May 6th, 2010

Second appointment of the Le Mans Series Championship at the Spa Francorchamps circuit, a favourite of both Andrea and Giacomo Piccini, the two Italian brothers from Sansepolcro, for the technical characteristics of its 7004 metres.
Along with Ferdinando Geri, their team mate, sharing the same Judd-powered Lola B09 Coupé for team Racing Box, the Piccini’s left on Thursday, May 6th and will begin an intense race weekend on Friday, May 7th, with the first free practice session.A factor that could play an important role in the outcome of this weekend is the weather, still very cold and wintry in Belgium. All eyes will therefore be on the weather forecast and, should it be necessary to resort to intermediate tyres, Pirelli has all the right solutions to allow the trio at the wheel of the #30 car to play a leading role in this competition.
The Spa circuit is better suited for the characteristics of the Lola, with respect to the Paul Ricard track, where the Championship started off last April 11th. In the case of Spa, it will be the driver’s talent that will be of fundamental importance. “During the course of the tests carried out on April 28th at the Vallelunga circuit – says Andrea Piccini – we tried rear tyre compounds which seemed able to guarantee better performance, therefore at Spa we expect to all be closer in our  performance levels”.
Tyres, therefore, seem to be destined to make the difference (or however to be a determining factor), following the positive final phases of the Le Castellet race, where the Lola provided excellent references in terms of reliability as well.
There is therefore optimism within the Racing Box team, which, for this race, will see only two drivers at the wheel of its #29 car: Piergiuseppe Perazzini and Marco Cioci have in fact been replaced by Filippo Francioni, who will be teaming up with Luca Pirri.
The car to beat in the Lmp2 category remains the Acura, driven by the British trio formed by Johnny Kane, Nick Leventis and Danny Watts which, about a month ago, made their ambitions very clear, and most of all proved to have a bit of extra horsepower.
The weekend programme will begin with two free practice sessions on Friday the 7th, at 12:00 and 16:30, and on Saturday the 8th a third free practice session at 09:45, followed by qualifying at 14:20. On Sunday the 9th, “warm up” will begin at 09:00 and start of the 6-hour race is scheduled for 11:30.