BMW Team PTG - Petit Le Mans Thursday Practice
BMW Team PTG/BMW of
North America
Notes and Quotes
Petit Le Mans - Road Atlanta - Braselton, Ga.
October 4, 2001
Thursday Practice Session:
With just over three hours of practice behind them -- and three
hours still ahead of them -- in preparation for Saturday's 10 hour Petit
Le Mans, BMW Team PTG readies its newly painted red, white and blue
Yokohama M3 GTRs for tonight's two-hour night practice comfortably in the
top five GT class cars.
Track conditions have varied, but as the third one-hour practice session ended this afternoon just over 4/10s of a second separate the leading No. 42 BMW Motorsport M3 GTR (1:23.405), the No. 43 BMW Motorsport M3 GTR (1:23.491), the No. 23 Alex Job 911 GT3 RS (1:23.650), the No. 6 Team PTG M3 GTR (1:23.711) and the No. 10 Team PTG M3 GTR (1:23.833).
Night practice
will focus on late-race setups, leaving one more practice session tomorrow
morning to find a bit more speed before afternoon qualifying.
Bill Auberlen, driver No. 6 PTG M3 GTR
"We tried a number of changes today and are pleased with where we are
now. The crew is working hard to get the cars ready for night
practice, but no large changes for tonight - just more of the same.
One step at a time."
Boris Said,
driver No. 6 PTG M3 GTR
"We tried some different tires today - working on the balance.
We were not concerned with the speed, but getting the GTR right for the
race. A lot of traffic so you have to be careful."
Hans Stuck,
driver No. 6 PTG M3 GTR
"This afternoon it is much hotter and the track did not have the grip
that it did this morning. Some small tuning has gotten our balance
better. We don't have all the answers on the new tires we tried, but
we are moving in the right direction."
Niclas Jönsson,
driver No. 10 PTG M3 GTR
"Right now I think the three of us are happy with the car and seem to
like the same set-up. Night practice is coming up this evening and
it is important because the critical last few hours of the race will
happen between these times and we want to dial the car in. Our
primary Yokohama works well in most conditions, but maybe we'll look at
another compound. We'll always look for any edge our tires can give
us."
Brian Cunningham,
driver No. 10 PTG M3 GTR
"We are closer to the set-up after some work on the shocks.
Every lap I do knocks off a little more race-rust and I can understand
more of what the GTR likes. David knows Road Atlanta better than
most and Nic knows the GTR as well as anyone so I could not learn from two
better drivers."
David Murry,
driver No. 10 PTG M3 GTR
"A lot of traffic today, but we've made the car more drivable with
the current track conditions and we are closer to where we need to be.
I think we still can get more consistent and faster, but we are looking
for a race set-up that will lend itself to tire management -- not
necessarily ultimate speed."