The long, lonely hours at night are some of toughest tests a Le Mans driver will face. There were no complaints from the Aston Martin Racing drivers though. “Everything’s going really well,” said Darren Turner, on his way to grab about three hours of sleep before returning to the garage at 5am. “We’ve had no real problems, and I’m very pleased with my stints.”
In fact the only unscheduled mechanical intervention the DBR9 has faced so fair is a repair to a rear light cluster, which stopped working on car 009. Johnny Herbert, who drove the car until just before 0300 echoed the sentiments of his team mates.
“I’m very happy,” he said. “The conditions are a lot more consistent now and so we’ve been able to do some much more regular times.”
AMR Larbre Competition’s Christophe Bouchut has undertaken a mammoth quadruple stint in the 008 car, consolidating its fourth position. One place and one lap behind him is the AMR BMS DBR9, currently being driven by Jamie Davies.
There was drama for Team Modena’s DBR9, which was struck from behind by an LMP2 prototype. The resulting rear end damage meant that the DBR9 was wheeled straight into the garage for some hurried repairs. The rear wing and diffuser are being replaced: a disastrous blow for the team as several minutes were lost.
Classification at 0300 (174 laps)
1. 007 Peter Kox (Aston Martin Racing)
2. 009 Rickard Rydell (Aston Martin Racing)
3 63 Ron Fellows (Corvette Racing)
4 008 Christophe Bouchut (AMR Larbre)
5 100 Jamie Davies (AMR BMS)
6 54 Laurent Groppi Oreca