Panoz Bounce Back After Troubled Practice Sessions
ROUND FIVE, AMERICAN LE MANS
SERIES
MOSPORT INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY, CANADA
QUALIFYING - Saturday, 18th August 2001
Panoz bounce back after troubled practice sessions
The Panoz Motor Sports LMP-1 of Jan Magnussen and David Brabham will start
from the second row of the grid for tomorrow's GT3 Grand Prix of Mosport.
Magnussen claimed third place after a close qualifying session with a time
of 1m 09.671s.
Franck Lagorce qualified car #51 and set a time of 1m 10.727 to take 8th
place on the grid.
The team had experienced set up problems with both cars in the morning
practice session which ended prematurely for #50 when David Brabham had an
accident at Turn One. The extent of the repairs meant that the car
was not able to take part in the second pr
actice session and valuable track time was lost.
The rare mistake from Brabham was said by the driver himself to have
occurred because he had "run out of talent". The
team prefers to believe he ran out of track.
Jan Magnussen said after qualifying: "Considering we lost a
whole session I am reasonably pleased with the time. I managed to
get some good clear laps at the beginning, came in to make some small
adjustments to the car and then managed to lower the time
just a fraction. I think that's all there was in the car
today."
Neither Lagorce or his team mate Klaus Graf were happy after the two
practice sessions, having had brake and balance problems. The former
was cured and the latter improved by the end of the second practice,
although not to their complete satisfaction.
Lagorce said after qualifying: "On my second lap I missed the
apex at turn 3 and got off line and that was it. After that I'd lost
the best of the tires. I had a big moment a bit later in the session
at nearly 250 kph and I was everywhere on the track b
ut luckily managed to catch it before another big accident!"
For further information contact Fiona Miller at Panoz Motor Sports on
cellphone 678 300 6452 or email to fiona@panozmotorsports.com