European Le Mans
Nurburgring: Team Courage race report
After qualifying the car n13 on 3rd and the car n12 on 6th position, Team Courage was confident for the start of the 3rd race of the Le Mans Series at the Nurburgring. And what a start it was. Shinji Nakano in the n13 took the lead after ...
Published: Jul 17, 2006, 9:46 PM
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After qualifying the car n13 on 3rd and the car n12 on 6th position, Team Courage was confident for the start of the 3rd race of the Le Mans Series at the Nurburgring.
And what a start it was. Shinji Nakano in the n13 took the lead after the tricky turn 1 and could defend his position till the point where a clutch problem occurred, forcing him after 8 laps to come into the box for a clutch replacement. In the n12 car Jean-Marc Gounon was driving in "attack" mode and in no time he was right behind the leader . The battle for the lead was very impressive and all spectators enjoyed that part of the race.
Jean-Marc Gounon set the fastest lap time of the race with 1'47''247. This is 6 tenths faster than the 2nd fastest one. When overtaking a back marker the leaders had a small collision sending Jean-Marc off in a spin. The driver of the other car excused himself afterwards telling that he hadn't seen him coming by.
Gregor Fisken took over and was still comfortably in 2nd position when the team found a fuel pressure problem on the telemetry. Gregor had to come in for inspection. Almost 40 minutes were lost and also all hopes to finish on the prodium. Gregor regained the track and had had a great stint.
Alexander Frei took over and did very well. He finished 7th of the LMP1 class offering the first 2 points to the team. The n13 car left after the clutch change but encountered other problems and stopped on the track.
Yves Courage :
What a perfect start of the race it was for our team. Too bad for the clutch problem on the N13 and the fuel pressure problem on the N12. But all drivers and the team performed very well. The LC70 has shown today that it was the fastest car in race trim, although still in development phase. We are not that far away anymore from finishing races on the podium. We will work hard to accomplish that in the 2 remaining races of the season.
The Swiss Spirit LC70 was showing again great reliability and pace being in 2nd position at mid race. Following a hit earlier in the race the car had to come in for repairs and lost its 2nd position. They finished 6th of the LMP1 class and are still in 2nd place in the Championship
In LMP2 the C65 from Barazi-Epsilon had also a great start but the car had troubles early in the race and lost a lot of time in the pit. They finished 6th in class but are still leading the LMP2 Championship.
Next race : the 1000 km of Donington (GB) 26th 27th August
-www.courage-competition.com
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