Qualifying/Grid 19 of 40 cars were on Dunlop tyres for the first of the four 1000km races that make up the 2004 Le Mans Endurance Series.
The majority of the grid is made up of teams and drivers who will contest the Le Mans 24-hours next month, and they are using this race as valuable further testing for the endurance classic in France. Dunlop’s best qualifying result in the LMP category was with Creation Zytek driven by Jamie Campbell- Walter and Nicolas Minassian who qualified 4th ahead of Audi Goh, with the Rollcentre Dallara Judd less than a second behind to take 7th on the grid.
In the GT class Dunlop dominated the grid by taking the top three qualifying places with the top placed GT contender Freisinger Motorsport taking 22nd position with the Ortelli/Dumas pairing driving a Porsche having switched back to Dunlop for the series. Race The Creation Zytek was running a strong fourth place for most of the race until sidelined my mechanical problems with less than a quarter of the race to run.
The Rollcentre Dallara Judd confirmed their practice and qualifying performance finishing fifth despite a slight coming together with Allan McNish’s Audi in the treacherous wet conditions in which the last half an hour of the race was run It was the GT class that again provided the best results for Dunlop with Freisinger winning the class after a consistently strong performance by the Ortelli/Dumas pairing.
Dunlop had a one-two on the podium with the runner-up slot claimed by the JMB Ferrari of Rusinov/Melo/Dauidi and an impressive six of the top seven places. In an event with a high attrition rate, Dunlop shod more finishers than anyone else. Of the 19 cars classified, nine were on Dunlop, seven on Michelin , two on Yokohama cars and one on Pirelli. Martin Short: Rollcentre Racing – 5th “We lost too much time in the pit stops. Fuel delivery was letting us down and really hurt us. Joao and Rob did a great job. We called the wets just at the right time – one lap before the others so we missed the traffic in the pit lane. Then it was a case of grim survival with one-third of the track completely flooded. The Dunlop wets were magnificent.”
Stephane Ortelli: Freisinger Motorsport – 1st GT “We pushed like crazy to come back. It was the biggest fight. It was really good training for Le Mans. It was my closest race since last October where we won here with Dunlop too.”
Graham Shuter: Dunlop Motorsport “We raced two new compounds on the LMP1 cars for the first time confirming the results we had with them at the Le Mans test day in April. We also successfully debuted a new rear size for the GT cars. Monza’s a tough circuit on tyres and I’m really pleased with the performance and durability. This weekend gave us good experience and data going into Le Mans 24 Hours next month.
