I have spent a lot of time, over the years, using this blog to analyse race data, and I have spent quite a bit of time in the last few weeks looking at the details from both the Le Mans 24-hour race and the Nürburgring 24-hours. As all of that will appear in good time in either Sport Auto (in German) or in RaceCar Engineering, I thought it might be fun to use the chance of a weekend off to reflect on two weeks’ away from home in June.
In a sense, it all started at the end of May, because Barwell Motorsport had invited me to join their team at Paul Ricard for the 1000kms Blancpain Endurance race. In fact this was not a 1000kms race at all, but a timed race over 6 hours, starting at 6pm and finishing when the leading car crossed the line after 6 hours of racing, but by a happy coincidence, the distance completed by the winning car – at just after midnight – was 1,015.69km, so the race was by no means ill-named.
I flew back from Paul Ricard on the Sunday morning, and headed home to fire up the computers and check on progress at the Le Mans Test Day, which was in full flow when I arrived home at 2pm. Thanks to the ever-helpful guys at Al Kamel, I was able to get a full data feed for the Test Day (which included loading the data for the morning session that I had missed as I drove back from Gatwick).
This enabled me to contribute (meaningfully, I hope) to the RadioLeMans broadcast of the Test Day – both on the internet and on FM at the circuit, helping Jonny Palmer and Joe Bradley out with some numbers to which they did not have access at the circuit.
A couple of days catching up at home, including a visit to old friend Malcolm Cracknell at his Sussex home, were followed by a trip to Silverstone the following Friday morning to work with Barwell again for the 3-hour British GT encounter. Their damaged Lamborghini from Paul Ricard was now fully restored and we were looking forward to the highlight event of the British GT season. Unfortunately, the two Barwell cars tried to occupy the same piece of tarmac on the opening lap, so all the clever strategy options were consigned to history before the race had really got underway.
My role at Barwell is to help with strategy and timekeeping, and it was disappointing (to me) that neither at Paul Ricard nor at Silverstone was the team able to deliver the result of which it was capable. Even just planning the various strategy options requires an awful lot of preparation, but the intensity of working with a team is a huge challenge to me, compared to the work required to talk about a race on air for RadioLeMans.com.
It was my intention to broaden my horizons this year though, as readers may recall me writing in January, and Barwell has enabled me to do exactly that. However, no sooner than I had unpacked my bags from Silverstone, it was time to pack them again, as on the Tuesday after the Silverstone British GT race, Bruce Jones was arriving (at 7:30am!) to pick me up to set off on the journey to Le Mans 2019.
Aside from clothing, I always take far more than I actually need to Le Mans. I invested in a “Peli Storm” case a few years ago, and that very quickly gets filled with screens, cables, laptops and various other paraphernalia that I might just need during the race. It weighs a ton (actually 37kg, fully loaded) but I would far rather have the security of being able to configure things a little differently if I have to. In addition are my various folders, containing regulations, past results, useful facts and figures, which I like to have at hand rather than looking things up on the internet.
Fortunately, Bruce travels fairly light and the Jeep Renegade that we had for the trip swallowed up all my stuff easily.
We crossed the channel via the tunnel, and by early afternoon were headed across northern France on the péage. Our accommodation at Le Mans is in private houses – owned by friends or family of a lovely French couple that John and Eve met many years ago. On our arrival, we collect our passes and without fail there is a cold beer waiting – just what you need after nine or more hours travelling!
We arrived in good enough time to head on into the circuit and begin the set-up process. This year, it was complicated by a request from Nick Daman to provide an additional timing screen on his ‘studio-vision’ page. As I already mentioned, the guys at Al Kamel, who provide official time-keeping services for all WEC races, are extremely helpful, and thanks to them and the circuit’s IT staff, I have a direct link to the time-keepers’ booth in the ‘Module Sportif’. The issue then is to split this signal to Nick’s computer and to mine, in a way that enables both of us to show the details that we require.
In theory, it is all straightforward enough, but it always takes a lot longer than you’d think to set everything up, and make sure that the right screens have the right information on them. In the end, I left the booth at around 7pm and we headed off for a pizza, before getting an early night.
I never cease to be amazed at how time disappears at Le Mans – truly the place is the thief of time. I spent Wednesday morning finalising the set-up of ‘my’ little corner of our commentary booth, then we were on the air at 12 noon, and with the first free practice session at 4pm, there was very little time for anything else.
The Radio Le Mans crew had access to the Aston Martin hospitality suite for catering this year, and they were extremely accommodating to our rather hectic schedule. The first day’s qualifying session ended at midnight, and what with the queue to get out of the circuit, I didn’t get to bed until around 1:30am.
Thursday provided a little more time for sorting things out – chasing stories and getting organised. But with so much track activity for the support races, everything had to be done to the backdrop of a constant noise from the circuit. I remembered wistfully those days when I first visited Le Mans, when you could take a quiet tour up to Indianapolis or Mulsanne on Thursday morning and absorb some atmosphere. Nowadays, there’s always something going on, and never enough time to do anything properly.
It wasn’t until Friday that I got my first chance to look at the cars properly. Like everyone else, I took part in the pit lane ‘walkabout’, found people to talk to, and was very impressed with the high standards that are the norm of Le Mans preparation these days. In the evening, we went off to visit the Travel Destinations campsite at the Porsche Curves, and followed that with a session (including a very high-class barbecue) at their Flex-hotel. Much beer and even more talking!
On Saturday morning we were at the track at 8am, and didn’t leave until 7pm on Sunday. Immediately after the race, I have to uninstall all the computers (thanks to Bruce Jones, who always provides a willing pair of hands to help), then we go back to our hosts in Changé, who lay on a communal meal for us all. Patrick, our host, is a proper bon viveur and I love his careful selection of wines, which helps my mastery of French no end.
Monday morning after the race was a little different this year, as Bruce headed off in the Jeep back to the UK, and I had to rendez-vous with Jonny Palmer and Joe Bradley for the trip to the Nürburgring. Although we started off in convoy with John and Eve, en route we managed to get separated (I blame Palmer’s inattentiveness) and then found ourselves headed for the old Reims GP circuit.
The last time I had been there was in 1992, and since then a substantial renovation has taken place. Now it is looked after by a French equivalent of English Heritage, and it is full of character and echoes of the past. We spent a pleasant hour or so kicking up the past, before heading on to our hotel in the Vulkan Eifel, to the south of the Nürburgring.
In theory, Tuesday was a day of rest – and indeed Joe and Jonny spent much of the day asleep – but I had work to complete for Racecar Engineering, whose copy deadline was that evening, so most of my day was spent hunched over the laptop. On Wednesday, we headed into the circuit, picked up our passes, and deposited ourselves in the Aston Martin lounge, a corner of which was to serve as our commentary position for the event.
Since the Nürburgring 24 hours is timed by Wige, who are not so accommodating as Al Kamel, some jiggery-pokery was necessary to establish the links to the timekeeping system that I required, but everything necessary was in the Peli case, and it didn’t take too long to sort out a satisfactory set-up. That meant that I had the chance to go and wander around the pit lane before returning to help John with the “Midweek Motorsport” broadcast.
The first free practice session was on Thursday, as well as night practice, which went on until 11:30pm, but overall, the lead-up to the race seemed relaxed in comparison to Le Mans. Joe, Jonny and I had a lovely meal one evening in the village of Hohenleimbach; despite the presence of more than 100,000 spectators camping no more than 10km away, we were the only ones there, and the food was freshly prepared and delicious.
Friday was enlivened by the so-called “Top-Qualifying”, in which the fastest GT3 cars were given the chance to lap on a near-empty circuit, a race for the WTCR series, and the 3-hour “24h-Classic”, which is a feature for old-car buffs. On Saturday morning, there was a one-hour warm-up session at 09:10am for the 24-hours cars, which meant that there was no chance of a lie in – we were at the circuit for 8 o’clock, although to my shame I admit I ignored the two further WTCR races as I prepared for the 24 hours.
At the end of the race, Aston Martin hospitality (and a class win) meant that there was champagne, which made the packing of the Peli case a little more light-hearted, then there was merely the matter of lugging the whole kit and caboodle over to the media car park. It didn’t take long to get to sleep on Sunday night!
In a sense, it all started at the end of May, because Barwell Motorsport had invited me to join their team at Paul Ricard for the 1000kms Blancpain Endurance race. In fact this was not a 1000kms race at all, but a timed race over 6 hours, starting at 6pm and finishing when the leading car crossed the line after 6 hours of racing, but by a happy coincidence, the distance completed by the winning car – at just after midnight – was 1,015.69km, so the race was by no means ill-named.
I flew back from Paul Ricard on the Sunday morning, and headed home to fire up the computers and check on progress at the Le Mans Test Day, which was in full flow when I arrived home at 2pm. Thanks to the ever-helpful guys at Al Kamel, I was able to get a full data feed for the Test Day (which included loading the data for the morning session that I had missed as I drove back from Gatwick).
This enabled me to contribute (meaningfully, I hope) to the RadioLeMans broadcast of the Test Day – both on the internet and on FM at the circuit, helping Jonny Palmer and Joe Bradley out with some numbers to which they did not have access at the circuit.
A couple of days catching up at home, including a visit to old friend Malcolm Cracknell at his Sussex home, were followed by a trip to Silverstone the following Friday morning to work with Barwell again for the 3-hour British GT encounter. Their damaged Lamborghini from Paul Ricard was now fully restored and we were looking forward to the highlight event of the British GT season. Unfortunately, the two Barwell cars tried to occupy the same piece of tarmac on the opening lap, so all the clever strategy options were consigned to history before the race had really got underway.
My role at Barwell is to help with strategy and timekeeping, and it was disappointing (to me) that neither at Paul Ricard nor at Silverstone was the team able to deliver the result of which it was capable. Even just planning the various strategy options requires an awful lot of preparation, but the intensity of working with a team is a huge challenge to me, compared to the work required to talk about a race on air for RadioLeMans.com.
It was my intention to broaden my horizons this year though, as readers may recall me writing in January, and Barwell has enabled me to do exactly that. However, no sooner than I had unpacked my bags from Silverstone, it was time to pack them again, as on the Tuesday after the Silverstone British GT race, Bruce Jones was arriving (at 7:30am!) to pick me up to set off on the journey to Le Mans 2019.
Aside from clothing, I always take far more than I actually need to Le Mans. I invested in a “Peli Storm” case a few years ago, and that very quickly gets filled with screens, cables, laptops and various other paraphernalia that I might just need during the race. It weighs a ton (actually 37kg, fully loaded) but I would far rather have the security of being able to configure things a little differently if I have to. In addition are my various folders, containing regulations, past results, useful facts and figures, which I like to have at hand rather than looking things up on the internet.
Fortunately, Bruce travels fairly light and the Jeep Renegade that we had for the trip swallowed up all my stuff easily.
We crossed the channel via the tunnel, and by early afternoon were headed across northern France on the péage. Our accommodation at Le Mans is in private houses – owned by friends or family of a lovely French couple that John and Eve met many years ago. On our arrival, we collect our passes and without fail there is a cold beer waiting – just what you need after nine or more hours travelling!
We arrived in good enough time to head on into the circuit and begin the set-up process. This year, it was complicated by a request from Nick Daman to provide an additional timing screen on his ‘studio-vision’ page. As I already mentioned, the guys at Al Kamel, who provide official time-keeping services for all WEC races, are extremely helpful, and thanks to them and the circuit’s IT staff, I have a direct link to the time-keepers’ booth in the ‘Module Sportif’. The issue then is to split this signal to Nick’s computer and to mine, in a way that enables both of us to show the details that we require.
In theory, it is all straightforward enough, but it always takes a lot longer than you’d think to set everything up, and make sure that the right screens have the right information on them. In the end, I left the booth at around 7pm and we headed off for a pizza, before getting an early night.
I never cease to be amazed at how time disappears at Le Mans – truly the place is the thief of time. I spent Wednesday morning finalising the set-up of ‘my’ little corner of our commentary booth, then we were on the air at 12 noon, and with the first free practice session at 4pm, there was very little time for anything else.
The Radio Le Mans crew had access to the Aston Martin hospitality suite for catering this year, and they were extremely accommodating to our rather hectic schedule. The first day’s qualifying session ended at midnight, and what with the queue to get out of the circuit, I didn’t get to bed until around 1:30am.
Thursday provided a little more time for sorting things out – chasing stories and getting organised. But with so much track activity for the support races, everything had to be done to the backdrop of a constant noise from the circuit. I remembered wistfully those days when I first visited Le Mans, when you could take a quiet tour up to Indianapolis or Mulsanne on Thursday morning and absorb some atmosphere. Nowadays, there’s always something going on, and never enough time to do anything properly.
It wasn’t until Friday that I got my first chance to look at the cars properly. Like everyone else, I took part in the pit lane ‘walkabout’, found people to talk to, and was very impressed with the high standards that are the norm of Le Mans preparation these days. In the evening, we went off to visit the Travel Destinations campsite at the Porsche Curves, and followed that with a session (including a very high-class barbecue) at their Flex-hotel. Much beer and even more talking!
On Saturday morning we were at the track at 8am, and didn’t leave until 7pm on Sunday. Immediately after the race, I have to uninstall all the computers (thanks to Bruce Jones, who always provides a willing pair of hands to help), then we go back to our hosts in Changé, who lay on a communal meal for us all. Patrick, our host, is a proper bon viveur and I love his careful selection of wines, which helps my mastery of French no end.
Monday morning after the race was a little different this year, as Bruce headed off in the Jeep back to the UK, and I had to rendez-vous with Jonny Palmer and Joe Bradley for the trip to the Nürburgring. Although we started off in convoy with John and Eve, en route we managed to get separated (I blame Palmer’s inattentiveness) and then found ourselves headed for the old Reims GP circuit.
The last time I had been there was in 1992, and since then a substantial renovation has taken place. Now it is looked after by a French equivalent of English Heritage, and it is full of character and echoes of the past. We spent a pleasant hour or so kicking up the past, before heading on to our hotel in the Vulkan Eifel, to the south of the Nürburgring.
In theory, Tuesday was a day of rest – and indeed Joe and Jonny spent much of the day asleep – but I had work to complete for Racecar Engineering, whose copy deadline was that evening, so most of my day was spent hunched over the laptop. On Wednesday, we headed into the circuit, picked up our passes, and deposited ourselves in the Aston Martin lounge, a corner of which was to serve as our commentary position for the event.
Since the Nürburgring 24 hours is timed by Wige, who are not so accommodating as Al Kamel, some jiggery-pokery was necessary to establish the links to the timekeeping system that I required, but everything necessary was in the Peli case, and it didn’t take too long to sort out a satisfactory set-up. That meant that I had the chance to go and wander around the pit lane before returning to help John with the “Midweek Motorsport” broadcast.
The first free practice session was on Thursday, as well as night practice, which went on until 11:30pm, but overall, the lead-up to the race seemed relaxed in comparison to Le Mans. Joe, Jonny and I had a lovely meal one evening in the village of Hohenleimbach; despite the presence of more than 100,000 spectators camping no more than 10km away, we were the only ones there, and the food was freshly prepared and delicious.
Friday was enlivened by the so-called “Top-Qualifying”, in which the fastest GT3 cars were given the chance to lap on a near-empty circuit, a race for the WTCR series, and the 3-hour “24h-Classic”, which is a feature for old-car buffs. On Saturday morning, there was a one-hour warm-up session at 09:10am for the 24-hours cars, which meant that there was no chance of a lie in – we were at the circuit for 8 o’clock, although to my shame I admit I ignored the two further WTCR races as I prepared for the 24 hours.
At the end of the race, Aston Martin hospitality (and a class win) meant that there was champagne, which made the packing of the Peli case a little more light-hearted, then there was merely the matter of lugging the whole kit and caboodle over to the media car park. It didn’t take long to get to sleep on Sunday night!
