British GT Championship

Mondello Park, Ireland

Days after having been in Le Mans in France, Team LNT are now in Southern Ireland at Mondello Park for the third British GT meeting of 2006.

Tom Kimber-Smith is back in the driving seat less than one week after playing his part in the Team’s class win last weekend at Le Mans. Fellow British GT driver Luke Hines along with Kimber-Smith is aiming to close the championship gap with current leaders Scuderia Ecosse in their Ferrari 430.

Team LNT have been testing their Panoz GTLM on Thursday and yesterday at the Irish track in preparation for the two races this weekend. Thursday was mainly about tyres, and was the only car in its class to run.

Friday the Team worked on finding the right balance and car mechanical setup for the race.

It’s looking like a two-car race this weekend, with only the Panoz and the Ferrari currently here in the GT2 class at the Irish circuit. Yesterday’s free practice times ended with Hines quickest in the Panoz. The Scuderia car – driven by Tim Mullen and Chris Niarchos who finished third at Le Mans – were almost half a second behind.

Saturday warm up ran in the rain. Not heavy rain, just enough constant drizzle to keep the track damp. So, following the previous two days running in the dry, Teams are all now adapting to the adverse conditions.

Both Team LNT drivers went out in the 75 minute session, trying various settings, trying full wet tyres and intermediate tyres. The skies above are very overcast and the dampness shows no sign of relenting. It could well be a wet qualifying and wet race this afternoon…

Team LNT is top of the tables in Saturday’s practice with a time of 1:55.708, 2.4 secs ahead of Scuderia Ecosse - the only other GT2 car on track.

The timetable for the weekend is as follows:

Saturday  24th June:                                       09:00-10:15      Practice

                                                                    14:00-14:15      Qualifying

                                                                    14:20-14:35      Qualifying

                                                                    17:05-18:05      Race 1

Sunday 25th June:                                          09:00-09:10      Warm Up

                                                                    14:30-15:30      Race 2