coupled with incredible reliability. Hopefully over the next 12 months Panoz will have loosened the Porsche stranglehold on LeMans and Team LNT and Panoz will be the benefactor.

The truck has already parked up at Circuit Catalunya, Barcelona - the next stop is one of the great test and race venues in Europe. Two more days of testing, hopefully the intrusive weather will defer to sunshine with the tyre evaluation and chassis/aero development proving to be conclusive.