lap in the afternoon session, setting the second-fastest time of Sunday's Le Mans
Preliminary Testing. Ralf's 3:33.205sec lap on Michelin qualifying rubber was
less than half a second shy of the leading Joest Audi R8's time of 3:32.742. The
third-fastest time of the day was set by Team Bentley at 3:34.050, nearly a full
second adrift of Kelleners' best lap.
After the final session, Champion Racing owner Dave Maraj said, "All the credit
goes to the Champion R8 crew for preparing our Audi so well for the biggest day
since Champion started racing, and Ralf Kelleners really pulled it out for us
when it counted this afternoon. We're really proud to be going into the Le Mans
race in June with such a solid and productive test behind us". Sunday's testing
was made up of two four-hour sessions, during which '91 Le Mans winner Johnny
Herbert and Didier Theys had their first Champion Audi track time. Theys had previously
driven an Audi R8R at Le Mans in 1999.
Sunday morning dawned very cold, windy and somewhat cloudy, but by the time the
first test session commenced at 9am the sky was mostly clear and very sunny. The
rain that had plagued our early preparations was fortunately absent during the
test day, though the weather remained cold and very windy. The sun through most
of the day meant track conditions were improved in the afternoon session.
The Le Mans 24 Hours takes place on 16-17 June. We'll follow Champion's whole
Le Mans race week right here.
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Herbert, Theys and Kelleners