LAGUNA SECA QUALIFYING - 20^th October 2006

Qualifying yesterday, and it was Olivier's turn to qualify, was a little bit frustrating and we didn't quite get everything lined up as we'd have liked. This is mostly down to fact that the two cars went in two different directions on set up to help us find the optimum set up and balance for the car.

The direction we went on our #4 car was a little bit of a dead end in terms of how far we could go, so we're now having to back-pedal slightly and follow the set up the #3 car took which, of course, we'll only be able to try out in warm-up before the race.

It's frustrating not to be a little bit closer to the 009 car on pole but I think it's good all four cars are very close (just five tenths of a second between the four GT1 cars) so the equalisation seems to be working on this occasion. It's a shame it's taken so many races to get to this point!

I'm looking forward to the race though it's going to be challenging. The character of this track has changed quite a lot since last year. It's been re-surfaced and is very grippy at certain points but then you come round for the next lap and, at the same corner, it's like ice. And then if there's sand on the track, or if you go slightly off the racing line, or there's oil put down, that changes everything. It's very much a place where there's a lot of grip or no grip at all and that affects lap times.

It's very easy to get caught out here at Laguna Seca and it's going to be a nail biter of a race, all the time you're anticipating what's going to be round the corner. There's a good field here and I think the LMP cars will present a few problems for us as it's not that easy to pass here. They've got their race going on, and we've got ours but we've all got to work together as well to make sure there are no incidents or accidents. We've got to pass the GT2 cars too, of course, so it's going to be even harder than usual to make progress. I think by the time we get into the second hour it's going to be one line only. Let's hope we're at the front!