Harold Primat and his Pescarolo Sport team mates undertook an intensive programme of crucial development work at Paul Ricard last weekend as the French squad prepares for the 2008 Le Mans Series season.

Geneva-based Primat joined Jean-Christophe Boullion, Emmanuel Collard and Christophe Tinseau at Le Castellet for the official Le Mans Series group test and spent two days working on set up optimisation.

While chasing lap times weren’t the priority for drivers or team, a best time of 1:42.860 placed their single Pescarolo-Judd sixth fastest overall; right in the midst of what looks set to be a keenly contested LMP1 petrol-class grid.

Primat however reiterated that the main focus of the weekend had been to optimise the Pescarolo’s set up for the range of varying circuits that the LMS will visit this year, with particular emphasis being placed on a new-for-2008 front splitter.

“The team have designed a brand new front splitter for the car which has more downforce and less drag,” Primat explained. “On paper it looks like it will provide us with a significant performance benefit from last year and the weekend was spent transferring that theory to on-track performance by optimising it properly. We got through a big workload but we all realise there is a lot of work still to be done throughout the season.”

The Audi R10s topped the timesheets on their first Le Mans Series outing, while Creation, Oreca and the new Charouz Racing Lola Aston Martin were also impressive, leaving Primat to ponder an exciting and highly competitive season ahead.

“Audi joining the championship means an added interest between the manufacturers in the diesel class, but more interestingly the competition between the petrol-powered LMP1 cars has stepped up a level. All the main competitors are tightly packed and I was encouraged by the fact that, comparatively, we were still there or thereabouts despite the fact that we weren’t looking for outright pace.

“2008 looks likely to be the most competitive season yet since the creation of the LMS.”

Henri Pescarolo was highly satisfied with his team’s work at Paul Ricard and admitted they were making significant progress ahead of the opening race at Barcelona on 6 April. “We accomplished a lot during the two test days. If anything the test was too short and another couple of days would have been useful! However we had the opportunity to determine our technical set up for different types of circuit, from slow ones such as the Nurburgring to the very quick tracks like Le Mans. On the whole the car really improved throughout the weekend.”