Anyway, the organisers asked John Hindhaugh and his crew from radiolemans.com to provide PA commentary for the whole meeting, including practice, qualifying and all the support events. This is just what I used to do, years ago, before family pressures came along, and hence I was asked to be at the Becketts commentary box from nine o’clock on Friday morning until the end of track action on Sunday evening.
OK, so I was allowed out to attend the teamDOT AGM on Friday evening, and to get my meals (thanks to Carlo and his team at the Smoking Dog). And thanks too to Gail at Linford Stables, where I spent very quiet and comfortable Friday and Saturday nights. But other than that, I was at my post throughout - and I have to say, I was very happy to be there. One of the drawbacks about commentating these days is that I often find myself removed from ‘the action’. I get a great view of the start finish straight at Le Mans, and can see wonderfully into the pits, but I really miss not being able to see cars actually racing, in the same way that spectators can. Watching on a TV when you’re there misses the point, to my way of thinking.
The view from the box at Becketts is outstanding. I could see the cars through Farm Corner (turn 2), Village, The Loop, Aintree and out onto the Wellington Straight. Then they went out of view at Brooklands, Luffield and the National Straight. But I could see them again out of Copse, through the astonishing Becketts esses before they went out of sight again. From the back rows of the grandstands (that were open to the public) either on the outside of Becketts, or on the outside of Village, the view would have been even better.
Throughout the weekend, a steady flow of spectators trudged past, on their way to other viewing locations, but they all had smiles on their faces. Less cheerful were the media, team and VIP types who had to catch the bus from Silverstone’s new nerve centre at The Wing to the car parks at the other end of the estate. What I cannot understand is why buildings such as The Wing, while they are impressive visual edifices architecturally, do not provide either a media centre with windows, or commentary boxes with anything like a decent view of the circuit. Even though Hindhaugh’s box overlooked the start finish area, there was no view of the pit lane, and in order to watch cars come out of the final corner one had to climb up onto the table in front of the commentary box window. If I had been trying to do a manual lap chart from there, it would have been nigh on impossible.
Apart from the logistics of getting from one place to another, I think Silverstone has a fine circuit these days though. Fast, sweeping corners in abundance and a couple of tight, technical bits to demand compromises to set-up and precision in driving. It is a good, wide circuit where overtaking is possible. And I was amazed at how quickly it dried out after a couple of rain showers that crossed the circuit over the weekend. The pit garages are cavernous, although not suitable for a fifty-car entry, which really needs more garages of a smaller size. As for the pit lane itself - it is a curiosity: very wide, with a huge expanse of grass between the pit lane and the pit wall; and seemingly descending into a trench at the far (pit-out) end as it strives for a level track surface where the contours around it are climbing upwards. I didn’t measure it, but it seemed to be to be half the length of the pit-lane at Le Mans.
Now is not the time for ‘what-might-have-been’, but I just wonder if the possibility was considered to build the pits and have the start/finish on the Wellington Straight (formerly known as the National Straight)?
Anyway, what of the race itself? It was probably not a classic, although most of the ingredients were there to make it one. What impressed me most of all was how close the Audi and Peugeots were. In a sense it was the perfect race - the difference was not in the cars, but in the drivers: having to make several overtaking decisions every lap; evaluating risk, judging closing speeds, avoiding collisions. And the difference, as far as the outright result was concerned, was down purely to those factors: not mechanical breakdowns, or weather, or safety car interventions.
Just how close the top four works diesels were is shown in the following table. This shows the average lap time for each driver, ignoring full course caution periods and those laps where accidents, spins or other incidents occurred, and ignoring time spent in the pits.
For comparison, I also show the best lap for each driver, although note that for the purposes of this I include ‘in laps’, which at Silverstone in its current configuration, is shorter than the normal racing lap. An asterisk shows if the lap was an ‘in lap’ (i.e. it terminated in the pit lane).
Was Peugeot a worthy winner? Or did Audi throw away a chance of victory? Let’s have a look at ‘Time spent in pits’ for each of those cars: The number in brackets for Audi no. 2 and Peugeot no.8 includes an estimate of the time lost on the track while recovering from their respective off-track excursions. In McNish’s case, this was around 58s lost on a slow lap back to the pits; for Montagny I have added 7m 15s while Franck (and the marshals) man-handled the car out of the gravel at Copse Corner.
At the end of the race there was 1m 29.763s between the no 1 Audi of Bernhard/Fässler and the no 7 Peugeot of Bourdais/Pagenaud. The difference in time spent in the pits was 1m 03s. Bernhard lost about 17s when he spun on lap 40. So even allowing for this, the Peugeot seems to have deserved its victory - although that is not to say that had certain events turned out differently, that we could have had a different result.
What I find puzzling, but what time has not allowed me to find out, is why the delayed Peugeot of Montagny / Sarrazin and the delayed Audi of McNish / Kristensen finished three laps apart, when the amount of time that each lost was nearly the same. It could be a glitch in my data, but I haven’t had the opportunity to dig more deeply.
For those whom it interests (are there others out there like me?) full details of the pit stops for the four diesels are as follows:
Peugeot no. 7 - Start driver Sebastien Bourdais.
Stop 1 (lap 25) Fuel only - 59s
Stop 2 (lap 53) Driver change: Bourdais to Pagenaud; fuel; tyres - 1m 27s
Stop 3 (lap 79) Fuel only - 1m 00s
Stop 4 (lap 105) Driver change: Pagenaud to Bourdais; fuel; tyres - 1m 27s
Stop 5 (lap 132) Fuel only - 1m 00s
Stop 6 (lap 159) Driver change: Bourdais to Pagenaud; fuel; tyres - 1m 29s
Stop 7 (lap 185) Fuel only - 35s
Audi no. 1 - Start driver Timo Bernhard
Stop 1 (lap 25) Fuel only - 58s
Stop 2 (lap 53) Driver change: Bernhard to Fassler; fuel; tyres - 1m 24s
Stop 3 (lap 79) Fuel only - 58s
Stop 4 (lap 105) Driver change: Fassler to Bernhard; fuel; tyres - 1m 26s
Stop 5 (lap 131) Driver change: Bernhard to Fassler; fuel; tyres; rear bodywork - 2m 27s
Stop 6 (lap 157) Fuel; change front left tyre - 1m 09s
Stop 7 (lap 183) Fuel only - 38s
Audi no. 2 - Start driver Allan McNish
Stop 1 (lap 23) Fuel; tyres; inspect damage after contact - 1m 33s
Stop 2 (lap 24) Fuel; front left tyre; suspension; bodywork - 12m 53s
Stop 3 (lap 50) Fuel only - 58s
Stop 4 (lap 77) Driver change: McNish to Kristensen; fuel; tyres - 1m 28s
Stop 5 (lap 104) Fuel only - 59s
Stop 6 (lap 131) Driver change: Kristensen to McNish; fuel; tyres - 1m 25s
Stop 7 (lap 158) Driver change: McNish to Kristensen; fuel; tyres - 1m 30s
Peugeot no. 8 - Start driver Franck Montagny
Stop 1 (lap 9) Accident repairs: front left; fuel; tyres - 7m 58s
Stop 2 (lap 37) Fuel only - 57s
Stop 3 (lap 63) Driver change: Montagny to Sarrazin; fuel; tyres - 1m 23s
Stop 4 (lap 89) Fuel only - 59s
Stop 5 (lap 115) Fuel; tyres - 1m 26s
Stop 6 (lap 140) Driver change: Sarrazin to Montagny; fuel; tyres - 1m 22s
Stop 7 (lap 159) Fuel only - 49s
I'm back at Silverstone again in a couple of weeks - for the Britcar 24. Should be fun - I'm looking forward to it. Hope to see you there.
#2 and #8 had similar time losses, but #2's time loss was mostly under Safety Car conditions due to Jody Firth's accident, #8 lost all its time under green flag conditions, so... there's those three laps.
ReplyDeleteVictor - absolutely right... well done! I was so deep I forgot to think. Yes I reckon Montagny managed 8 laps while McNish was in the pits, five of which were behind the safety car, when his lap times were around 1 min per lap slower. So he lost around 5 minutes due purely to the safety car. Five minutes may not quite be three laps, but it's not far off.
ReplyDeleteMcNish did nearly 12 laps while Montagny was having his problems.