Aston tops Sebring test despite crash

Date published : 23 Feb 2010 - 23:41:37

Aston Martin Racing completed a dominant performance in winter testing at Sebring by topping both today's sessions - but left with a heavily damaged car after a late crash.Harold Primat had a violent impact with the barriers at Turn 1 with two hours remaining in the test, doing substantial damage to the LMP1 Aston. Primat was sent to hospital for precautionary checks afterwards.By that time Aston had already set an unbeatable time in the afternoon session, and its 1m46.894s lap from the morning would stand as the best of the two days of testing.The Intersport Lola of Jon and Clint Field made a late improvement to repeat its Monday second place, with Highcroft's HPD car third ahead of the Dyson Lola-Mazda and Cytosport's Porsche.Genoa Racing recruited double Sebring winner Andy Wallace and Indy Lights champion JR Hildebrand to assist Larry Connor with the first test of its new LMP Challenge class car, and the star line-up came away with the fastest time in class today, ahead of the Gunnar and Level 5 teams.Risi's Ferrari topped GT2 again, followed by the Flying Lizard Porsches, Scott Sharp's new Extreme Speed Ferrari and the Falken Porsche. The Rahal Letterman BMWs were only seventh and eighth today, while the new RSR Jaguar lost a lot of mileage to niggling technical problems.Kelly Moss Racing led the way in GT Challenge again, this time with Rob Walton its pacesetting driver.Pos Cl Drivers Car Time 1. P1 Primat/Fernandez/Mucke/Buncombe Lola-Aston Martin 1m46.894s 2. P1 Field/Field Lola-AER 1m47.925s 3. P2 Brabham/Pagenaud/Franchitti HPD 1m48.153s 4. P2 Dyson/Smith Lola-Mazda 1m48.496s 5. P2 Pickett/Graf Porsche 1m49.318s 6. PC Connor/Wallace/Hildebrand Oreca 1m56.753s 7. PC Zugel/Jeannette/Julian Oreca 1m56.900s 8. PC Tucker/Bouchut Oreca 1m57.054s 9. PC Feinberg/Marcelli Oreca 1m57.515s10. PC Pagerey/Wong Oreca 1m58.988s11. GT2 Melo/Bruni Ferrari 2m02.559s12. GT2 Law/Neiman Porsche 2m02.929s13. GT2 Bergmeister/Long Porsche 2m03.021s14. GT2 Sharp/van Overbeek Ferrari 2m03.198s15. GT2 Sellers/Henzler Porsche 2m03.227s16. GT2 Brown/Cosmo Ferrari 2m03.250s17. GT2 Mueller/Hand/Werner BMW 2m03.305s18. GT2 Auberlen/Milner BMW 2m03.377s19. GT2 Pappas/Bleekemolen Porsche 2m04.252s20. GT2 Robertson/Robertson/Murry Doran Ford 2m04.835s21. GT2 Gentilozzi/Goossens/Drissi/Pruett Jaguar 2m07.734s22. GTC Walton Porsche 2m07.795s23. GTC Carlisle Porsche 2m08.205s24. GTC Holden Porsche 2m08.412s25. GTC Curtis/Sofronas Porsche 2m08.854s26. GTC Rodriguez/Bieker/Friedman Porsche 2m10.016s27. GTC Lewis/Vento Porsche 2m10.856s28. GTC LeSaffre Porsche 2m11.962s