It was 4.30pm when the broadcaster's exclamation announced the event: on the timing screens, the name of Stéphane Sarrazin in car no.14 had just posted the fastest time of the whole tests, ahead of the three factory Audis that, true to form, had dominated since the opening minutes of the morning session.
 photo copyright © Rick Wilson Surprised by this, the German marque was to react swiftly. Shortly before the end of tests, the three works cars were back on track with qualifying tyres in order to attack the stopwatch. But only one Audi, the no.2 of Capello-Herbert-Pescatori, succeeded in improving the time established earlier by PlayStation Team Oreca. "What is important to us, is to know that we can face marques like Audi, Bentley, MG, Cadillac, and other teams like Courage, Pescarolo, Dome, Panoz or Riley & Scott" underlined Hugues of Chaunac with an obvious satisfaction. This 2nd overall time brings an eloquent answer to questions that have been asked in recent weeks. The Preliminary Tests certainly established the reputation of this package at Le Mans. The immense encouragement that constitutes the results of this day will have a very positive effect on all the team at the time of the final phase of an uninterrupted effort since the launching of the Challenge Le Mans.  photo copyright © Rick Wilson |
