Maranello, 10 April

The second day of practice for the Le Mans Series race on the Paul Ricard HTTT circuit at Le Castellet went very well for the AF Corse team. In the third and final free practice session in the morning, it was the Porsche 997 of Marc Lieb and Richard Lietz that was quickest, ahead of the F430 crewed by Giancarlo Fisichella, Jean Alesi and Toni Vilander, the other Ferrari entered by CRS Racing, driven by Andrew Kirkaldy-Tim Mullen and the second AF Corse car driven by Gimmi Bruni and Jaime Melo. However, this crew then produced a skilful drive to dominate qualifying, which has just ended on the French track, getting the most out of the short session. Tomorrow therefore, they start ahead of the Lieb-Lietz Porsche and the Kirkaldy-Mullen and Alesi-Fisichella-Vilander F430s. “Again, just a few laps for me today,” said Fisichella, “because we all agreed it was better to leave qualifying in the expert hands of Toni Vilander. This morning’s session went well and we managed to dial out some of the oversteer, giving us a much more precise car to drive than yesterday. Hard to say what might happen tomorrow: we start fourth in our category and I’m expecting an exciting race,but I hope I won’t be having to fight the rain.” The race starts at 11am tomorrow.