Roger Lago’s JBS Lamborghini Gallardo has been reverted back to Class A specifications following a row over its eligibility.
The dry weather forecast for the weekend had seen the team make a tactical decision to run in lower-downforce 2011 specification for the weekend, dropping it into Class B.
The car proved one of the very quickest on the Mountain during practice, lapping some five seconds quicker than its nearest Class B rival in the morning as it topped the overall time sheets.
Scrutineering, however, subsequently revealed that the team was not running the 2011-specification brake calipers.
Ruling out moving to the older brakes on the account of their unsuitability to endurance racing, the Lago team missed Saturday morning qualifying as it hurriedly reverted the entire car into its 2013 spec.
“The boys were here until one o’clock this morning prepping the 2011 car, so they haven’t had much sleep,” Lago told Speedcafe.com.
“We made the decision at 0930 this morning that we’d run it as a ’13 and move back up to Class A.
“We had four hours from that point so I was always pretty confident we’d make Q2.
“We’re working together with the McMillan (M Motorsport) guys and we’ll be comparing set-ups with them. Without that we’d be in trouble.”
The McMillan team reported on Friday that its 2013-spec car was as much as 10km/h down on the JBS car during Friday’s practice.
“If I’m going up Mountain straight and I’m pulling in Ferraris then I’m pretty sure we had the right package for this track for this weekend,” said Lago on whether the older specificaiton had indeed proved the more competitive option.
“We don’t think 2mm bigger brake pistons is a big performance issue, but obviously the organisers think otherwise.”
Lago added that he believes the team’s chances of a podium are all but gone thanks to the forced aero spec change.
David Russell and Dutch import Peter Kox are expected to share the #23 Gallardo for the remaining two qualifying sessions.
Kox will start the race having twice previously visited the Mountain only to see his car retire before he was able to turn a racing lap.
