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Lola at Le Mans: After 12 hours

At the halfway stage of the 78th 24 Heures Du Mans, seven Lola sports cars remained racing hard in the ultimate motorsport endurance challenge.

Continuing a near faultless display so far, the 007 and 009 Lola Aston Martin entries were placed 7th and 8th at the 12 hour mark. Stefan Mucke had continued a seering pace and briefly ran 6th when one of the diesel Peugeot entries hit trouble. Adrian Fernandez took over from Mucke and kept the V12 powered Lola on the same lap as the #7 Audi and the recovering #1 Peugeot. Harold Primat was at the wheel as the clock ticked to 03.00.

#009 enjoyed an excellent first half of the race with newcomers to the Lola-Aston Martin, Sam Hancock and Juan Barazi, driving well in support of team regular Darren Turner. Despite a slow out lap by Barazi when he took over at 02.40, the car held a two lap cushion over the 9th placed car.

Signature Plus continued their fine race and remained on the periphery of the top 10 at the halfway mark. Vanina Ickx excelled with a superb double stint, handing the black and white Lola to Pierre Ragues at 01.00, who began to reel in the #14 Kolles Audi in the chase for 9th position.

Drayson Racing dealt with more challenges in their busy pitwork but rose to the challenge of recurring suspension problems to fight back to place 14th in class. At 2am, Paul Drayson was sampling the Lola Judd that bears his name for the first time in darkness, acquitting himself well and lapping solidly.

The #12 Rebellion Racing Lola LMP1 Coupe sits 12th in LMP1 after continuing to fight back from several pit stops to rectify high gearbox temperatures. Neel Jani was completing an impressive stint as the race reached the halfway point. The sister car was retired at 12.30 when, just after a Safety Car period, Jean Christophe Boullion left the circuit at the entrance to the Ford chicane, inflicting terminal rear end damage to the Lola B10/60.

RML are still 5th in the highly competitive LMP2 category with Andy Wallace using his experience to hunt down former RML driver Warren Hughes in the 4th placed Quifel ASM Ginetta. The team have had a relatively trouble free 12 hours of racing, although Tommy Erdos had a scare just before midnight when he hit a rabbit, fortunately without damage to the HPD powered Lola LMP Coupe.

Kruse Schiller put behind them a long pit stop to attend to an alternator problem in the 10th hour. The Judd powered open cockpit Lola was in 8th place in LMP2 and at 3am Jonathan Kennard was revelling in his first race laps in the dark and was close to the 7th placed #24 Oak Racing Pescarolo.

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Standings after 12 Hours

1. Montagny/Sarrazin/Minassian P1 Peugeot 908 196laps
2. Bernhard/Dumas/Rockenfeller P1 Audi R15
3. Fassler/Lotterer/Treluyer P1 Audi R15
4 Panis/Lapierre/Duval P1 ORECA Peugeot 908
5. Wurz/Davidson/Gene P1 Peugeot 908
6. Kristensen/McNish/Capello P1 Audi R15
7. Mucke/Fernandez/Primat P1 AMR Lola-Aston Martin
8. Turner/Hancock/Barazi P1 AMR Lola-Aston Martin
9. Jarvis/Albers/Bakkerud P1 Kolles Audi R10
10. Mailleux/Ragues/Ickx P1 Signature Lola-Aston Martin
11. Watts/Kane/Leventis P2 Strakka HPD ARX-01 183laps
12. Ayari/Andre/Meyrick P1 ORECA 01-AIM
13. Brabham/Franchitti/Werner P2 Highcroft HPD ARX-01
14. Charouz/Lahaye/Moreau P2 Oak Pescarolo
15. Rodrigues/Tucker/Bouchut P1 Kolles Audi
16. Pla/Amaral/Hughes P2 Quifel ASM Ginetta
17. Erdos/Newton/Wallace P2 RML Lola HPD
18. Prost/Andretti/Jani P1 Lola-Rebellion
31. Noda/Pourtales/Kennard P2 KSM Lola-Judd
34. Pirro/Cocker/Drayson P1 Drayson Lola
R. Boullion/Belicchi/Smith P1 Lola-Rebellion
R. Pirri/Cioci/Perrazzini P2 Racing Box Lola
R. Lewis/Burgess/Willman P1 Autocon Lola-AER

After 12 Hours there were 42 cars still running