Panoz Team Sebring Qualifying Report
SUPERFLO 12 HOURS OF SEBRING
ROUND TWO, AMERICAN LE MANS SERIES
Thursday, 15th March 2001
Second Qualifying
Panoz star David Brabham today found additional speed in the second round of qualifying for this weekend's Superflo 12 Hours of Sebring, but lost one spot on the grid aboard the new Panoz LMP-07.
While he set a time of 1 minute 53.595 seconds yesterday, the Australian improved to stop the clocks at 1:53.257 in today's final session. The qualifying effort in the new Panoz machine will leave the #50 car starting in position six for Saturday's race.
"The car is still very hard to drive here at the moment, but we will try some further changes in night practice this evening," Brabham said. "It is a bit frustrating at the moment, but we are working with a brand new car and it is always tough in the initial stages. Everybody is working extremely hard and we will just have to put our heads down in the race and push on. Twelve hours around Sebring is just as tough as 24 at Le Mans - it will be a great test for the car."
The second Panoz of Klaus Graf and Gualter Salles again struck brake problems early in the qualifying session. "In the last 24 hours the guys have changed virtually everything on the brake system, but we still have to find the problem, " Graf said. "It has cost Gualter and me a lot of track time, but we will be trying to put some more laps on the car tonight."
Audi driver Emanuele Pirro repeated his pole position time from yesterday aboard the lead Audi he will share will fellow reigning winners Frank Biela and Tom Kristensen.
Saturday's Superflo 12 Hours of Sebring kicks off at 10.40 am.
For further information : Fiona Miller at Panoz Motor Sports, fiona@panozmotorsports.com