#66 FERRARI 550 MARANELLO PRODRIVE

Tomas Enge (CZ)

Alain Menu (CH)

Peter Kox (NL)

Antónin Vojtik (CZ)

Jiri Micek jr (CZ) u.r.

Lukas Micek (CZ) u.r.

RACE FACTS - Having been specially prepaired for the Le Mans 24-hours, and having been absent at the Monza 1,000-kms, the #66 Maranello started from 17th position as fastest car in the GTS-class. During the first half hour the car (driven by Peter Kox), immediately followed by the 65, was ahead of the two Corvettes. After the first pit stop the #64 Corvette could take a 8" advantages over the Prodrive #66. Just before the end of the second hour Tomas Enge, doing his double stint, spins on the same patch of oil at the Porsche Curves that caused the Audi double accidents. The Czech is fortunate not to hit anything, and returns to the pits to change tyres and to clear gravel from the car, thus dropping behind the team’s other car in the running order. After 6 hours all three racers achieved their double stints without the smallest technical problem of the car, having moved into sixth position, 1'54" down to the class leading Corvette.  At midnight the difference with the Corvette is 2'16". During the following hour the #6§ is motoring a bit faster than the #64 Corvette, since difference between two cars came down to 2'10". Drama for the Corvette shortly after 01.00h when Magnussen and Jamie Davies (in the race leading #88 Audi R8R Veloqx) collide at the Ford Chicane, after a driving error of the Brit. The Corvette backs into the wall and needs to be dragged out. Mags has to complete a full lap with some rear damage, losing valuable time to Enge. The accident costs the Corvette six laps, dropping from sixth to tenth. The Prodrive Ferrari is now the new class leader, but now seventh after the #5 Audi R8 and the #9 Kondo Dome - two faster LMP1 prototypes - could pass the GTS Ferrari.
01.55: The 66 Ferrari is in its garage, the crew trying to fix a misfire - and the 64 Corvette. When Alain Menu can leave the pits difference is down to two and a half laps. Eventually the misfire was provoked by a ball of rubber lodged in a restrictor. At mid-race difference with the #64 Corvette is three laps. Another lost 13 minutes in the pits of the Corvette, shortly after mid-race make the advance increasing to six laps. After 18 hours of racing the car is sixth, headed by the three Audis and the two Pescarolos. The #64 Corvette follows at still at six laps. When the #17 Pescarolo is retired the Thomas Enge Ferrari is already fifth. But drama at 11.40h: the car has a puncture, left front, near the start of the lap. Tomas Enge crawls home, but unusually, the punctured tyre (and wheel) don't rotate. Enge grinds his way round to the pit, and the GTS class leader is pulled into the garage, for some fairly lengthy work. A five lap lead suddenly doesn't seem very safe at all. Olivier Beretta immediately cuts his times from 3'57" to 3'56", then 3'55"... as he knocks the laps off one by one. Enge needs more than 30 minutes before he can reach the pits, loosing eight laps and the GTS-lead. After 22 minutes in the pits, and another six laps lost, Alain Menu takes over, but he goes off the road in the gravel at the Playstation Chicane. More than ten minutes are lost in the pits, and when the car resumes it is at once 21 laps down to the #64 Corvette and is even passed by the #63 Corvette and the #65 Prodrive sister car. Perhaps the most dramatic hours of the 72nd Le Mans 24 hours!
Only during the last hour Tomas Enge - performing a double stint - can pass the Freisinger Porsche to finish eleventh overall, 21 laps down to the class winning #64 Corvette C5-R.