WEDNESDAY 4 JUNE 2008

NIELSEN CONCENTRATES ON WET WEATHER SETUP AT LE MANS 24 HOUR TEST DAY
The tradition warm up for the biggest sportcar race of the year – The 24 Hours of Le Mans – was held last Sunday at the famous La Sarthe circuit, in France.

For most, the day long test is seen as an opportunity to size up the opposition, test the reliability of the racecar and allow the three drivers to familiarise themselves with the 13.88km circuit, once again.

One thing is for certain at either the test day or the event itself – something unexpected seems to happen.

The 2008 Hours of Le Mans will be Nielsen's fifth attempt.

Until now his weapon of choice is a Porsche GT3 RSR. This year he is changing to a Ferrari 430 GT2 despite the fact that he has being campaigning a Porsche throughout this years Le Mans Series with considerable success.

Joining Nielsen in the driving duties will be his 2007 team mate Pierre Ehret. Alongside will be Pierre Kaffer, who is Ehret's regular LMS team mate.

As the test day came so did the crazy weather. Whilst most of the running was in wet weather it was a very positive outing. After the deluge of 2007 it was good to be able to do some wet weather running early on.

The varied weather however made it impossible to measure up against the opposition.

Nielsen set the fastest lap of the three drivers.

Lars had some thoughts: "You get at weird sense in the stomach when the car aquaplanes at 250 kph on the Mulsanne straight, but after a few laps you get the hang of it.

The official testday had started with a dry track, but very soon the rain set in, and it was impossible to improve the laptimes.

Unfortunately Farnbacher Racing didn’t set a laptime in the dry. Therefore the team looks very slow in the official results.



Lars Erik is looking forward to the 24 Hour race: "The car suits me fine and I am in no doubt that we will be competitive under the same circumstances.

"Compared to my Porsche 997 RSR, the Ferrari F430 GT is more calm on the track, you can brake later and it rolls a lot faster in the corners. But the biggest difference is that it’s a lot easier to catch if you overdrive the car.

The Farnbacher Racing Ferrari is on Dunlop tires, just like Virgo Motorsport, and they worked fine in the wet. Virgo has been the Dunlop pacesetter in the Le Mans Series

Lars Erik leaves the circuit with a solid goal for the 24 Hour Race at Le Mans: "In my office I have two trophies from the last two years with second and third engraved. Now I only need one trophy to make the collection complete, and we are gunning for victory."

Live Timing from Le Mans is available here. Live trackside audio commentary from RADIO LEMANS is available here.
Don't forget to check the official Le Mans 24 Hours site for qualifying and race times.