A late driver change for Team Modena for this weekend’s fourth round of the 2009 Le Mans Series sees Finn Toni Vilander step in to replace Jaime Melo for the meeting. With Jaime unable to travel from the USA after a severe bout of food poisoning, a call on Friday to Toni saw him arrive at the Nurburgring late that evening, and the reigning FIA GT2 champion had his first run in Team Modena’s Ferrari 430 GT in Saturday morning's final Free Practice session.

“We had a message to say that Jaime was in hospital in Huston with food poisoning,” explained Team Manager Hans Muelhbauer, “but with the help of Ferrari we were able to get Toni Vilander to replace him for the weekend. Toni has only had half a session to get familiar with the car, the team, the track and everything else going on this weekend. He is familiar with the 430 as he drives a Ferrari in FIA GT, but we had to spend this session getting him on track when everyone else was doing qualifying runs, although we are quite confident for the race.”

Toni was at home in Finland when he knew he was wanted in Germany, and the 29-year-old reacted promptly to the team’s offer to join Antonio Garcia and Leo Mansell in the etan's race line-up.

“I got the call from the team at 1.30pm Finnish time on Friday,” said Toni, “and I had to leave home at 2pm – 30-minutes to pack and start the three-hour drive to the airport, and I got there 40-minutes before the flight. I arrived here just after ten last night.

“I split the practice session with Antonio – for me it is a new team and new team-mates, and a new circuit, I have not been here before. I just tried to keep things simple, and get used to the prototypes, we got not have them in FIA GT. Once I knew they wanted me here I did not hesitate, it just meant I had to change the plan, I was going to have a nice quiet weekend with my girlfriend.”