Sebring prospects

The Sebring 12 hours, the first round of the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup, is coming up this weekend, and I reflected on dailysportscar a few weeks ago on the prospects for the race and the season ahead. Gary Horrocks has now provided an excellent preview ‘over there’, which I commend to you (if you haven’t already read it). For what it’s worth though, here’s my take on the prospects for this year’s 12 hour marathon over the bumps and through the traffic in the Florida sunshine.

Sadly, I won’t be there to witness it at first hand. Somehow events always seem to contrive against me getting there, and once again I shall miss it. At least the second half of the race takes place after bedtime here in the UK, so I shall try and catch some of it while the rest of the family sleeps.

The weather forecast in Florida is good: (it says here) dry and sunny, temperatures in the eighties (nudging 30 degrees Celsius), which may put air-conditioning units under strain.

In the battle for overall victory are two pukka 2011-specification Peugeot 908 cars up against two 2010 Audi R15 (“plus minus”) and a 2010 Peugeot 908 HDi FAP. If you’re reading this, I’m sure you are already up to speed with the regulations, but just in case, here’s a distillation.

For 2011, engine capacity for the turbo-diesels is reduced to 3.7 litres. As Audi’s new R18 is not racing at Sebring, the team will be using last year’s car, the R15, which has a 5.5 litre V10 engine as permitted by 2010 regulations. The ACO has vowed “to maintain a slight advantage to cars in compliance with 2011 regulations” at the expense of those running to the 2010 regulations, such as the Audi R15, which will be handicapped as follows:

• the diameter of the two restrictors, through which the engine draws its air, is reduced, by four millimetres, from 37.5mm to 33.5mm
• maximum turbo boost pressure is also reduced by 23% from just over 2.5 to less than 2 atmospheres
• the fuel tank size is reduced from 81 to 65 litres
• the fuel flow during refuelling is also reduced - the restrictor through which the fuel must flow into the tank is reduced from 33 to 28mm

(Bear in mind that the fuel tank regulations apply for all diesels, not just the 2010 cars. This reduction is from last year to this.)

Now I’m no engineer, but it seems to me that getting this balance right is a veritable minefield. What if it’s not right? How much is a “slight” advantage? Look at the possible outcomes:

1. The handicap is not enough and the strangulated Audi R15 with its big V10 is still quicker than the Peugeot. Even if the Audi is pitting more often for fuel, the Peugeot will not be able to catch up. Audi wins, but as the R15 is not entered for Le Mans, no-one cares.
2. The handicap is too much and the new Peugeots sail away into the distance. Audi achieves its team-building exercise, Peugeot enjoys the benefits of race-testing and gets lots of good publicity, but no-one really cares, because there was no excitement in the race and it is Le Mans that counts… Peugeot won Sebring in 2010, after all, in the absence of competition from Audi.
3. Audi and Peugeot are extremely well-matched, producing a fantastic battle for the lead throughout the 12 hours. Allan McNish puts in a superb final stint and steals the victory from Anthony Davidson, who trips over a slower car in the last minutes of the race (just suppose). Peugeot complains bitterly to the ACO that the regulations guaranteed them an advantage and lodge a protest.

Of course, Peugeot has a 2010-spec car as well, entered by ORECA, which will be there to battle (it hopes) with the Audis in the first (and possibly third) scenario I describe above.

For everyone’s sakes, I just hope that it all falls out well, that the race serves the series well and adds to Sebring’s reputation… and that circumstances permit me to be there next year…

I don’t mean to ignore the rest of the 56-car entry, although there are elements (in particular the LMPC and GTC classes) which contribute very little and which I hope stay out of the way.

But I shall be paying close attention to the progress of the Rebellion Lola with its Toyota engine, to the Honda-powered Highcroft HPD and to the Mazda-engined Dyson Lola. I suspect that their supply chains will be fairly independent of the tragedy that is unfolding in Japan but I hope that those who are affected do not lose sight of their priorities.

Cytosport's 2010 Aston Martin and Oak Racing's Pescarolos might provide an indication of how successfully the petrol / diesel equivalence has been adjusted for this year, but my suspicion is that not much will be apparent until the debut of Prodrive's AMR-ONE at Paul Ricard next month.

I am hoping that the LMP2s prove reliable - there aren’t really enough of them to sustain any serious level of attrition.

And no doubt there will be a right dust-up in the GT class, with Corvette, Ferrari and Porsche guaranteed to be well-matched, BMW hoping that the lessons of 2010 have been learnt and that the M3s are able mix it with the class leaders, to say nothing of the variety provided by Jaguar, Lamborghini and the Ford GTs.

I can see a late night in prospect on Saturday night!

Getting older...

Those of my readers who know me, will know that I am not in my first flush of youth. I’ll make no bones about it: I’m in my fifties: Harold Macmillan was Prime Minister when I was born. And, although I started relatively late to have a family, my daughter becomes a teenager next month. As she grows up, so she shows me a different outlook on the world, just as I probably did with my parents before me.

As the years go by, I can’t avoid noticing the speed and inevitability with which change happens. And I find that, increasingly, my thoughts for this blog are around the way that “things ain’t what they used to be”.

So I was just getting ready to have a pop at ‘green’ technologies: electric car racing, bio-diesel, bio-ethanol, and so on and so forth. I was preparing a case to suggest that motor racing should be about going as fast as you can, whether in a straight line or around the corners, no matter what the cost in financial or planetary terms. Eco-friendly cars always seem to me to be a bit wacky and unrealistic. With innovative thinking so restricted in so many racing categories, I suppose I should applaud these initiatives, and I had to sit up and take notice when the hybrid Porsche nearly won the Nürburgring 24 hours last year. The trouble is that you never really know how much the regulations get tilted in favour of these things though. Look at the diesel sportscars from Audi and Peugeot: they do not compete on a level playing field with their petrol-powered brethren at Le Mans, do they?

There’s something about the ‘green movement’ of today that makes me slightly uncomfortable, I find. It’s a bit like that charity collector that you just know is going to try and engage you in a discussion. You know you ought to help, but, well, not me, not now. And there’s a tendency for the adjective ‘green’ to edge towards the word ‘alternative’, and that in turn can easily become ‘anti-establishment’ and it is that which I am most uneasy about. Those signs in hotel bathrooms encouraging me to use my towels again have an air of the rebel, the ‘left-wing extremist’ about them.

So, yes, I’m old; and yes, I’m getting out of breath trying to keep up with technology. But then Matt James wrote in Motorsport News last week about noise, and that got me thinking a bit more deeply. We live in an age of change. Nothing new with that of course, as human beings we have always changed things. It is not in our nature to leave things as they are – part of the reason that we have evolved as far as we have is that we make changes to everything, evaluate how that change looks, and hence make progress.

I may be being perverse, but I think that we have to accept that some racing cars are now quite quiet; just as we accept that fossil fuels will not last forever and that alternative means of powering our transport need to be found.

The future belongs to my children, not to me and it will be the future world that they have to live in, not the world that I grew up in. Looking back is useful, learning from the past is essential, but thinking that the times will not change is futile. Not to learn from history is to be condemned to repeat it.

Noise is no more an essential part of motor racing than petrol is. Have you ever seen a peregrine falcon at top speed? Speed and silence can go together, and mighty spectacular it is too!

Daytona Rumblings

I have fond memories of Daytona, having first visited in 1990, as the guest of the BBC’s Andy Smith, to witness the TWR Jaguars overcome all kinds of drama to win. The morning after the race, Andy managed to fix an interview with Walkinshaw himself, and I shall never forget his first question to Tom: “that, Tom, was presumably not Plan A.” It was a great way to get him to open up, and having seen the momentous events at Le Mans eighteen months earlier, enabled me to get a better insight into the man and the way he ran his team. I’m not sure that his later exploits endeared him to me as much, but a great man, nevertheless.

I returned to Daytona the following year, and saw the last hurrah for the Joest Porsche 962 and again in 1992 to see the long-awaited 24-hour triumph for Don Devendorf’s Electramotive Nissan driven by Mashiro Hasemi, Kazuyoshi Hoshino and Toshio Suzuki – probably Japan’s greatest day in endurance racing, eclipsing Mazda’s win at Le Mans in 1991 and Masanori Sekiya’s win in 1995.

The timing of the 24 hours, at the start of the so-called Daytona SpeedWeeks in early February, and the location, on Florida’s Atlantic coast, made for a very pleasant break – either from New Jersey’s lingering winter (where I was at that time living) or from the dreary post-Christmas UK. In 1993 I returned again to Daytona, this time to see the ‘500’ – the climax of SpeedWeeks and a very different atmosphere, won by Dale Jarrett.

Although I’ve been to Florida several times since, the last time I visited ‘the World Center of Racing’ was in 1996, once more for the 24 hours, to see a win for the Oldsmobile-engined Riley & Scott Mk III in the hands of Wayne Taylor, Scott Speed and Jim Pace. Fifteen years is a long time, and towards the end of last year, there was a glimmer of hope that I might be invited back to the Rolex-sponsored event this year (in what capacity, I knew not, but the location and the time of year were very enticing).

So I felt a tinge of disappointment as the invitation came to nothing, and I consoled myself by taking my wife to see 'The King’s Speech' instead. On Sunday evening, I checked the results of Daytona, mainly to see how Brundle / Blundell had got on in the United Autosports entry, but with little other interest, I have to admit.

A few hours later, an email arrived from János Wimpffen, author of ‘Time and Two Seats’, collector of statistics and long-time sports car enthusiast. In it, he suggested that: “the cars are so narrowly drawn that … there is no technical, tactical, or even driving advantage. It’s all about show, nothing about finesse or technology. To call this a 24 hour race is a sham.” He finished with: “I love 24 Hour races and attend all those that are likely to be of quality. I've intentionally missed this one for several years and have missed nothing.”

Then I read Mark Cole’s piece on dailysportscar.com this week, and he was quite clearly enthralled. Having commentated on many 24 hour races, I know whereof he speaks though: having an action-packed race makes the commentating so much easier. But commentating on a Caterham race, which normally provides lots of overtaking, is much easier than commentating on a Formula 3 race, which will provide one overtaking move in the entire race if you’re lucky. This does not make Caterham racing more worthy than Formula 3, nor does it make the drivers concerned any better: it merely makes the task of finding something to say easier.

Matt James was at Daytona too, writing for Motorsport News, and described the race as “a truly epic spectacle,… tense, competitive, clean and spellbinding”. His problem was not filling the airwaves with the spoken word, but condensing all the race incidents into a double-page spread.

The fact that the Daytona 24 hour race provides wall-to-wall entertainment does not automatically make it worthy. It used to be the case that the race was held in the same high regard as the Le Mans 24 hours. Nowadays it is the Sebring 12-hours that is used as the barometer of form for Le Mans, and Daytona, with its specification prototypes is in quite a different ballpark. The philosophy, the very core of Le Mans Prototypes is different from the Daytona variety, and I am afraid that I side with János in believing that the DP’s just don’t cut it, although without question they are cheaper.

To go back to my email exchange with János; he brought up Umberto Eco’s concept of hyper-reality, a state manufactured, he said, “by companies to control markets, tastes and experiences”. And Eco’s examples quoted by János were of McDonalds and DisneyWorld. (Jim France might be honoured to be compared to such corporate power-houses, but no matter.)

János said: “Whether you go to a McDonalds in Cleveland or Nairobi, the food and ambience is identical. It's not great and it's not terrible, but it is entirely predictable. There is no challenge to it. Whereas if you go to a ma & pa diner in either city the food could be the best meal you've had or the worst. Same with going to Disney World. You will have a precisely measured amount of entertainment, nothing more, nothing less. Whereas if you went to the Himalayas, Amazon, or the Paris Metro, you could have a really fun and interesting time or you may die”.

I understood what he was driving at, but gave him my own version. I wrote back:

“Here's another 'mind picture' for you. Would anyone come to see a running race between me and Usain Bolt? Well, yes they would, because Bolt is a celebrity, and the fastest man on the planet. But after a few races, interest would wane. So what about we tie his legs together and make him carry a 200lb lump of lead in a rucksack? How about we get Keira Knightly to compete in a 3-way race (wearing her heels)? Slowly, you convert a pure race into pure entertainment.”

These are extreme points of view, but illustrate the problem facing both the ACO and Grand-Am as they strive to balance the purity of the sport with its entertainment value. What is important for both organisations to bear in mind as they do so, is that the reputations of their events can change. Don’t ignore the fact that drivers such as Le Mans winners Martin Brundle, Mark Blundell and Hurley Haywood, Indy 500 winners Dario Franchitti and Juan Pablo Montoya, multiple NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson and several former Formula 1 drivers all chose to take part. There is an increasing depth of quality in the driver entry at Daytona: a fact that should not be ignored.

The thing that worries me is that 'popular' does not usually imply 'quality'. The labels on the meats at my local butcher are a good example. In my recent conversation with Wolfgang Ullrich (to be released as soon as Audi has approved it) he often used words like 'prestige' and 'pinnacle'. I don't think that anyone would suggest that the current fad for reality TV shows represents the 'pinnacle' of television broadcast quality, although they are undoubtedly very popular.

Pandering to the shrill cries of the masses may win you support in the short term, but to be truly influential you must strive for excellence: in whatever field you choose to operate.

Let me know what you think. Leave me a comment below.

Audi's Sebring Test

Allan McNish took part in Audi's recent test session at Sebring, Florida.

Here's what he said afterwards:

“The test was conducted over four days and I have to say was quite important for us for the development of the car, not just because of the endurance side but because of performance as well.


“I got more mileage in the R18 and also did some set up work for the R15 for the race in Sebring. The R18 itself is coming along quite well and I think by the time we get to Le Mans test day we’ll have got a handle on what makes this particular car tick.”

There were three cars at the test session, two R18s and one R15 Allan, along with Tom Kristensen, Dindo Capello, Timo Bernhard, Romain Dumas, Mike Rockenfeller, Marcel Fässler, André Lotterer and Benoît Tréluyer all drove all three cars over the course of the test.

Le Mans Test Day is on April 24th, Easter Sunday, when I shall be on an aeroplane flying back from our family holiday in Tuscany. The 12 hours of Sebring is on March 19th.

Looking ahead on dailysportscar.com

Graham Goodwin has today posted my latest "Comment" article on dailysportscar.com. You will have to go there, if you are a subscriber, in order to read it. If you are not a subscriber, then I suggest you do subscribe. It is no money in my pocket whether you do or whether you don't, but as the article in question took me quite a long time to write, I felt that it would compromise them if I simply posted it here.

In any case, much of it is merely a re-hash of what I wrote here on January 5th, although having re-read that piece, I see that my thinking has moved on a bit. Much has this has been due to talking to various people, or having email exchanges with them. Some have not replied to my emails, but others have - some willing to be quoted, others not. I will respect those wishes, by not mentioning anyone, then even the smarter ones among you will not be able to work anything out by a process of elimination.

However, one manufacturer should be singled out - Audi. Yes, I know I have a 'special relationship' with Audi - Audi UK has been very supportive of Radio Le Mans in general and of me in particular over recent years - but it is not all one way. I had an Audi 80 2.8i as a company car from 1992 until 1995, when it was stolen from a side street where I had left it overnight in Camberwell (not going there again). Then I bought a second hand, R-reg A4 Avant 2.4 (V6 petrol engine) in 2001, which I kept until 2009, when I bought the brand new S4 Avant that is my current means of transport. So I freely admit that I am a fan, regardless of their success at Le Mans. Maybe it is subliminal advertising,... but I digress.

The reason for the special mention of Audi in this context was that, having sent their PR man in the UK an email full of questions, I was offered the chance of a telephone interview with Dr Wolfgang Ullrich - Audi's Head of Motorsport. So of course I accepted, and at the appointed time, (to the minute) my phone rang, a very polite lady introduced herself, asked me if I was ready to speak to Dr Ullrich, and put me through. I then had twenty-five minutes in which one of the key individuals in Audi's motorsporting success in the last decade (and more) gave me his total attention. I felt very privileged.

I have not quoted him directly in the dailysportscar article, but did use some of the wisdom that he imparted in order both to ensure the accuracy of my facts and to colour my opinions.

In the next few days, I will try and compose my notes from that conversation into a piece that I shall then publish either here or on dailysportscar, I have yet to decide... but I am open to persuasion.

Postscript - and very parenthetically:
Deep down, I actually like Alfa Romeos quite a lot too, having owned two of them in the past. But the passion exhibited by some of my journalistic colleagues was straying into obsession, so I quietly buried my enthusiasm, changed jobs, got a company car (in those days the rule was "Vauxhall only"), and I have to admit that I haven't driven one for simply ages.

Snetterton - photos...

Last week I promised to post some pictures of Snetterton as it was... I guarantee you won't have seen this anywhere else on the net. Enjoy!

 Lanfranchi to Cleland, Willhire, 1987

Victory rostrum, Willhire 1987.

British Touring Cars... 1991 (I think)

 Alfas in paddock assembly area...

Last night's dinner

With thanks to Martyn Pass at Audi UK for providing the venue and the opportunity, Allan McNish hosted an informal dinner last night, and talked on a wide range of subjects. Chipper as ever, and exuding the knowledge and confidence that goes with his experience, here is a selection of quotes from the evening.


On Le Mans: “I never said I liked it. It’s a love-hate thing. After we went out in 2007 I felt like a never ever wanted to go back to the place. But that feeling is short, it doesn’t last long.”

“The track is good. But it's more than that. It’s interesting because it is constantly evolving, it like a living thing. There was one year when a tree root was growing up into the track between Mulsanne and Indianapolis, making a massive bump, and they shaved it off, flattened it out between Wednesday night and Thursday qualifying.”

“And there is always change on safety grounds; there has to be: moving kerbs, resurfacing, etc.”

“The history and character of Le Mans is a big part of it. It’s a race that you only get one chance a year to win, so yes, it is hard when you don’t get the breaks.”

“At Le Mans in 1997 there were three Portuguese drivers racing for Roock Racing [Roock was the team that Allan was driving for that year and the Portuguese team consisted of Manuel, Tomaz and Pedro Mello-Bryner - PT]. They came third in GT2 and at the end they were all crying in the garage because they were so happy with the result. Before that, I had always been totally focussed on winning, coming third would have meant nothing to me, but it made me realise about the culture of Le Mans; what it is all about, and how important it is as an event.”

Le Mans 2010: “That was strange, because when Tom [Kristensen] had the problem with Andy [Priaulx, who inadvertently made contact with the Audi when driving slowly back to the pits], I wasn’t thinking: ‘that’s the race win gone’, I was thinking ‘that’s fourth place gone’. I honestly thought that the best we could hope for was fourth place. I thought we could beat one of the Peugeots; that was our best realistic chance. So I wasn’t so disappointed when that happened. Up till then at Le Mans, I was always in a position to win - I would either be on the podium or be out of the race. We weren’t used to struggling for pace. I don’t want to be in that position again.”

Gentleman drivers: “They’re not a problem at Le Mans, it’s worse at Sebring and at Petit [Road Atlanta]. It’s good that the ACO are prohibiting Gentleman drivers from LMP1 cars though. You need to be aware of what’s going on around you all the time.”

“The biggest problem at Le Mans is the number of people in the pitlane. And for a lot of them, it is their first time there. Or at best, they only go once a year.”

On new regulations: “The new engines aren’t very powerful. Racing drivers always want more power. I don’t know how much bhp we’ve got, but it’s not enough. We’ll get used to it right enough, but it will be a different driving experience. We'll have to see how the car behaves.

“I drove the new car (the R18) in November, but we will use the R15+ at Sebring, and then the R18 will have its debut at Spa, with three cars there and at Le Mans.” [Interestingly, this might prevent the ACO from applying any balance of performance after Spa.]

On closed cars: “You obviously can’t see as much, because of the pillars and things, but don’t forget I drove the Toyota GT-One at Le Mans as well, and that had to comply with road car regulations, so had bigger windscreen, wider A pillars and suchlike. The biggest difference is the wind noise, which disappears, and you can hear the engine noise, because it kinda reverberates around the cockpit.”

On hybrid technology: “At Petit, I was coming up on the inside of the Hybrid Porsche, and I couldn’t believe the acceleration it had. Amazing!”