Predictions, Prognostications and Pontifications

The public pitwalk in an unmissable WEC tradition

It has now become a Club Arnage tradition that your team suffer on your behalf , seize a beer and try and make some thoroughly ill informed predictions as to what might occur today based  on previous performance and the specific gravity of whatever the brew of choice might have been .. mind you Tony was drinking 'Black Cider'.. he is brave lad.. the upshot? Read on..

At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious Porsche are clearly looking a bit brisk. Our thoughts are that one or other of the cars, probably #17 will lead maybe for the first  couple of hours. They claim to have put in 30,000 kms testing so that might indicate that reliability probably ought not to be a problem. However there is a question mark over the way they use up tyres. There is 40% chance of rain mid-afternoon which may cause some confusion. We reckon Porsche ought to win, they have the pace and maybe the reliability. We are Webber (@AussieGrit) fans so lets hope the #17 car with Hartley and Bernhard can win it.

We do reckon that Audi will give them a run for their money. OK the cars may be relatively 'old tech' and lack the out and out pace of the Porsches but we have seen that Audi simply don't panic or make mistakes.. they are a totally refined long distance racing team and  their track record is remarkable. They have won Le Mans 13 times.. taken two manufacturers titles.. been on the podium 33 times .. taken ten pole positions and fifteen fastest laps. They do seem to have got the hang of this endurance racing lark ! Our money would be on #7 car of Fassler/Lotterer/Treluyer.

Toyota... something isn't quite right with Toyota here at Silverstone. They may be simply keeping their powder dry for the race but they have not impressed us so far. They have shuffled their driver pairings up and maybe that is taking a while to settle down. Looking at those top speed figures they are 23 kms slower in a straight line than the Porsches. If either is going to make it we reckon #1 Buemi/Davidson/Nakajima is a good bet.

#28 G-Drive sits on LMP2 pole for Silverstone WEC

In LMP2 it looks like G-Drive are the team to beat again this year, but newcomers from ELMS Signatech Alpine were strong in FP and qualifying so could spring a surprise or two. Our money is on the #26 Rusinov/Canal/Bird Ligier JS P2 -Nissan for the win, even though they qualified second in class.

In LMGTE Pro it looks virtually inevitable that an Aston Martin will win the class.. but beware of The Curse of The Journos! Our bet would be #97 Turner/ Mucke car .. however 'The Grand Fromage' quite fancies the 'Dane Train' #95. Your scribbler doesn't because it is difficult to do an  'ø' on a UK keyboard!

LMGTE Am is less clear cut.. in other words we don't know! However once again the Astons are looking quick and increasingly bombproof so if pushed we would go for #98 with Dalla Lana/Lamy and Lauda. Our hearts would like a the Larbre C7 Corvette to knock the Astons off their perch but that looks unlikely.