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RUBERTI HOPEFUL WITH A FEW HOURS TO GO BEFORE THE FIRST FREE PRACTICE AT LE MANS The second place at Le Mans has been one of the best moments in 2008 season for Paolo Ruberti. This weekend, on the famous French track, the 77th edition of the most ...
Published: Oct 2, 2009, 4:48 PM
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RUBERTI HOPEFUL WITH A FEW HOURS TO GO BEFORE THE FIRST FREE PRACTICE AT LE MANS
The second place at Le Mans has been one of the best moments in 2008 season for Paolo Ruberti. This weekend, on the famous French track, the 77th edition of the most famous race in the world is on stage and the driver from Verona is well determined to repeat, together with Matteo Malucelli and Fabio Babini, the good performance achieved last year behind the wheel of the number 97 F430 GT2 lined up by Scuderia Italia.
The Circuit de la Sarthe, is a semi-permanent race track located in the Sarthe county in France and hosts every year the 24 Hours of Le Mans. With a total length of 13,629 km the circuit is one of the longest one in the world and throughout the years it underwent several changes to raise its security standards. Its endless main straight is famous, a part of the Route Nationale 138, whereby the top speed is crucial for the final braking. The track is a tough test-bench both for drivers and for mechanical parts, the car is full throttle for more than 70% of the lap. Le Mans has always been a speed temple, and at the end of '80s this was impressive: in 1988 a WM P88 powered by a Peugeot V6 Turbo reached 405 km/h in the race, whole the following year a Suber C9 reached 400 km/h during practices.
At that point FISA decided that cars were too dangerous and two chicanes were added before the 1990 race. At the time, towards the end of the straight the Mulsanne's hillock was present, on which the Mercedes-Benz CLR of Mark Webber took off and tipped over in 1999. The hillock was successively made smaller for security reasons.
The roll of honour of the 24 Hours of Le Mans is full of names that made the history of motor racing, such as Tazio Nuvolari, Henri Pescarolo, Jacky Ickx, Klaus Ludwig, Tom Kristensen, Rinaldo Capello and Emanuele Pirro. Among winning constructors we can cite Ferrari, Porsche, Bentley, Jaguar, BMW and Audi.
Paolo Ruberti:
"Getting on to the podium has been a great emotion in 2008; I do not hide that I'd like to do even more this year but Le Mans is a terribly difficult and full of unknowns race, whereby not always things go as one hopes for. My crew-mates and I know well the track and the team has a considerable experience in this type of races therefore we will get to the race determined to obtain the highest result".
-credit: pr
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