 |
||
| Jun.13.2001 PLACE DE JACOBIN (scrutineering) | ||
 |
||
|
||
 |
|
 June 12th, two of Dome S101 got into Le place de Jacobin for scrutineering. Car No.9 ( Racing for Holland driven by J. Lammers / V. Hillbrand / D. Cleveres ) and Car No. 10 ( Den Bla Avis Team Goh driven by J. Nielsen / H. Katoh / C. Elger ) Dome S101 that scored the 4th place at pre-qualify is drawing attention, because it cut into works teams. Dome Cars' manager Tadashi Sasaki said "On the local newspaper or magazine, they are picking our cars rather than Audi considered as prospective winner. Of course, the return of Dome is welcomed by people. Dome was challenging Le Mans for a long time from 1979 to 1986. Two of Dome S101 has not been modified a lot from the specification of FIA-SCC. Designer Akiyoshi Oku said, "We'd modified for a long drive reliability rather than the better performance of the car, because these two cars were driven only 4000 km. However, they have to run another 5000 km during 24 hours at Le Mans. We investigated the life of any items with uncertainty such as breaks, suspensions or steering system completely by replacement or modification." In addition, we could improve the maintenance-ability or reliability by reconsidering parts (ex. piping) that had been made with rush work for their shake-down, because there was a month after the last race of FIA-SCC. Their exterior which was originally designed for Le Mans at first, was not specifically modified, except removing the roll-over-bar for passenger that had been added for FIA-SCC. On the Lammers' Car No. 9, Rev-cut system to reduce the burden for transmission is now used, however they tested it only for a few laps at Zandbold circuit before the race. Its real test and evaluation will be done at this qualify. T. Sasaki said, "Since both Lammers and Nielsen had experienced winning Le Mans, they have large experience to raise up their durability with many ways." Two of Dome S101 got into the scrutineering line at 9:00 AM (16:00 Japan), June 11th. Their scrutineering ended duly without sensitive atmosphere that had been seen when some works team fought each other. They were moved into the garage of Salte circuit. Teams started final maintenance for qualify in the afternoon. Nielsen's team uses Goodyear tire for Le Mans same as FIA-SCC however, Lammers' team uses Michelin tire instead of Avon tire that they use for FIA-SCC. "Setting of ride height is very effective at this circuit. Lammers' team looks like having confidence in themselves. They could find the good feeling in their setting at pre-qualify." A. Oku said. He also said that Lammers is going to run just for practice on day 1 of qualify and attack on 2nd day. The other hand, Nielsen's team is going to investigate their setting during 2 days, because Goodyear didn't prepare special tires for qualify and they can't use the same setting as Lammers who uses Michelin tires with different spring rate of tires from Goodyear. Two sessions of official qualify are going to start at 19:00 for 2 hours on the 13th, and at 22:00 for another 2 hours, on the 14th which are 2:00 AM and 5:00 AM respectively in Japan. Makoto Ohgushi |
|
||
|
||
