Fire drama for Brabham at La Sarthe.

Panoz's preparations for the 2001 24 Hours of Le Mans began in the worst possible way on Sunday when a small fire damaged the lead LMP07 slated for David Brabham, Jan Magnussen and Franck Lagorce ending their test day after less than a dozen laps.

The 2001 Sportscar season started well enough for the factory Panoz Motor Sports team with a near victory in the American Le Mans Series curtain raiser at the Texas Motor Speedway for Australian David Brabham but since that day their luck has gone decidedly downhill as the howling new four-litre LMP07 has proved to be a troublesome little number to develop.

After a problematic debut in the Race of a Thousand Years last December in Adelaide, the LMP07 showed well in the hands of Klaus Graf and Gualter Salles at Texas before both factory machines retired with a multitude of problems at Sebring. A trip to Europe and Donington Park for the opening round of the European Le Mans Series didn't do much to raise the spirits of Don Panoz' team although Graf and Salles plugged away for sixth overall, they were behind the year old privateer LMP Roadster S of Jay Cochran and Peter Boss.

However after several promising tests with the cars and some much needed strengthening of key areas such as the driveshaft and water pump, Panoz were confident that over 24 long arduous hours at La Sarthe they would be able to challenge the might of the red-hot favourite Joest Audi squad.

A fire, therefore, on the opening morning of practice at the legendary 8.45-mile circuit was definitely not on the agenda and yet before Sunday's scheduled test session was half completed the No.12 Panoz LMP07 was being readied for a swift return to base after Brabham had encountered what appeared to be an exhaust problem. The resulting flames had enveloped a section of the car's bodywork and the team had no way of repairing it to get out later in the day.

Although damage was not too great, the loss of track time on a day where many other of the fancied runners enjoyed a largely trouble-free day, could prove critical in the run up to the June 16-17 marathon.

Brabham's best lap of 3 minutes 48.166 seconds was a full 16 seconds off the pace that Rinaldo Capello and Tom Kristensen worked their way down to after the afternoon session, good enough for only 22nd overall, 18th and last of the LMP900 class runners present.

The second Panoz, scheduled to be piloted by Klaus Graf, Gary Formato and Jamie Davies ran more reliably if not terribly quickly as the team attempted to gauge some idea of a good race set-up. The car finished the day 17th on the time sheets, 15th amongst the LMP900 class after recording a best lap of 3 minutes 42.501 seconds.

Joest Audi duo Capello and Kristensen looked smooth and collected with half a second to spare over the Champion Audi driven by Johnny Herbert, Ralf Kelleners and Didier Theys although the talking point of the day was the performance of the brand new Bentley EXP Speed 8 in the hands of Le Mans veteran Martin Brundle which finished the day third overall less than two seconds slower than the mark set by Kristensen.