Stuart Hall is eyeing a strong result as he embarks on his maiden Le Mans 24 Hours after the Rollcentre Pescarolo managed to get amongst their works counterparts in qualifying for the legendary race.
Racing a customer version of the Judd-powered LMP1 machine, Rollcentre, with Hall, Joao Barbosa and Martin Short at the wheel, are the underdogs of the Pescarolo trio but managed to get within two seconds of the leading entry driven by a formidable line-up of Jean-Christophe, Emmanuel Collard and Romain Dumas.
They were also well up on the Christophe Tinseau, Benoit Treluyer, Harold Primat car, giving Hall a sense of pride that they managed to get up to eighth on an impressive grid of competitors this year, not least because they didn't reach their maximum.
“We are very pleased to split the works Pescarolos,” he told
Crash.net Radio. “We didn't maximise our qualifying time and speaking to Joao, he said he had quite a lot of traffic on his quick lap so we are very optimistic for the race. It is certainly a bit tricky, but we have a really good car and we have some great Dunlop tyres, so I think we have a good package wet or dry.”
Looking ahead to the race, Hall is hoping the new Pescarolo's impressive reliability thus far will be a factor on their way to the front of the field in the race, the Brit even keeping a wry eye on a possible podium if things fall their way.
“You just have to race for 24 Hours without any mistakes and if we do that I think we can come away with a good result. We just need to fire at the same time and maximise our speed and pit stops.
“It would be nice to finish inside the top six and when you are in the top six things can happen and you can find yourself on the podium. Anything can happen.”
