Dutchman Yelmer Buurman, who is also a Le Mans newcomer, set the time to put Status GP well in the mix among the ultra-competitive 20-car class, and 21st overall. The team lost 45 minutes of track time at the beginning of the four hours of Thursday qualifying. The car’s race engine was fitted during the day, but rising water temperatures meant a pit stop to solve the problem.

After the mid-session break, Buurman went out at dusk and pushed the car back up the order to a very respectable position with a best lap of 3m40.280s, which was 2.099 seconds slower than the class polesitting ADR-Delta Oreca driven by John Martin. Buurman also set six successive laps in the 3m40s to 3m42s bracket. British team-mate Alexander Sims, another Le Mans debutant, got limited running as the red flags flew after just three flying laps in the dark due to debris on the track. But during that time he put in a strong 3m41.500s best. Frenchman Romain Iannetta completed the session for Status GP, and found some very encouraging pace as he lapped considerably faster than before. He then had an incident at the first Mulsanne chicane, causing some slight damage to the nose and bringing his run to an end.

The team ran the session with the race set-up, so was very pleased to finish with a laptime improvement of more than a second over yesterday’s qualifying. Status GP technical director Rob Arnott said: “”We were purely concentrating on race pace and getting Romain up to speed with his night driving, and the pace was very good. We are very happy with our car and our drivers, who did a super job for our first visit to Le Mans. There was a slight incident for Romain, but we think it may be caused by an issue with the throttle cable – it may have picked up some debris in the throttle quadrant. There’s also a minor fleshwound to the nose. The other problem had its origin in a thermostat we fitted for night cooling in the cold weather. Some air was picked up in the system and that sent the temperatures up. All we could do was let it cool.”

The race starts at 1500 on Saturday afternoon, with Friday given over to numerous activities including the famous Le Mans Drivers’ Parade in the city centre.

Yelmer Buurman:

“It was pretty good. The first lap was reasonably free of traffic, but at that time I was scrubbing the tyres, getting up to speed – and even then it was immediately an improvement. After that I had just one lap where the traffic was not too bad, although I got held up by an LMP2 car at a chicane. If I put all my sectors together it would be a low 3m39s – in the top five. The car is very stable – we’ve got a very good race car and really looking forward to it.”

Alexander Sims:

“We’ve improved the car and how it works the tyres since yesterday – everything is nicely sorted. Having a sleep on it, after my first proper experience of night driving on a racetrack, has made things better as well. I’ve now got confidence to go into the race expecting to be pretty close to the pace. Maybe there’s still another half a second or so in me, but that’s still a very solid time.”

Romain Iannetta:

“As I entered the first corner at the chicane I had a big understeer, and that meant that I touched the tyres at the second corner with a little crash. We think that it may have been caused by a throttle problem. Before that I felt that the car was good, and I am improving all the time. I have a good feeling compared to yesterday.”

Source : Status GP