The time was indeed enough to place the car sixth fastest overall, bettered only by a quartet of Audis and the Judd-engined Pescarolo of Sebastien Bourdais. “It was excellent to be out there in a prototype,” he continued. “Going through Indianapolis in an open-topped car is tremendous, and the speed you can carry through on the entry is nothing short of phenomenal. Unbelievable, in fact.”

Having completed his first series of laps Erdos returned to the pit garage, and handed the car over to Mike Newton. “Mike got his time down very quickly, and did some tyre work with Dunlop,” explained Erdos, who was happy to see his regular co-driver coming to terms with the prototype so readily. Finally, before the lunchbreak, new signing Nathan Kinch completed a handful of laps. “We stayed in the top eight for most of the morning, dropping to P9 shortly before the session closed. It was very promising,” concluded Erdos.

After lunch, however, the news was less cheering. Mike Newton managed only two further laps before an unusual crank failure saw him coasting to halt out by Indianapolis. There would be no more running from the RML MG Lola, but enough had been done to prove that the car will be very competitive come the race proper in June. By the close of Sunday’s test Tommy’s best time from the morning was still good enough to see the #25 car listed twelfth overall out of fifty, despite the much improved conditions.