Working the strategy...

In a few days’ time I shall be heading out to Kuwait for the final race of my 2022 season. And what a great season it has been. Since being diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2020 and reaching some pretty low points; this year has surpassed anything that I could have hoped for. Just over two years ago, I was discharged from hospital after a stem cell transplant feeling pretty rough – I had no appetite, little strength and was exhausted after even the smallest of activities. Although my back remains more than five inches shorter than it was, and I rely on medication to keep me going through the days, I am a lot stronger than I was, and have recovered far more of my strength than I once thought possible. Altogether, I’ve been to 19 race events during the course of this year – Kuwait will be the twentieth – and many of those have been on local PA commentary, about which I have written recently on this blog. When I haven’t been occupied doing commentary though, I have been working with the Red Camel-Jordans.nl team at various events in Creventic’s 24H Series.

Creventic’s 2022 calendar has been a busy one: it started in January, in Dubai, where Red Camel ran their relatively recently-acquired Porsche 992 with high hopes following the washout that was the 2021 race. We had enlisted the driving talents of Jeroen Bleekemolen, Julius Adomavičius and Morris Schuring, alongside Team Owner Ivo Breukers.

Clockwise from top left, Ivo Breukers, Jeroen Bleekemolen, Julius Adomavičius and Morris Schuring.

Bleekemolen should need no introduction to endurance racing fans: twice an outright winner of the Dubai 24 hours (in a Mercedes), as well as a class winner at Le Mans. Julius, from Lithuania, was just 20 years of age, but had experience of driving LMP3 as well as Touring cars. The youngster of the team was Morris Schuring at just 16, who spent 2021 driving in the German Porsche Supercup, with a couple of outings to his name in the GP-support races as well. I’ll say no more about Ivo at this stage, since he is a feature of the Red Camel team throughout the season; suffice to say that he is very much a hands-on Team Owner, in whom a fierce competitive spirit burns.

The race itself ran well – we came home third in class, without quite the pace of the two Team GP-Elite Porsches that beat us. It’s always interesting to compare driver performance within the team. For us, we had:

Name	Driving Time	Laps	Best lap	Ave of best 20%	Theoretical best
Bleekemolen	6h 10m 30s	164	2m 03.362s	2m 04.702s	2m 03.260s
Schuring	6h 06m 35s	154	2m 04.070s	2m 05.287a	2m 03.750s
Adomavičius	5h 46m 01s	147	2m 04.954s	2m 06.074s	2m 04.904s
Breukers	3h 59m 08s	101	2m 06.457s	2m 07.808s	2m 05.854s

After Dubai, there was a break before the two-part, 12-hour race at Mugello in March. It’s a lovely part of the world, beautiful scenery, delightful cuisine and relatively accessible. When I arrived, I learnt that Thomas, our usual Team Manager, couldn’t be there and I was somewhat taken aback when the team decided that I should take on the role for the race weekend. I was quite comfortable running the strategy for the team: deciding when to stop for fuel, whether making an extra stop under code-60 conditions could prove beneficial, making sure that the team kept within driving time limits, etc., but to have to take the responsibility of making all the calls: on tyres, brakes, set-up changes, etc., put me well outside my comfort zone.

I was comfortable enough with our driver line-up though, as Ivo was joined by his two sons, Rik (24) and Luc (22). The boys are just as competitive as their father; Rik usually the quicker of the two, although on his day, Luc can push him quite hard – as is often the case with siblings.

L-R Rik, Ivo, Luc

Happily for me, GP-Elite was not entered for this race: our main competition was from HRT Performance and Red Ant Racing. From the very beginning of the weekend, though, it was clear that we had a quick car – the set-up worked very well around Mugello and a class win was on the cards. At the end of Part 1 (five-and-a-half hours) we were a few seconds clear of the HRT car and a lap ahead of the Red Ant Porsche.

A little over half-way through the second part, we had managed to establish almost (but not quite) a lap lead. In Creventic racing, in which there are no Safety Cars, being a lap ahead provides a psychological advantage but no real extra advantage, since the gaps in neutralisation periods stay (fairly) consistent. However, there came a pit stop, where we pitted immediately behind the other HRT team car. Ivo Breukers was in the car, and needed to fuel, so headed to the fuelling station, as did the HRT entry. But their car hesitated, seemed unsure where he wanted to go. Ivo could see our refueller at the first pump, and dived for the space. A few minutes later, news of a penalty for our car (a pit stop infringement) came through. We dutifully took the penalty (a 10-second stop and go) at our next routine stop, but about half-an-hour later another message appeared on the timing screens: “Team Manager car 909 to race control immediately”. I regretted taking the decision to accept the role, but made my way up the stairs and along the darkened corridors. I was introduced to the steward, who showed me video footage of our “indiscretion”.

“Look,” he said and showed me the regulation where it said there could be no overtaking in the refuelling area, and that it was not allowed to reserve a place at a pump. I agreed that it looked wrong, but explained that the driver of the HRT car had come to a complete standstill and our refueller was ready to start servicing our car straightaway. “There should be a penalty”, said the steward.

“There was!” I replied, “and we served it”. At this point the steward’s face dropped a little.

“Wait there,” he said and disappeared off to another room. He came back a few minutes later, telling me I was free to go. So off I went, without it being really clear whether that was the end of the matter. It seemed that HRT had protested the original penalty as being insufficient for the offence. That wasn’t our problem, of course, we served our penalty and got on with the race, coming home some two minutes clear of the other HRT car. I’ll admit, it was a good feeling, watching the drivers on the top step of the podium, knowing that the combination of my strategy, quick drivers, and fast work from our mechanics in the pits had led to the class victory. But the protest left an unnecessary cloud.

The season then moved on, to Spa-Francochamps, and due to clashing commitments, I couldn’t make the trip to be there in person, but the team was very clear that I was still needed to run the strategy for them. So I sat in my study at home, one computer connected to the timing feed from Timeservice.nl, a second computer connected to the car’s telemetry and a third with local spreadsheets running on it. All-in-all, it was a good set-up and I was happy with the way it was working. I communicated with the garage via a WhatsApp chat group, which was not the same as being there, but seemed to work okay.

Except that it didn’t. Towards the end of part one of the race (again, five-and-a-half hours), we had a commanding class lead, a comfortable lap ahead of our nearest rival (the 903 Red Ant car). Towards the end of the first part, the plan was to come in to the pit to refuel – thus enabling us to start part 2 on very nearly a full tank.

However, it didn’t quite go to plan. I wasn’t in the garage, of course, but I established later that Ivo and Rik, who were in the garage, had seen the opportunity to get a two-lap advantage on the Red Ant car, by not getting a full tank of fuel at the final stop. There seemed to be some confusion between the refueller and the garage, and Luc was sent on his way having only taken on 21 litres of fuel. This meant that we would be starting part 2 with almost no fuel on board at all. Bearing in mind the need to drive the car a lap to the grid and a further green flag lap behind the Safety Car at the restart, before the car would be allowed to come into the pit for a proper, legal refuelling stop, it was decided to pull the car off the grid and send it directly to the refuelling station.

All of this meant that, from being a lap ahead at the end of part one, within the first 15 minutes of part 2, we were two laps behind and the Red Ant car was simply too fast for us to catch it in the second part of the race. Third in class was all we could manage. “We got too greedy,” Ivo agreed with me afterwards.

With the aim of preventing a repeat, I was all set to go to Hockenheim for round 4 of the series, but rather late in the day I received a call-up from Radio Show Limited, explaining that they were short of commentators for the race, and that they needed me to commentate more than Red Camel needed me in the pit garage. After the Spa-Francorchamps debacle, I had some doubts, but Ivo had the good grace to release me, and hence I spent my first ever trip to Hockenheim working from the commentary box on the outside of the circuit, rather than from inside Red Camel’s garage.

It made a welcome change though, and on top of that, my colleagues at Red Camel had a successful weekend, bringing the Porsche home to another class win in the (six plus six) twelve-hour race.

Next up were two 24-hour races, the first of which was at Portimao in the lovely Algarve region of Southern Portugal. For this and for the 24-hours at Barcelona, the family team of Ivo, Rik and Luc Breukers would be joined by Fabian Danz, a Swiss driver regularly competing in Creventic races, but only in front-wheel drive, TCR-class cars. Apart from some outings in a BMW, it would be Fabian’s first experience of anything like the Porsche 992.

It was a long trip for the transporter, and drama for the Red Camel car, which, it was discovered on getting to the circuit, hadn’t been properly secured and suffered some damage in transit. It seemed to be largely superficial, but in the light of what happened later in the weekend, maybe that wasn’t the case after all.

There was further drama before the start, as our rival entry from ID Racing was running an illegal exhaust, and to prove that others in the class were running to the regulation, we had to remove the exhaust system to prove that our catalytic converter was in place. It was all extra work for the small but dedicated team of mechanics, and maybe, just maybe, it led to some mistakes being made.

That done, it was on with the business of qualifying, and a good job all round (qualifying takes the best lap from each of three drivers) saw us qualify second in class, eighth overall.

Apart from an early puncture, the first half of the race went well – we were leading the class and up to third place overall when disaster struck in the shape of a right driveshaft failure that took just over an hour to replace. With one rival already retired, the and only three cars remaining in the race, the hard decision was taken to retire the car. We continued long enough to complete enough laps to be classified for championship points, but there really was nothing to be gained by continuing.

The bonus was, having packed away the garage, the team was free to go to the beach and enjoy some sunshine.

The Circuit de Catalunya was next, and the team was definitely ready to avenge the disappointment of Portimao. Fabian Danz had fitted in really well with the team in Portugal, and whilst not as quick as Rik, was certainly playing his part. Qualifying went even better than in Portimao, Rik, Luc and Fabian combining to put our Porsche on class pole.

Disaster struck early on this time: Rik having completed just over an hour from the start, was in the barrier at turn 1, following a brake failure. It took nearly forty minutes to get the car back to the garage, and then over five hours to repair it. Clearly, a recovery drive was going to be out of the question, but having repaired the car, everyone was keen to get on with the race. There was still a long way to go. Through the night, we kept at it, changed the discs and pads in the early hours of the morning and were not actually losing any ground to the class leaders, remaining the same distance behind them (about five-and-a-half hours) for the remainder of the race.

Until about an hour to go, the brakes started to worry us again, so to minimise risk, with nothing to gain, we parked the car and good old Luc went out to complete the final few laps to the flag.

Not a great way to end the European season. Red Camel took second place honours in the European Championship, and worthily so. But for those bad results in Portimao and Barcelona, it could have been better. But I had learnt a lot. Having been in this business as long as I have, it is so refreshing to be able to still be learning things after forty years and more.

The race in Kuwait will be the final round of the Championship of the Continents, and also the first round of the Middle East Championship, which consists of points scored in Kuwait (12 hours), Dubai (24 hours), and Abu Dhabi (6 hours). Bring it on, I say!