Monday 26 February 2018

Silverstone - Return of the GT3's

After the frenzy of the 24-hour races at Dubai and Daytona, followed shortly by the 12-hour race at Bathurst, it has been a quiet few weeks for many of us endurance racing fans. I refuse to get excited by ACO press conferences, nor by the other announcements of this time of year about who will be driving for whom and in what. I know that it is all supposed to be part of the build-up of anticipation, but I would rather have a real race and some real racing to get my teeth into.

As a result, I now find myself in eager anticipation of Creventic’s extravaganza of races coming up at Silverstone next month and I thought it might be fun to see what, if anything, the races thus far this year have taught us. I must admit, I think it could be a thoroughly good weekend’s racing. If you haven’t already familiarised yourself with the programme, then you should: www.24hseries.com is your first point of call. On Friday, 9th March there is qualifying, then the first of two 7-race series events (for Caterhams), followed by the first segment (five-and-a-half hours) of racing for the 12 hours, for Prototypes and GT3 cars, followed by night practice for the 24-hours cars.

On Saturday, 10th March, the action starts at 9am with the remaining six-and-a-half hours for the GT3/Prototypes, a second 7-race series encounter, with the 24 hours scheduled to start at 5pm. With sunset at 17:08, the pace car will, quite literally, be heading off into the sunset (or the murky dusk, more likely). Sunday will be a long day…

Compared to the ninety-plus cars that started in Dubai, the entry is small, but one can understand that the prospect of racing in the pleasant winter sunshine of the UAE is more attractive to many than Northamptonshire before the spring equinox. Bearing in mind the weather that greeted the WEC at Easter 2016, or going further back, the International Trophy Meeting in 1973, let’s hope that the weather smiles on Creventic and the BRSCC organisation.

Entirely gratuitous shot of Ronnie Peterson in the snow in 1973!

I like the idea of mixing the GT3 cars with the Prototypes, although I must admit I am more interested in who will take A6 honours than the Prototype division. It will be interesting to see whether a Prototype can stay sufficiently trouble-free to remain ahead to take overall honours (and how many actually take the start too).

Theoretically, the LMP2 cars in the proto class should easily lap five seconds quicker than the LMP3 cars, which themselves are another five seconds quicker than the GT3 cars, which means that the P2’s should lap the P3’s at least every hour, and the GT3’s twice every hour. But still, none of Creventic’s prototype races have thus far really grabbed my enthusiasm, and with only two Simpson-entered Ginettas in the P2 class, it is far from a foregone conclusion that one of them will take outright honours.

Indeed, it is worth making the point that the gap between LMP3 and GT3 is smaller than the gap between LMP1 and LMP2 or between LMP2 and GTE in the WEC. And I am optimistic that the two-part format will work well.

So who will be at the front of the A6 class? At the time of writing, there are 12 published entries in the A6 class – four Mercedes and two cars each from Porsche, Lamborghini, Ferrari and Audi. Although there is a BOP-advantage to running as an “amateur” entry, there is no separate class for A6-Pro and A6-Am, so one source of confusion is removed.

There is quite a bit of data worth extracting from the three races at Dubai, Daytona and Bathurst. But for the sake of its relevance to the Silverstone race, I will only take the data relating to those brands that will actually be at Silverstone.

Dubai
Car No. Team/Car Best Lap Average Lap
3 Black Falcon Mercedes 1m 58.541s 2m 00.327s
777 WRT Audi 1m 58.452s 2m 00.402s
9 Mücke Audi 1m 58.591s 2m 00.607s
12 Manthey Porsche 1m 59.660s 2m 00.646s
964 Grasser Lamborghini 1m 58.199s 2m 00.674s
911 Herberth Porsche 1m 58.792s 2m 00.948s


Daytona
Car No. Team/Car Best Lap Average Lap
51 Spirit of Race Ferrari 1m 47.663s 1m 48.583s
29 Land Audi 1m 47.896s 1m 48.666s
64 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 1m 48.025s 1m 48.822s
12 Grasser Lamborghini 1m 48.207s 1m 48.860s
964 Riley Mercedes 1m 47.964s 1m 48.972s
911 Manthey Porsche 1m 47.668s 1m 49.083s


Bathurst
Car No. Team/Car Best Lap Average Lap
74 Jamecpem Audi 2m 02.932s 2m 03.803s
37 WRT Audi 2m 03.524s 2m 04.498s
56 Strakka Mercedes 2m 03.416s 2m 04.536s
991 EuroMechanica Porsche 2m 03.583s 2m 04.604s
75 SunEnergy1 Mercedes 2m 03.477s 2m 04.632s
12 Ice Break Porsche 2m 04.173s 2m 05.021s

What does it all mean? Well, the most noticeable thing is how close it all is. In terms of percentages, none of the average lap times is more than 1% behind the best, and in the case of Dubai and Daytona, the gaps are practically all under 0.5%. On paper, looking purely at the manufacturer’s hardware and the outright pace, Ferrari and Audi seem to have the upper hand, with Lamborghini not far off, but Mercedes and Porsche slightly slower (it is possible that Black Falcon’s performance at Dubai is an ‘outlier’ and in any case Black Falcon is not at Silverstone).

But of course there is more to it than outright pace, that’s why long races are such fun. On paper, I reckon the Scuderia Praha Ferrari is the strongest contender for class (indeed, let’s face it, outright) victory. But you can’t overlook the Herberth Porsche or the ROFGO or RAM Mercedes, although the data above suggests that they may be short on pace. And Grasser proved at Daytona that they have a winning car also. So pick any one from five!



However, as the podium celebrations for the Silverstone 12 hours are finishing, and the anthems fading away, preparations for the 24 hours will be in their final stages, as less than an hour after the finish of the 12 hour race, the TCE and GT4 cars are due on the grid for their race. (There’s also the small matter of a half-hour thrash for the “7 Race Series” to be squeezed in as well).

Whereas on paper, the 12 hour race should be easily won by a prototype, the balance between the Touring Cars in the TCR class and the Grand Touring cars in the GT4 and SP3 classes is far less clear. Indeed, although GT4 and SP3 are separated into two distinct classes this year, the Ginetta G55 is still an anomaly: two entries (from Colin White) are in the SP3 class, and one (from Team HARD) is in GT4.

That said though, I think that just like in Dubai, the race will liekly boil down to a battle between the TCR class cars, although only five of the TCR entrants from Dubai are expected at Silverstone.

Looking at the lap times from Dubai is interesting, as unlike the A6 class, there are big differences between the cars. I’ve excluded cars at Dubai that are not in the provisional Silverstone entry list.

Dubai TCES
Car No. Team/Car Best Lap Average Lap
129 LMS Racing Seat Leon 2m 12.198s 2m 14.153s
125 Bas Koeten Audi RS3 2m 12.990s 2m 15.563s
115 Bonk Audi RS3 2m 13.825s 2m 15.872s
303 Red Camel Seat Leon 2m 14.177s 2m 17.188s

Missing from Dubai, but entered for Silverstone are the Team Bleekemolen Seat Leon which won last year’s race by 5 laps (with the same driver line-up), the Team Denmark Hyundai, (featuring Jakob Kristensen), Holmgaard Motorsport with their potentially rapid Golf and Motorsport Developpement, also with a Golf.

Not wanting to put the ‘curse’ on them, but I reckon that Michael Bleekemolen’s family-run team will be a tough act to beat again this year. They proved both in 2016 and 2017 that they had the pace – in 2017 they proved they had the reliability too. Anyone wanting to beat the Dutch squad is going to have to have a fault-free run and be quick in the pits.

Tuesday 23 January 2018

Dubai 24 hours - Plus ça change?

I was lucky enough to be back in Dubai again a couple of weeks ago, to see the 13th running of the Dubai 24 hours and once again, it got the New Year off to a good start. This was my seventh visit to the race, and the entry was overflowing and as mouth-watering as ever. Race organiser Creventic has spent a good deal of time and energy adjusting the Sporting Regulations for this season, and finally we were to see the fruits of their labours.

Before that though, there was the traditional Welcome barbecue, held on the Wednesday evening prior to the race: this year at the Dubai polo club, since a change of ownership at the Dubai Autodrome precluded the consumption of alcohol on the premises. It was a splendid spread, and in my opinion, the opulent surroundings made for a wonderful atmosphere, compared to sitting in the back of the paddock as we usually did.

I sensed a different atmosphere in the city of Dubai as well this year. For the first time in my experience, building works on new projects seemed to outstrip those abandoned projects from the 2008 financial crisis. That’s not to say it didn’t still make me feel a little uncomfortable – my impression remains that Dubai’s foundations are quite literally built on sand, and the place still lacks heart, for motor sport as well as much else.

That said, the weather this year was particularly pleasant, there was plenty of optimism around and nearly everyone had a smile on their face: a marvellous antidote to a British winter.

Creventic CEO Gerrie Willems was keen to stress that the Touring Car Endurance (TCE) Series was to have its own (simultaneous) race as the GT Endurance Series, but to my eye this was largely a cosmetic change – what we had (as always) was an enormous entry (91 cars, of which 89 started, including one from the pit lane) split into various classes, some of which were for GT machinery, and others were for Touring Cars with various degrees of modification.

The key change, as far as the GT3 classes were concerned, was that the split of A6-Pro and A6-Am no longer involved the need to keep above a “minimum reference lap time”, something that had been a part of the Dubai 24 hours since I first went there in 2012. This led to fewer entries in the A6-Pro class, as teams worked out that running in A6-Am meant a lower minimum weight limit and a higher fuel allocation at each pit stop, for the cost of a combined “Am” driving time of 12 out of 24 hours. In the case of last year’s winning squad from Herberth Motorsport, this meant that both Daniel Alleman and Ralf Bohn would have to drive two hours longer than they had done in 2017, theoretically costing up to two laps, but putting less strain on the car than running in the Pro class.

Doing the maths is often dangerous in planning an assault on an endurance race, as Herberth Motorsport knows well. Being the quickest does not always translate into being the winner, especially when you are surrounded by eighty or ninety other cars. But running without the constraints of minimum reference lap times meant that speed, more than ever in previous years, would be of the essence in this year’s 24 hours.

Indeed, lap times dropped significantly in practice and qualifying, and a new race lap record was inevitable. It is interesting to look at the improvement in times compared to the 2017 race:
Car Best Lap 2017 Average Lap 2017 Best Lap 2018 Average Lap 2018
Manthey Porsche 2m 00.077s 2m 01.3s 1m 59.660s 2m 00.6s
Grasser Lamborghini 1m 59.717s 2m 01.5s 1m 58.199s 2m 00.7s
Black Falcon Mercedes 1m 59.198s 2m 01.5s 1m 58.541s 2m 01.0s
WRT Audi
2m 00.403s 2m 02.4s 1m 58.452s 2m 00.4s
Herberth Porsche 1m 59.516s 2m 01.8s 1m 58.792s 2m 00.9s
Hofor Mercedes 2m 04.605s 2m 05.3s 1m 59.479s 2m 01.2s

It is not my habit on this blog to add too many words to the numbers – they should speak for themselves and I hope readers are smart enough to draw their own conclusions. However, it is probably worth noting that the famous GT3 BOP changes every year, so year-on-year comparisons are not always fair. Here are the alterations from 2017 to 2018.
Car Restrictor Diameter 2017 Restrictor Diameter 2018 Weight 2017 Weight 2018
Audi 2x38.0mm 2x39.0mm 1260kg 1240kg
Lamborghini 2x38.0mm 2x39.0mm 1275kg 1260kg
Mercedes 2x34.5mm 2x36.0mm 1325kg 1330kg
Porsche 2x43.0mm 2x41.5mm 1225kg 1265kg

Use these two tables together to see who you think did the best job at Dubai this year – apart, of course, from Black Falcon, who won, and arguably deserved a one-two finish.

Among Creventic’s other innovations this year was the introduction of a specific class for GT4 cars. In previous years, this class has been combined with SP3, but lessons have been learned and the classes are split this year. Somewhat bizarrely, the Ginetta G55 is eligible for both classes (surely this will change?) and only one example raced as a proper GT4 car. There is, of course, a great deal of interest in GT4 this year; new cars are available for the first time from Mercedes, Audi and BMW, as well as existing offerings from Porsche and Ginetta. As with GT3, the racing is critically dependent on a fair balance of performance, so let’s close this piece with an analysis of the performance of each.
No. Team Car Best Average %age
40 Brookspeed Porsche Cayman 2m 12.777s 2m 14.2s 2.36%
84 Winward/HTP Mercedes AMG GT-R 2m 10.769s 2m 12.6s 1.14%
233 Besagroup Mercedes AMG GT-R 2m 09.581s 2m 11.1s 0.00%
239 Perfection Racing Ginetta G55 2m 11.315s 2m 14.3s 2.44%
241 ALFAB Racing McLaren 570S 2m 11.436s 2m 13.3s 1.68%
247 Phoenix Racing Audi R8 LMS GT 2m 09.682s 2m 11.4s 0.23%
248 Phoenix Racing Audi R8 LMS GT 2m 09.648s 2m 11.2s 0.08%
264 Black Falcon Mercedes AMG GT-R 2m 12.568s 2m 13.9s 2.14%
252 Sorg Rennsport BMW M4 2m 13.109s 2m 15.2s 3.13%
268 3Y Technology BMW M4 2m 11.084s 2m 13.2s 1.60%
269 3Y Technology BMW M4 2m 11.191s 2m 12.7s 1.22%

The BMW is obviously the newest of the crop, so their margin (1.22%) from the best will surely close. The table above doesn’t take account of driver ability, but it seems both the Porsche and Ginetta might need a helping hand at some point. If you can tear yourself away from the Touring Car battles, GT4 looks interesting as well.

Dan Gurney

You might have read my post following the death of John Surtees last year. We’re not even a month into 2018 and the death of Dan Gurney has now been announced. Both men were great drivers in their time, turning their hand successfully to sports cars, formula one as well as team ownership and all that such endeavours entails.

What is especially poignant is that ‘their time’ coincided with my formative years. I’ve written before of my first-hand experience at Brands Hatch in 1967, when both Surtees and Gurney were on the front row for the first race I ever saw. And although any death comes as a shock, it is somehow reassuring to know that both men essentially died of old age.

Not only did both survive the perilous era of my schooldays, but both went on to other things in the sport – the competitive flame burned brightly for many, many years to come. It was through Gurney’s AAR Toyotas that I eventually met the man, but somehow the words “you won the first race I ever saw” got stuck in my throat somewhere – his focus was on the upcoming IMSA race, not on history.

When I visited the Motor Sport Hall of Fame awards in 2016, Dan appeared on a video link and gave a humble but moving acceptance speech. He was undoubtedly frail, but if I am able to conduct myself thus at the age of 84, I’ll be quite happy.

Many eulogies have been written in other places about Dan; by people who knew him better than I, and who are better able to convey in words his impact, influence and legacy on motor racing. To me he was simply the guy in no. 5 who won that first race, on a grey, chilly day when I was 10 years old.