2011 1000 km of Spa
The 2011 1000 km of Spa-Francorchamps was held at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps on May 7, 2011. It was the second round of the 2011 Le Mans Series season and the 2011 Intercontinental Le Mans Cup. Prior to the race weekend there were up to 60 provisional entries but was shortened to 54 as there were some withdrawals from Aston Martin Racing who withdrew to continue developing their new and struggling AMR-One.[1] It was a similar situation for Hope Racing who were not quite ready to race the new KERS-driven Oreca 01 Hybrid.[2] Other cars had to withdraw from damage prior to the weekend including the No. 24 OAK Racing Pescarolo 01 LMP1 car.[3]
In the second free practice session of the race, the No. 13 Rebellion Racing Lola-Toyota driven by Jean-Christophe Boullion crashed heavily at Radillon corner. Then shortly after the green flag was waved to restart, the No. 8 Peugeot of Pedro Lamy and No. 36 RML Honda of Mike Newton collided with each other. Both Peugeot and Rebellion mechanics had to deal with a late night with the RML car too heavily damaged to take further part in the race weekend.[4]
Qualifying
The qualifying session was stopped early when another heavy impact during the weekend halted proceedings. It was the remaining LMP1 car of OAK Racing that fell victim to the famous Spa-Francorchamps track. Matthieu Lahaye crashed heavily into a barrier resulting in lots of débris being put on the track. The session was red flagged and not restarted. This was bad news for Peugeot who decided to released their cars later on in the session but the red flags meant the two car only set one flying laps each. This resulted in the two cars No. 7 and 9 starting in 13th and 18th overall respectively, with the No. 8 Peugeot starting at the back of the grid for not participating in the qualifying session as it was still being repaired from the practice crash.
The No. 1 Audi driven by Timo Bernhard took pole position with No. 2 and 3 qualifying second and third respectively. Strakka Racing took LMP2 pole only marginally ahead of TDS Racing. In the FLM class, Phil Keen of Neil Garner Motorsport took pole for their car. The No. 71 AF Corse Ferrari starts first in the GTE Pro class while the No. 67 IMSA Matmut Porsche took pole in GTE Am.[5]
Qualifying Result
Pole position winners in each class are marked in bold.[6]
| Pos | Class | Team | Driver | Lap Time | Grid |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | LMP1 | #1 Audi Sport Team Joest | Timo Bernhard | 2:01.502 | 1 |
| 2 | LMP1 | #2 Audi Sport Team Joest | André Lotterer | 2:01.788 | 2 |
| 3 | LMP1 | #3 Audi Sport North America | Tom Kristensen | 2:02.145 | 3 |
| 4 | LMP1 | #10 Team Oreca-Matmut | Nicolas Lapierre | 2:05.482 | 4 |
| 5 | LMP1 | #12 Rebellion Racing | Nicolas Prost | 2:06.767 | 5 |
| 6 | LMP1 | #20 Quifel ASM Team | Olivier Pla | 2:07.290 | 6 |
| 7 | LMP1 | #16 Pescarolo Team | Christophe Tinseau | 2:07.528 | 7 |
| 8 | LMP1 | #15 OAK Racing | Matthieu Lahaye | 2:07.729 | 8 |
| 9 | LMP1 | #23 MIK Corse | Giacomo Piccini | 2:08.821 | 9 |
| 10 | LMP2 | #42 Strakka Racing | Danny Watts | 2:10.016 | 10 |
| 11 | LMP2 | #46 TDS Racing | Mathias Beche | 2:10.141 | 11 |
| 12 | LMP2 | #26 Signatech Nissan | Franck Mailleux | 2:10.474 | 12 |
| 13 | LMP1 | #7 Peugeot Sport Total | Marc Gené | 2:10.725 | 13 |
| 14 | LMP2 | #45 Boutsen Energy Racing | Nicolas de Crem | 2:11.183 | 14 |
| 15 | LMP2 | #41 Greaves Motorsport | Tom Kimber-Smith | 2:11.218 | 15 |
| 16 | LMP2 | #40 Race Performance | Ralph Meichtry | 2:11.306 | 16 |
| 17 | LMP2 | #44 Extrême Limite AM Paris | Fabien Rosier | 2:11.842 | 17 |
| 18 | LMP1 | #9 Peugeot Sport Total | Simon Pagenaud | 2:12.108 | 18 |
| 19 | LMP2 | #35 OAK Racing | Andrea Barlesi | 2:12.373 | 19 |
| 20 | LMP2 | #39 Pecom Racing | Pierre Kaffer | 2:13.584 | 20 |
| 21 | FLM | #92 Neil Garner Motorsport | Phil Keen | 2:13.592 | 21 |
| 22 | LMP2 | #33 Level 5 Motorsports | Christophe Bouchut | 2:13.851 | 22 |
| 23 | LMP2 | #43 RLR msport | Rob Garofall | 2:14.122 | 23 |
| 24 | FLM | #91 Hope Racing | Nicolas Marroc | 2:14.431 | 24 |
| 25 | FLM | #99 JMB Racing | Olivier Lombard | 2:17.120 | 25 |
| 26 | FLM | #93 Genoa Racing | Elton Julian | 2:18.219 | 26 |
| 27 | FLM | #95 Pegasus Racing | Julien Schell | 2:18.757 | 27 |
| 28 | GTE-Pro | #71 AF Corse | Jaime Melo | 2:20.743 | 28 |
| 29 | GTE-Pro | #66 JMW Motorsport | Rob Bell | 2:20.915 | 29 |
| 30 | GTE-Pro | #51 AF Corse | Giancarlo Fisichella | 2:21.086 | 30 |
| 31 | GTE-Pro | #77 Team Felbermayr-Proton | Marc Lieb | 2:21.291 | 31 |
| 32 | GTE-Pro | #55 BMW Motorsport | Augusto Farfus | 2:21.460 | 32 |
| 33 | GTE-Pro | #89 Hankook Team Farnbacher | Dominik Farnbacher | 2:21.779 | 33 |
| 34 | GTE-Pro | #56 BMW Motorsport | Andy Priaulx | 2:22.219 | 34 |
| 35 | GTE-Pro | #76 IMSA Performance Matmut | Wolf Henzler | 2:22.955 | 35 |
| 36 | GTE-Am | #67 IMSA Performance Matmut | Nicolas Armindo | 2:23.007 | 36 |
| 37 | GTE-Pro | #58 Luxury Racing | Anthony Beltoise | 2:23.063 | 37 |
| 38 | GTE-Am | #61 AF Corse | Marco Cioci | 2:23.269 | 38 |
| 39 | GTE-Am | #82 CRS Racing | Phil Quaife | 2:23.485 | 39 |
| 40 | GTE-Pro | #75 Prospeed Competition | Marc Goossens | 2:23.639 | 40 |
| 41 | GTE-Am | #60 Gulf AMR Middle East | Fabien Giroix | 2:23.727 | 41 |
| 42 | GTE-Am | #70 Kessel Racing | Philipp Peter | 2:24.050 | 42 |
| 43 | GTE-Am | #88 Team Felbermayr-Proton | Horst Felbermayr, Jr. | 2:24.599 | 43 |
| 44 | GTE-Am | #50 Larbre Compétition | Gabriele Gardel | 2:24.773 | 44 |
| 45 | GTE-Pro | #65 Lotus Jetalliance | James Rossiter | 2:25.124 | 45 |
| 46 | GTE-Am | #62 CRS Racing | Pierre Ehret | 2:25.617 | 46 |
| 47 | GTE-Am | #63 Proton Competition | Christian Ried | 2:26.797 | 47 |
| 48 | GTE-Pro | #59 Luxury Racing | Frédéric Makowiecki | 2:27.098 | 48 |
| 49 | GTE-Am | #57 Krohn Racing | Tracy Krohn | 2:28.677 | 49 |
| 50 | LMP1 | #8 Peugeot Sport Total | No Time | 50 | |
| 51 | LMP1 | #13 Rebellion Racing | No Time | 51 | |
| 52 | GTE-Pro | #64 Lotus Jetalliance | No Time | 52 | |
| 53 | GTE-Am | #72 AF Corse | No Time | 53 | |
| 54 | GTE-Pro | #79 JOTA | No Time | 54 | |
Race result
Class winners in bold. Cars failing to complete 70% of winner's distance marked as Not Classified (NC).[7]
References
- ^ "Aston Martin Racing to sit out Spa-Francorchamps". Automobile Club de l'Ouest. 2011-04-28. Retrieved 2011-05-06.
- ^ "Oreca Hybrid to be absent from Spa". Automobile Club de l'Ouest. 2011-05-03. Archived from the original on 2012-03-15. Retrieved 2011-05-06.
- ^ "OAK Racing LM P1 #24 to miss Spa". Automobile Club de l'Ouest. 2011-05-01. Archived from the original on 2012-03-15. Retrieved 2011-05-06.
- ^ "1000 KM of Spa: Crashes halt second practice". planetlemans.com. 2011-05-05. Retrieved 2011-05-06.
- ^ "1000 KM of Spa: Audi on pole, Peugeot gambles wrong". planetlemans.com. 2011-05-06. Retrieved 2011-05-06.
- ^ "LMS Spa Provisional Grid" (PDF). Automobile Club de l'Ouest. 2011-05-06. Retrieved 2011-05-06.[permanent dead link]
- ^ "Race - Provisional Classification" (PDF). lemans-series.com. Le Mans Series. 2011-05-07. Retrieved 2011-05-08.[permanent dead link]