Estroil test notes 2001-07-13

Estoril, Portugal, Friday 13th=July 2001: With the two works R8's absent from round 3 of the European Le Mans Series after their dominant 1-2 at the Le Mans 24 Hours last month, it has been left to the Gulf sponsored privateer Audi of Johansson Racing to fly flag for the German marque at this weekends 1000km race at Estoril.

In this afternoons two hour test session the number seven Audi of Stefan Johansson, Patrick Lemarie and Tom Coronel dominated, setting a time of 1m30.545, +2.779 seconds faster than Pescarolo Sport Courage C60 of Jean-Christophe Boullion, Laurent Redon and Boris Derichebourg. The RML Saleen S7R of Bruno Lambert, Ian McKellar Jnr and Chris Goodwin were third fastest and set the quickest time in the GTS class, pushing the LMP675 Didier Bonnet Racing Debora into 4th. The top three in the GT class was an all Porsche affair with the PK Sport Porsche 911 GT3 of Mike Youles, Robin Liddell and Piers Masarati taking the top spot.

The cars take to the track again tomorrow morning for Combined Qualifying practice at 09:10, with official qualifying starting at 11:45.

<pre> Round 3 - Estoril - Test - 2 hours

1 7 900 Johansson / Lemarie / Coronel  Audi R8  1m30.545s
2 72 900 J-C Boullion/ Redon / Derichebourg Courage C60  +2.779s
3  41 GTS Lambert / McKellar / Goodwin  Saleen S7R   +9.333s
4 28 675 Dussau / Gomez / Bich   Debora  +10.145s
5 26 GTS Konrad / Brun / Slater   Saleen S7R  +10.259s
6 45 GTS Monteiro/ Verdon-Roe/ Mello Breyner Chrysler  +10.921s
7 60 GT Youles / Liddell / Masarati   Porsche  +14.767s
8 66 GT Simmons / Rymer / Pickering   Porsche  +14.959s
9 77 GT Pompidou / Dumas    Porsche  +15.319s
10 73 GT Dean / Mowlem    Porsche  +15.603s

-ELMS