Le Mans 24 hours

The first 90 minutes

It’s 30 degrees celcius, the track’s 36 degrees – it’s hot. The cars came onto the pit straight at the end of the green flag lap. The sound of air horns, whistles and cheers almost drowned out the sound of the cars as they passed started the race in traditional rolling start fashion.

Team LNT qualified in tenth position in their GT2 class, but #90’s White Lightning Racing’s Porsche had to start at the back of the grid. So, Richard Dean – opening the race for the Sheffield based squad – crossed the line in 9th place. Only 24 hours remaining to do something about that…

It was a good, clean start for the whole field with no first-corner incidents. However, the safety car was brought out after 16 minutes for the Le Mans first retirement of 2006. This was the #69 AMR BMS Scuderia Italia Aston Martin DBR9 GT1 car crashing out of the race.

Meanwhile, three GT2 cars came into the pits for a ‘splash and dash’ while the safety car was out, promoting Dean to 6th place and lapping comfortably in 6th place.

Classification: 1st #90, 2nd #80, 3rd#87 4th #76, 5th #83, 6th #77, 7th #85, 8th #86, 9th #81

Pit stop times were approaching for the GT2 cars. 8 of the 14 GT2 cars had pitted at the hour mark. Dean sets his fastest time just before his pit stop – a 4.13.4 and is in second position in class – holding out on the track a little longer than his rivals who have pitted.

A smooth driver changeover a little after the first hour of the race passed. Lawrence Tomlinson was next in the seat and rejoined the circuit in 10th place.

Lap-by-lap Tomlinson’s lap times reduced by around 1 second per lap as his knowledge of the circuit improved. Tomlinson has only had limited running in the dry.

“I feel that I’m still learning the circuit after all the trials and tribulations leading up to the race” said Dean after his first ‘stint’. “We’re keeping a close eye on everything but the car’s feeling good and really well balanced.”

Classification at 18.36: 1st #76, 2nd #87, 3rd #90, 4th #86, 5th #83, 6th #80, 7th 85, 8th #77, 9th #81, 10th #93

Approaching 7.20pm – Tomlinson comes into the pits for fuel, tyres and Kimber-Smith to drive. Once again, Team LNT being one of the last GT2 runners to pit.

Kimber-Smith puts in a time of 4.13.856 on his first flying lap – reducing to a 4.13.6 the lap afterwards. The #81 Team LNT Panoz being one of the fastest runners in GT2.

Classification at 19.30hrs: 1st #76, 2nd #87, 3rd #85 (in the pits) 4th #77, 5th #86, 6th #83, 7th #90, 8th #80, 9th #93, 10th #81