Rain to change qualifying strategy at LeMans

With the forecast for tonight’s qualifying session still up in the air, some American Le Mans Series teams at the 24 Hours of Le Mans were evaluating their strategy in the time leading to the 7 p.m. green flag. Rain damped the circuit in the mid-afternoon with skies threatening to open again later in the day.

The track time on the wet surface looms large as the weekend forecast is calling for more rain Saturday and Sunday.

At Risi Competizione, the team was swapping out engines in both of the Ferrari F430 GTs. “It’s a standard thing," said team manager David Sims. By putting the race engines in for tonight’s session, Risi has extra time to shake them down and make any adjustments should they arise prior to Saturday’s warm-up.

The two factory Corvette C6.Rs from Corvette Racing will go out to test their defogging system as the cars are equipped with air conditioning. With rain expected throughout the race, the testing no doubt will come in handy.

Meanwhile the Flying Lizard crew plan to do at least a few laps, if for no other reason than to get some time in the new Porsche Type 997 in the wet. Team LNT’s two Panoz Esperante GTLMs were expected to run Pirelli’s rain tires, which crew members have said is superior to Michelin wets.

With the tremendous amount of torque originating from its 5.5-liter V12 turbo diesel engine, Audi’s three R10 TDIs figure to be tricky to handle in the rain, as well as the Peugeot diesels.