Test Session
The official test session for Le Mans was held on 3 June, and was the only practice session that was not part of qualifying timing. A total of eight hours of track time was allowed for teams to find their set-ups and for rookie drivers to get in their required ten laps to learn the circuit.
The sessions were led by Sébastien Bourdais, with his Peugeot 908 HDi FAP setting a lap time of 3:26.707, a second and a half ahead of two trailing Audis. Pescarolo Sport had the fastest gasoline-powered car in fourth. In the LMP2 class, the pair of Barazi-Epsilon entries led with identical times of 3:39.016; ASM Team Racing for Portugal trailed the pair in class.
In GT1, the No. 63 Corvette recorded the fastest time of the day with a 3:49.207, followed by the No. 007 Aston Martin and the second factory Corvette. GT2 was dominated by Porsche, with the top three positions being taken by the new 997s. IMSA Performance Matmut led with a 4:01.598, while Autorlando and Flying Lizard followed behind. The Risi Competizione entry was the fastest Ferrari, in fourth place.
Although there were various small incidents, three major accidents led to a red flag for the session. The No. 13 Courage Compétition entry, driven by Guillaume Moreau, went off at the Porsche Curves during the second hour. The car could not return to the test session due a bent chassis caused by the heavy impact. The second red flag involved the No. 24 Noël del Bello entry going off the track at the same location in the hands of Vitaly Petrov, becoming briefly airborne after contact with the concrete wall. In the final incident, almost in the last hour of the session, the No. 10 Arena Motorsports Zytek also went off at the Porsche Curves, and briefly caught fire.
The damage to the Arena Zytek led to the car being withdrawn during scrutineering a week and a half later, just before the actual race. The team decided that it was not able to repair the damage in time for the car to pass scrutineering.
Read more about this topic: 2007 24 Hours Of Le Mans
Famous quotes containing the words test and/or session:
“It is commonly said ... that ridicule is the best test of truth; for that it will not stick where it is not just. I deny it. A truth learned in a certain light, and attacked in certain words, by men of wit and humour, may, and often doth, become ridiculous, at least so far, that the truth is only remembered and repeated for the sake of the ridicule.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“The bar is the male kingdom. For centuries it was the bastion of male privilege, the gathering place for men away from their women, a place where men could go to freely indulge in The Bull Session ... the release of the guilty anxiety of the oppressor class.”
—Shulamith Firestone (b. 1945)