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Le Mans - Only two drivers will race for the No.16 Pescarolo

Will Emmanuel Collard and Stuart Hall be the only two drivers in the Pescarolo 03 Judd this weekend. Unless there's a last minute u-turn, this is indeed the scenario the Sarthoise team will be dealing with. Jean-Christophe Boullion's accident on Wednesday evening has left its marks, and not just on the car. The former F1 driver, who hit the guard rails at more than 268 kph, is suffering considerable pain in his ribs, even if no cracks have been detected.

"It was a very violent accident," confirms Jean-Christophe.  "The wheels locked and the car instantly spun.  It hit the guard rail ahead of me hard, then took off across the track to hit head on the barriers on the other side of the track.  As I started to feel the car lifting, I was wondering how it was all going to end but luckily it didn't go behind the barrier!  The team did an incredible job to get the car back together for Thursday evening, congratulations to all.  I drove again yesterday evening but quickly realised that I had pain in my ribs which was stopping me from breathing properly.  I said to henri that it wasn't fair on the team for me to run 10 seconds off the pace because I wasn't fully fit.  Because of that, I didn't run yesterday evening and I didn't qualify." 

British driver, Stuart Hall, recognises that it will be a challenging race bearing in mind his three-year hiatus from prototypes and the lack of pre-race testing.  "I did four laps on Wednesday but a whole hour last night which helped a lot.  We're struggling to get front tyre temperature which makes the car a bit more difficult to drive than we'd like but we're improving.  Compared to Manu [Emmanuel Collard] I'm still a little way off but getting there now.  My main aim is to do the race and not make any mistakes and therefore repay the faith that both Roald Goethe and Henri Pescarolo have shown in me. 

"It's quite hard coming into a team like this at relatively late notice, and not speaking fluent French, but I'm getting on well with everyone now.  Jean-Christophe, Manu and Nic Minassian - who I knew from my days with the Creation team - have all been fantastic team mates and have helped me so much.  I feel almost famous now being part of this wonderful team here at Le Mans and being part of it is really special." 

Emmanuel Collard and Stuart Hall are therefore the only two drivers qualified for this car at the current time so they will be in charge of the green and white prototype for this 80th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.  In 2009 the Kolles team was faced with a similar dilemma when Narain Karthikeyan broke his collar bone just before the race, leaving André Lotterer and Charles Zwolsman to drive the Audi R10 TDi between them.