Spring Training

There was no rest for Christophe Bouchut
in April, as he set the best time during the
official test days for the Grand Am series at the
Miami circuit in the United States of America,
continued his fruitful collaboration with the
FIA and extended his European calendar, as he
will take part in the Le Mans Series from Spa
onwards in a Reiter Engineering Lamborghini
Gallardo.

FIA Tests: Castellet (France 17th-18th March and 7th April),Monteblanco (Spain 1st-2nd April) and Sao Paulo (Brazil 22nd-23rd April)
GT3 Balance of Performance with the FIA!

Between his trips to the United States, Christophe had little time to relax as the FIA called up his services to work on the balance of performance of all the different brands entered in the FIA GT3 European Champonship. At the Paul Ricard HTTT circuit in mid-March, and then again in Spain in early April, he met up with the leaders of the FIA technical department including Peter Wright, Jacques Berger and Manuel Leal.

"This sort of work needs to be extremely thorough, and you also need to be in good shape, as I have driven over 150 laps during these tests. It is exhausting, as you have to be on the limit on all the cars. I do not set the cars up. When everything is ready, the team puts new tyres on, and I take it out on track to set the best possible time. It is a difficult exercise, but one which is quite interesting."

On April 7th, Christophe returned to the Paul Ricard to test the new Jaguar before leaving for
Brazil for more test sessions, at the Interlagos circuit, before heading back to the United States
and his Supercar Life Racing team, to take part in his first race of the year.

Grand-Am Series: Official tests (March 25th-26th)
Homestead-Miami Speedway
A new lap record for Christophe!

A week after his two wins in the Ferrari Challenge, Scott Tucker, the Supercar Life Racing
boss, was delighted to see his Riley-BMW at the very top of the timing sheets during the official
test sessions for the Grand-Am series!

Christophe set the best time during the two days of
testing, with a lap of 1'12"421 during the final halfhour of testing on the second day.

"With my engineer, Bill Riley, we worked on the car
all day, having had some minor set-up problems
during the first day. I am really pleased, as this best time proves that the team has done a fantastic job. I have to thank the team manager David Stone and his mechanic, who have really worked heart and soul on the programme. The competition is extremely high this year, with the leading four cars within one tenth of a second!"

The whole Daytona Prototype field during the test sessions was separated by just 1"3!
"This is very encouraging for the rest of the season," commented the French driver. "I think
we will be able to fight for a podium on a regular basis. Of course, most of the tracks are new
to me, but one of my main qualities is an ability to adapt to new tracks very quickly. Scott is
doing a great job. He set some good times in Miami, and we can really achieve a good result
this year."

With the official test sessions over, Christophe and Scott Tucker can now look forward to the
"Bosch Engineering 250" with great optimism. At the Virginia International Raceway, their
main aim will be to prove the potential of this new team.

Le Mans Series: with Reiter Engineering and the Lamborghini Gallardo Programme to start in Belgium at Spa-Francorchamps!

Despite a busy programme for 2009, Christophe could not resist Reiter Engineering's invitation to take part in the Le Mans Series with a Lamborghini Gallardo LP560 in the LMGT2
category. This new collaboration should have started on April 4th & 5th during the opening
round in Barcelona, but an electronic management problem in the engine meant that the
team had to withdraw.

"We just needed a few more days of preparation," Christophe explained."I finally discovered the car at the Paul Ricard HTTT two days after Barcelona. The programme is very interesting, as there is a lot of development work to do. The official test sessions on the Bugatti circuit, on April 24th & 25th, will allow my famous team-mate, Prince Albert von Thurn und Taxis, to prepare the car for the first race at Spa on May 10th."

Before then, Christophe should be able to release more information on his entry in the next
edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. More news in the next issue.