The cars built by Lola for MG Sport & Racing, powered by the X-Power engine developed by AER for MG, and run by the CMS team, showed very well in the hands of Mark Blundell, Julian Bailey, Jonny Kane and Kevin McGarrity, and ended the day fifth and eighth on the time sheets overall, and easily first and second in the 675 LMP class - where the 'works' cars were joined by a privateer Lola MG, from the USA.
 photo copyright © Rick Wilson The KnightHawk Racing Lola EX257 completed a Lola clean sweep of the LMP675 class when Duncan Dayton set third fastest time in class, a time of three minutes 48.326 seconds. The team was brand new to Le Mans and was delayed only by a breakage in the gearbox during the morning session. Lola also supported a fourth car, an LMP900/SR1 class Lola B98/10, run by the French DAMS squad, for drivers Michel Neugarten, Emmanuel Clérico and Philippe Gache, which is taking part in a feature film about the French comic strip racing driver Michel Vaillant, set 18th fastest time overall. "We are not allowed to push," said Gache. Lola will be working with the film crew and DAMS through the 24 Hours and in filming after the June race, and we are told that the blue 98/10 is the car that will belong to the 'good guys' in the film. Mark Blundell raised the most eyebrows when the Briton raced to fifth fastest time in the LMP675 MG Lola, beating the likes of the Bentley, Dome and Courage. The Briton went out in the dying minutes and beat the best time set by Jonny Kane in the second car that had suffered two oil leaks during the day. In the nearer production classes, Tomas Enge, a Lola driver in F3000, stormed away from the rest of the GTS field in his Ferrari 550. Commenting on the Lola chassis performance at the famed Le Mans track, Christopher Tate, Lola's sales and marketing director, said "The MG factory team shows what can be done with a 675 car - and we expect to see all three cars perform well in the race in June - and then to see more customer teams follow KnightHawk's example and take on the ALMS series in the U.S later in the summer."  photo copyright © Rick Wilson |
