Aston Martin Racing qualified its two DBR9s third and fourth in the GT1 class for the Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta, reward at least for the efforts the team had to put in to repair the #57 entry.
Incredibly, David Brabham set the third fastest time in the rebuilt car, but only after the team had completed extensive repairs following an accident between AMR newcomer Jonny Kane and the Lola prototype of Eric van der Poele on Wednesday night. Spare parts were sourced and flown out from England on Thursday, and the car did not run again until practice on Friday.
Brabham's best time was 1min 17.020secs, putting the best of the DBR9s behind the class-leading Corvettes, but ahead of both its sister car and the ACEMCO Saleen that had shown increasing promise in the previous round of the American Le Mans Series.
“After the damage that we had in practice, we lost a whole day, but we are as quick as any car other than the Corvettes,” said the Australian. “We already knew that we would not be as quick as the Corvettes here, though.”
Czech driver Tomas Enge was not that far behind Brabham in the #58 car, clocking 1min 17.144secs for fourth in class.
“The run was without any problems, a clear lap with no mistakes, and the car was pretty good - it just was not fast enough,” Enge reported, “We are still playing the safe game for the race. We are fourth, but we are very close to each other - and close to the Corvettes too. We are not fastest, but we are still happy!”
Team principal George Howard-Chappell put the solid performance down to the preparation work undertaken in the run-up to the race.
“We have done the best that we can," he commented, "We tested here for three days, got a good base set-up and that is about as fast as the car will go. We are really pleased that the repair on #57 is perfect, as it is as quick as the other car. As usual, the team worked in their normal professional way and the result shows.”
