Official Qualifying - LMP900 & LMP675

Gulf Audi on Pole for Estoril 1000km

Estoril, Portugal - Saturday 14th July 2001: Stefan Johannson took the Gulf sponsored Johannson Motorsport R8 to Audi's 14th consecutive ALMS/ELMS pole position.

The 30 minutes qualifying period was declared wet but all the prototypes elected to start on slicks as the rain was very light. Johansson was immediately setting the pace with Jean-Christophe Boullion in the Courage trying his best to close the gap to the Audi. David Dussau in the LMP675 Debora tried keep pace with the larger 900 class machines, but a trip into the gravel trap forced him into the pitlane to have the gravel removed plus have some quick repair work to the slight damage to the nose of his car.

Stefan Johansson came back into the pits over four seconds faster than the Courage but complaining of soft brakes. The mechanics worked on the car and Johansson returned to the track to improve his time by another 1.2 seconds right at the end of the session, lapping the 2.6 mile circuit at an average speed of 105.87 mph. Boullion closed the gap to 1.6 seconds just before Johansson set his fastest lap of the day. A quick trip to the pits to adjust the suspension of the Pescarolo Sport machine improved his time by half a second but finished the session over 2.6 seconds behind the Audi. Dussau took the Debora back onto the track and like the others improved his time before the end of qualifying.

Round 3 - Estoril - LMP900 and LMP675 - Qualifying -30 minutes

1 - 7 - 900 - Johansson / Lemarie / Coronel - Audi R8 - 1:28.876
2 - 72 - 900 - Boullion/ Redon / Derichebourg - Courage C60 - +2.658s
3 - 28 - 675 - Dussau / Gomez / Bich - Debora - +8.658s

- ENDS -