Season summary - Creventic

As we head into the final few weeks of the year, I am finding it much easier to look back on 2021 than I found looking back on 2020. By the time the bells of Big Ben chime to herald in 2022 we will (we will, I know we will) have moved into our new house, and that will bring with it a sense of a new start that I haven’t experienced since becoming fully self-employed at the beginning of 2019. Inevitably, I spend time at the end of the year looking back and summarising. At the end of 2020, I was glad just to have survived!

I may only have been to four race meetings this year – but that is three more than I went to in 2020, so by no means am I complaining. More importantly, I was fit enough to attend a lot more than that and I was able to be properly involved with a number of other races during the year: not only commentating for Radio Show Limited’s network of channels, but also getting involved in a consultancy role for various teams working remotely. It is a testament to modern technology – as well as the co-operation of timekeepers and facility suppliers – that such remote working is possible. One hears many stories these days of working from home, but I can confirm that the future is here… and it works!

There is no doubt whatsoever though, that however good the technology, you can’t beat actually being at a race. I’ll admit that I was interested in cars and motor sport from an early age (not encouraged in any way by my family, I must stress), but it was not until my first visit to Brands Hatch at the age of ten that my passion was truly ignited. Since becoming involved in the sport, I have been fortunate to attend races in many categories and across the globe, mostly (although not exclusively) at someone else’s expense.

And I’ll admit that I find it more of a chore and less of a joy to talk about races without being there. Le Mans this year was an excellent example. The situation was certainly not simple as various issues were at play, but an opportunity arose for me to make the trip to see the race at first hand. However, when the music stopped, I was at home and the 62 cars that I longed to see spend the week tearing around the French countryside did so without me. It meant that I was able to talk about the race for Radio Le Mans, and the technology I referred to above allowed me access to more data and as good TV pictures as I would have had if I had made the trip there in person. But I wasn’t there: I wasn’t able to talk to anyone in person, I wasn’t able to smell, feel or touch the atmosphere. There was a wall between Le Mans and me.

I was also disappointed not to make the trip to Sebring for the inaugural 24-hour race at the Florida airfield track, run by Creventic as the conclusion of their 24H Series Championship. I’ve never been to Sebring, and it remains one of those places I would like to go someday. I generally enjoy Creventic’s races – a highlight of my 2019 season was getting to all the rounds of their championship. Everyone who knows their races speaks highly of them, and although not without their wrinkles, they do a great job organising races that people actually enjoy participating in.

The Covid-19 pandemic, along with some other economic problems, has hit them hard. Remember who organised the first post-pandemic (or in the light of later events, mid-pandemic) race back in 2020? Yes, at Portimão – a 24-hour race on the weekend of June 13th/14th. It was a brave move, the previous race in the series having been the rain-curtailed Dubai 24 hours of 2020, which had to be abandoned after just seven hours because of heavy (artificially-induced) rain.

This year has been far more successful for the Dutch organisation. Seven races comprised the season: 24-hour races at Dubai, Barcelona and Sebring, complemented by 12-hour affairs at Mugello, Paul Ricard, Hockenheim and Budapest. Entries were generally pretty good although sometimes disappointing – no-one was happy to see just 16 cars start at the Hungaroring, a late replacement for the Coppa Florio at Enna-Pergusa. Considering the uncertainty caused by travel restrictions and the ongoing global pandemic, the average number of starters over the year, at over 31, is not too bad at all.

The fact that Creventic doesn’t use Safety Cars, but uses the Code-60 procedure to neutralise races, is a good thing in my view. However, it does reduce the tactical options for teams playing catch-up. Once you drop back, it is a tough job to recover lost time. In virtually all other brands of endurance racing, the Safety Car provides the chance for slower cars to catch up. Over the course of 12 or 24 hours, it is entirely possible for a car to recover several laps, by judicious use of pit stops during Safety Car periods, and some Creventic races this year have failed to provide as much entertainment merely because one car got a lucky break with a code-60, from which others were unable to recover. You may say that Safety Cars can provide similar lucky breaks, and you would be right, but more often than not, it is the cars behind the leader that benefit. It is a reflection on the careful Balance of Performance (BoP) regulations in the series that so many Creventic races are as close-fought as they are.

There is a good mix of manufacturers represented as well. Although Porsche won every race bar one this year, there were four occasions on which there were cars from three different manufacturers on the podium, and although Herberth Motorsport won four times, four different teams took overall honours during the year and on four occasions the winning margin was a lap or less.

While Creventic now looks forward – with good reason – to the opening round of their 2022 season in Dubai in the second week of January, for which the entry list has already topped 85 cars, the season is not quite over yet for SRO.

There is still the final race of the 2021 Intercontinental GT Challenge to come in the shape of the iconic Kyalami 9 hours and I’m aware that by focussing on the Creventic series in this article I have overlooked the bigger brother, properly professional SRO-organised series that go to make not only the IGTC but also the GT World Challenge: in Europe, America and Asia.

Further still up the motor-racing pecking order, there is also the matter of a Formula 1 world championship to be settled. A friend of mine recently said that his attention had been drawn far more to F1 this year than to Endurance racing, and I can see why. The entertainment factor in F1 has certainly been very high.

Fortunately, Formula 1, the World Endurance Championship, the Intercontinental GT Challenge and the 24H Series all cater for different markets, different budgets, different customers. Long may they co-exist. But, reflecting the spirit of the time of year, may they also share where resources are scarce.

A look back at Le Mans, a look forward to Bahrain and a personal update

I have to say, it was great fun working with my friends on Radio Le Mans during this years’ 24-hour race at Le Mans back in August. Of course it wasn’t the same; but we live in times where working from home is not so unusual, and I had a wonderful set-up in our dining room with as many screens as I could reasonably want to use. The ever-efficient and friendly folk at Al Kamel (official timekeepers for the WEC) also provided me with access to their V2 Protocol on Cloud data stream, which meant that I could see live timing data in real time. And if I needed access to my home library, I just had to nip upstairs to look up anything I wanted – especially where I trusted my own records rather than the lottery of information that is available on the internet.

Although I did contribute to the Radio Show Limited coverage of the 2020 editions of both the Nürburgring and Le Mans 24-hour races, this year was my first opportunity to be properly part of the commentary team since the diagnosis of my illness and the onset of the coronavirus pandemic last year. I wasn’t sure, initially, how it was all going to pan out, but once I had the headset on, I felt that I slid into the groove very easily – and after a few minutes, it was like I had never been away. I took regular breaks, and even managed to tear myself away from the action in the night to get some sleep. Perhaps it set a precedent for my future contributions, or perhaps it was just another step in my recovery… we’ll see.

A lot seems to have happened since my last blog post, not only in terms of my personal life. From the point of view of my health, all is going reasonably well. I am still taking various medications – probably henceforth always will – but as long as it keeps the myeloma at bay, then I’m not going to complain. In July, I was at Spa-Francorchamps again, for the VW Fun Cup. For various reasons, I never quite got around to blogging about it, but from the point of view of my strength and endurance, it was a great success.

Since Le Mans, I have had various outings, not motor-racing related, but proving that I can drive myself around and visit friends and family as much as the Covid restrictions allow.

We are in the process of moving home: having lived in Surrey for more than half my life, my wife and I decided a move to a quieter part of England was appropriate. We surely underestimated the stress involved in selling and buying a house, but hopefully we are beyond the worst of it and will settle in quickly to our new abode and new surroundings.

In terms of the World Endurance Championship though, Le Mans represents the most recent round of the 2021 season. With just the double-header at Bahrain to wrap things up in the championship, I thought it was worth taking a brief look back at what happened in France in August, to see how the championship standings might shake out.

Personally, I find that the WEC has got itself in a bit of a mess. Having had an eight-round ‘super-season’ in 2018-2019, including two editions of the Le Mans 24 hours, we then had a single ‘winter season’ in 2019-2020, which also consisted of eight rounds. For 2021, we have returned to a ‘proper season’ consisting purely of races held in 2021, and which will end with two races on the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir. The first of these will take place over six hours and the second will be eight hours, on consecutive weekends, the last Saturday in October and the first Saturday in November. For a six-hour race, 25 points are awarded to the race winner, and for an 8-hour encounter, there are 38 points for the winners, so there are plenty of opportunities for strategists to exercise themselves over.

Toyota’s lead in the Manufacturers’ Championship is currently 51 points, so there is a mathematical chance that they won’t win it. That chance is one hardly worth bothering about, despite the presence of Alpine and Glickenhaus, there was not much doubt about the destination of the championships from the outset of this year’s six-round season.

However, just nine points separates the drivers of the no. 7 Toyota (Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Jose Maria Lopez, winners at Le Mans) from the no. 8 (Kazuki Nakajima, Brendon Hartley and Sébastien Buemi), so everything is still to play for. Two wins for the no. 8 over the two Bahraini races would be needed for their squad to take the championship. A lot hangs on the Japanese cars being reliable: thus far this season they have achieved a one-two in three out of four races, can more of the same be expected in Bahrain? If so, then the nine-point margin makes the no. 7 squad a distinct favourite to repeat their triumph in the (eight-round) 2019-2020 season.

In the GTE-Pro class, the score stands at two wins each so far this year for Porsche and Ferrari. However, the Italian marque has won at the higher-scoring, longer races at Le Mans and Portimao, giving them a 16-point lead in the championship. Certainly not unassailable, but enough to count them favourites. In the drivers’ classification, Alessandro Pier Guidi and James Calado for Ferrari hold a 12-point lead over Porsche drivers Neel Jani and Kevin Estre.

Because each driver on the crew for each car scores the points earned by the car, it always just so happens that the drivers’ crown is shared by the squad driving the most successful car. This is only right and fair, of course. One would hardly expect the football World Cup in 1966 just to be awarded to Geoff Hurst, would one? George Cohen earned his right as a member of the winning team just as much – as did Jimmy Greaves, in my opinion, but that’s a whole different can of worms.

But, especially at Le Mans, I often get to wondering about the relative contribution of each driver to the finishing result. A driver’s contribution is difficult to assess, though, and is especially difficult to compare across a three-driver team, when team orders might play a role, as can the weather, the state of the car, and so on and so on.

For this a “Rising Average” graph is very useful. I show a few of these below, but first, it is important to understand how they are derived and how they should be interpreted. Al Kamel provides a very useful website: http://fiawec.alkamelsystems.com from which you can download a CSV file containing the lap time for every car on every lap. Load this onto your computer and you can have a great deal of fun comparing your own favourites. You could also double-check my numbers for me!

I am not going to provide a complete course in drawing graphs using Microsoft Excel, but I do strongly recommend that you don’t just take my word for it, but do your own research as well. To get a Rising Average, you should sort the file by car and then by lap time, so for each car the lap times are sorted, fastest to slowest. Then take the average of the fastest n laps, where n increases from 1 to the number of laps completed by the car. To assess each individual driver, sort the file first by driver, then by car, then by lap time, and perform the same exercise. Draw the results on a graph, and you will get something like this:

I said earlier that it is important to know how to read these graphs. At first glance, merely consider that the driver whose line is nearest the x-axis is the fastest. Indeed, the very left-hand end of the graph shows you the fastest lap of each driver (fastest is the average of one lap). However, equally important – some would say more so – is the gradient of the line. Simple arithmetic demands that the line will slope upwards from left to right, but the angle with which it slopes is an indication of the consistency of the driver. The nearer to flat, the nearer to 100% consistency is that driver.

So, comparing the Toyota drivers from the graph above, you can see that Kamui Kobayashi was consistently the quickest of all six of them and that Kazuki Nakajima was overall slowest. But you can also see that Jose Maria Lopez did fewer laps than any of the others. But look at the consistency demonstrated by Sébastien Buemi and Mike Conway. Regular readers know that I am big fan of Conway, and I was surprised to see that on a 10- to 20-lap average he was slowest of all the Toyota drivers, but his line is even flatter than that of Buemi, indicating that he was getting the best from his tyres over a long stint, and that his line carries on the furthest to the right, indicating that he was the busiest of all the drivers on the team.

Truly, this is a team game, and Conway’s part in the victory was just as important as that played by his team-mates.

Here is a similar graph showing the comparison of the other HYPERCAR entries, the Alpine and the two Glickenhauses.

The performance of Nicolas Lapierre sticks out here like a sore thumb. And fellow-countryman Olivier Pla had a good race as well.

Finally, a quick look at the GTE-Pro class.

The graph shows the first classified GTE Pro cars. Most surprising here is how poor Neel Jani compares with everyone else. Certainly not what one would expect from a Le Mans winner. Ferrari can thank James Calado for the win, but the performance of the Corvette was undoubtedly strong, in particular the contributions of Nicky Catsburg and Antonio Garciá.

As I said, these graphs can be very illuminating, and demonstrate how multi-dimensional an endurance race is. On occasion, they can lead one completely astray, but for a race as long as Le Mans, and for one in which the weather conditions remain stable throughout, they provide a very useful indicator to show who were the true heroes of the race.

At last! Going to a race

My regular readers will recall that 2019 was a bit of a breakthrough year for me, in the sense that in January of that year I gave up my day job as an IT consultant in the telecoms industry, in order to attempt to make a living as a full-time motorsports consultant. I regard that first year as a great success, balancing commentary work for Radio Show Ltd and at various circuits doing the PA, with work in numerous garages helping teams with strategy over the course of the year, along with written work for a couple of monthly national magazines.

My hope for 2020 was therefore for more of the same – with the emphasis on the word ‘more’ – but of course fate intervened: the global coronavirus pandemic coinciding with my diagnosis of multiple myeloma. The net result was that I spent most of the year under medical treatment to keep myself alive, while the rest of the world ground to a sticky halt and got going again in fits and starts with motor-racing. Where major meetings did take place, they did so behind closed doors, without the presence of spectators.

As you can read in my previous blog posts, I had to review my priorities pretty seriously, and although I was able to write – mostly for sport auto magazine in Germany – other motorsport-related work dried up almost completely, along with my income. There were times during the year when I thought that the Dubai 24 hours in January 2020 might even be the last ever motor race that I would attend in person.

Throughout my illness, my wife has been an invaluable support to me, so as our 25th wedding anniversary loomed at the beginning of May, we had booked ourselves a week away in a holiday cottage in Wales. Thankfully, the lockdown restrictions eased sufficiently for us to make the trip: nevertheless, you can imagine my feelings when I received a phone call while we were there, inviting me to work for the DRM Motorsport VW Fun Cup team at the upcoming Franco Fun Festival at Spa-Francorchamps.

Although I was thrilled at the prospect, a piece of me had become used to playing the role of invalid, and using Covid restrictions as an excuse for simply not doing things. Hands up those who recognise the symptoms.

We got home from Wales late on the May Bank Holiday Monday, and Matthieu de Robinao, the team principal of DRM Motorsport wanted me at Spa on the coming Thursday. Accommodation was already arranged for me, but still I didn’t have so much time to organise the requisite PCR test and channel crossing, along with the various preparatory work for the job itself.

I had worked with DRM on a couple of occasions in 2019, so I knew most of the team members; I was relatively familiar with the regulations and understood the somewhat esoteric culture of the Fun Cup. The race was for eight hours, with mandatory pit stops to be made in each of eleven 26-minute-long pit windows. At each pit stop, there had to be a driver change and any other necessary work carried out in front of the team garage. Refuelling, as in the 25-hour race in July, took place at the Total fuel station in the middle of the paddock, and each visit to the refuelling area had to be a minimum of five minutes.

The journey to Spa proved uneventful: my hastily-organised Covid Certificate satisfied the border control officials, and the other paperwork allowing me travel out of the UK, through France and into Belgium was not inspected. I also had ‘special dispensation’ to break the curfew, both in France and in Belgium, but again, no-one asked to see this.

Arriving at the circuit early on Friday morning for two unofficial practice sessions, I found DRM running eight cars, although my responsibilities were limited to running just the no. 2 car. A fellow engineer, William Deglas, was assigned to be my ‘arms and legs’, dashing out to check tyre pressures, etc. In return, I was to help him in the running of his car, the no. 199, a leading contender in the ‘Pure’ class.

The drivers for the number 2 were due to be team principal Matthieu de Robiano, local hero Frédéric Bouvy, a former driver in the Blancpain GT Series and Spa 24 hours among his long experience, and 21-year-old Belgian karting champion Nygel Verhaeren. However, during qualifying, Bouvy overstepped the track limits too often and was shown the black flag by race officials. Fred failed to see the flag and so only came into the pits at the end of his five-lap stint. The rules for this event prohibited pit-to-car radio, so I could offer the excuse that we could not advise him of the warning over the radio. On the other hand, the fact that all the drivers had to rely on pit boards should make the driver more aware of signals being given to him – whether that be from the start/finish gantry or from the pit wall. Fred’s excuse to me was that he was looking for the pit board, not the gantry.

Race Control gave the team two options – either to start the race from the back of the grid, or to disqualify Bouvy from the event and participate with just two drivers. This choice was above my pay grade – between the team principal and team manager, they decided that (partly due to there being 112 cars on the grid) Matthieu and Nygel could do the race on their own, so it was an early bath (so to speak) for Monsieur Bouvy.

From a strategy point of view, having only two drivers made things slightly simpler. There was nothing to be achieved by playing clever with the sequence of the drivers – it was simply a matter of changing drivers at each stop. The general understanding was that Nygel would be slightly the quicker of the two, so it was agreed that Matthieu would start. This would put Nygel in the car for the end of the race when close racing was likely still to be the order of the day.

The main job for me was to optimise the number of fuel stops. Normally, an eight hour race would require five stops for fuel, but if sufficient of the race were run behind the safety car, then the drivers could save fuel enough to get to the end of the race on just four stops.

The car (and drivers) had good pace in the race and by the time we needed our first stop for fuel, we were in second place overall. Unfortunately, a lot of other cars also needed fuel at the same time (obviously), and instead of taking five minutes for fuel, the no. 2 spent 8m 10s in the fuelling area. A lap lost to the leaders.

Safety car periods worked in our favour and we were able to optimise the fuel so that, three hours into the race Matthieu and Nygel were leading overall. We were leading again just before five hours of the race had elapsed - before our third stop for fuel, and hopes were high in the garage. Four laps into his next stint, however, Nygel was struck from behind at La Source hairpin, necessitating a long, slow lap back to the pits and a three minute stop for repairs. Fortunately, we were just into the pit window, so Matthieu was able to get in the car and set off, hoping to make up for lost time. He was back in the pits at the end of the lap though, more work being required to the car, and another three minutes lost.

By now the car was back in 34th place, three laps behind the leaders, and all hopes of a podium gone. We plugged on though, avoided the fifth stop for fuel and gained a lap back on the leaders. After eight hours, we had managed to salvage 11th place overall, and 4th in the ‘Fun’ Class, so things could have been a lot worse; frustrating, though, to know that we had the pace to win.

After the race, I’ll be the first to admit that I was pretty tired. I hung on with the engineers and mechanics while they packed up, shared a paper cup of warm champagne with the team car (the 917 ‘family’ car) which had achieved an overall podium place, and had a final meal in ‘team catering’.

I got back to the accommodation, and slept the sleep of the innocent, having elected to book a channel crossing on the Monday lunchtime. Fortunately, an even more hastily-arranged Covid Certificate had been emailed to me late on Saturday evening, and kept the UK border officials happy, along with my passenger locator form, confirming that the next ten days of my life will be spent at home in self-isolation quarantine.

Meanwhile, on the health front, I’m on a new medication, designed to extend my remission. According to the Lancet, it has proved itself to be very effective in tests. Then I have various scans and consultations scheduled for the coming months, which I can only hope will improve my prognosis still further. It may be a far cry from where I was two years ago, but believe me, it is an even further cry from where I was this time last year.

Eleventh place crew happy with a result

Warm champagne in a paper cup

Accommodation had character

My partner William in the office

The 917 scored an overall podium

Cranking it up - Busy January!

Following a quiet Christmas and New Year, motor-racing-wise, I started up the PC in January with a view to following the Gulf 12 hours. Usually held at Yas Marina in Abu Dhabi just before Christmas, this year’s event was not only postponed until the new year, but also moved to the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir, and was held on the second weekend of the year. Were it not for a personal interest I had in the race, I might not have followed it at all, but it marked the first of three international GT races on successive weekends in the Middle East, all aimed at the gentleman racer market.

It is promoted by Driving Force Events, an Irish outfit, although the commercial rights are held by Motorsports Projects FZE in the UAE. It was the ninth running of the event, but I am afraid to say that it was as close to a complete waste of time as one could get. There were just 12 starters for the two-part race, and only ten made it to the second six-hour portion (which started after a mere two-hour break).

Amazingly, all 12 hours of racing happened without any intervention – no safety cars, no full course yellows, no code-60 periods.

The winning McLaren, entered by the Anglo-Bahraini 2 Seas Motorsport team, led all but 14 of the 341 laps completed, and only five changes of lead occurred on the overall lap chart. From the outside, it wasn’t particularly nail-biting, but the team found the McLaren a fragile beast, needing a lot of care and attention, so the team deserves recognition for their result. The other two GT3 McLarens entered both retired. Optimistically, the organisers have announced that they are planning to return to Yas Marina on December 18th for the tenth edition of the event – I just hope it gets a bigger entry and a better race. If not, then I just hope that people realise that there is a limit to this kind of racing.

I was hoping for more excitement from the Dubai 24-hours the following weekend and there was a good entry list with 51 cars taking the start. It was a race with some poignancy for me on a personal level, since last year’s race at the Dubai Autodrome was the last race at which I had actually been present. The race had also an element of unfinished business about it, as heavy rain caused its abandonment after just seven hours.

In 2020, I had elected to take up an offer from the Red Camel team to work in their pit garage, assisting with strategy, rather than my usual role in the commentary box, so I experienced the rising water levels in the pit lane at first hand. In the end, I was not on the commentary team for this year’s race either, but followed the race in its various classes quite closely nevertheless. And as always, it was the races in the classes that held much of the interest.

Sadly, more than four hours were lost to a total of 16 Code-60 periods, and teams had to be on their toes to make the correct strategic calls. In the GT3 class, it was one such – after just under five hours of racing – when the GPX Porsche managed to make a break and establish a lap of a lead, which proved impossible for anyone else to get back. You can argue whether an IMSA-style Full Course Yellow, which allows cars to catch back up onto the lead lap, is better; personally, I find the Creventic way purer, even if can be disheartening for those involved. In any case, as an advertisement for close racing and for a well-matched Balance of Performance, the Dubai 24 hours was hard to fault – the top four at the finish comprising Porsche, Audi, Mercedes and Lamborghini.

The third of the ‘Middle East trio’ was, unfortunately, another second-rate affair – a one-off six-hour race organised by Creventic, with only 14 starters – only four of which were GT3 cars. The fastest was also the least reliable, Inception Racing by Optimum unable to overcome the delicate nature of their McLaren 720S GT3 leaving an unequal duel between Car Collection’s Audi and Leipert’s Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo from which the more powerful Audi came out on top.

It was disappointing that neither the Gulf 12 hours nor Creventic’s one-off 6-hour race at Abu Dhabi could muster a larger grid, and surely the coronavirus pandemic had a lot to do with that, but there is ‘writing on the wall’ here, that organisers ignore at their peril. I recognise that a well-promoted, skilfully-organised race meeting will always work better for the gentleman racer than a track day, but too many garden parties spoil the allure.

Anyway, to round off January came a staple of the calendar, in the shape of the Daytona 24 hours, which by all accounts was a right humdinger of a race. While Daytona may not have quite the history of Le Mans or Spa, it does have a heritage to which none of the Middle East circuits can aspire and last year’s event – probably one of the last international races to take place before we became engulfed by the cloud of the global coronavirus pandemic – ran to a record distance of 833 laps.

I wasn’t there, nor did I pay particular attention to the race as it happened – I find watching races remotely on TV difficult. I’m not sure why that is: if I am at an event, my attention rarely wanders from the racing action on the track, but when I am not there I just get distracted by the slightest of things. So even if I didn’t tune in to my colleagues who were describing the action for radiolemans.com, I did have all the data from the race available at my fingertips.

Some of that data makes interesting reading, and I thought I might share it here. Readers may be familiar with the concept of “rising averages”, but for those who are not, as I have not discussed them a length on this blog before, here is a brief explanation. There are different ways to comparing lap times from different cars. Most commonly, I look at the average of the best 20% of lap times from a car or a driver as it gives a good indication of outright pace.

However, by its very nature, it ignores 80% of the laps, which means that important things can get missed. The concept of a rising average looks at the average of three consecutive laps, and then sorts that average into ascending order.

For the (relatively small) DPi entry at Daytona, I have done this for all the cars entered. You probably need to enlarge the graph, but when you do, it is plain to see how the vast majority of the quickest laps were done by the no. 01 Cadillac from Chip Ganassi’s stable. In fact, for much of the race, the winning Wayne Taylor Acura was only the third-fastest car out there, behind the no. 48 Cadillac as well. But then Wayne has a huge amount of experience (both as a driver and a team entrant) and knows what it takes to win Daytona (this was the third year in a row that one of his cars has won the race). And one of the main things to do is to keep the car out of the pits, which the CGR team clearly failed to do in the final stages of the race.

The other interesting use of the rising average graph is to tell you which of your drivers are really performing. To round this off, let’s try looking at the rising averages, split by driver, for the three podium cars.

I will leave the reader to draw their own conclusions. But if any evidence were needed of the standout performances of Kamui Kobayashi and Harry Tincknell, then this is it. And if I were Wayne Taylor, I would be making sure I kept Felipe Albuquerque in my driving line-up.

  Harry Tincknell, of course, was part of the three-man Mazda crew in the no. 55 car. That car came from being three laps behind at one point, but which was able to use the FCY procedures to get back onto the lead lap and even be challenging for the lead at one stage. Rather different from Dubai, but one plays to the rulebook that is in force and it is foolish not to take advantage of its provisions.

Brian Jones – an appreciation.

People look forward to a new year with positive thoughts and this has been especially true this year. I don’t think there are many of us who will look back fondly on 2020 – I certainly won’t. But the boundary between 31st December 2020 and 1st January 2021 is a purely arbitrary one and there is no reason for things necessarily to be any better having crossed that threshold. The news, on just the second day of the New Year, that Brian Jones had died of Covid19 was certainly proof of that, and brought any new year’s optimism to a shuddering halt.

Brian was already in his eighties and fully appreciated his own mortality. The last time we spoke was in the winter of 2019, and although he sparkled with excitement at his plan to fly to Australia in March 2020, he knew that it would be an adventurous journey, and in all likelihood the last chance he would have for such an enterprise. I am pleased to say he was able to make the trip, and get home again safely, but how ironic that the virus that caused the cancellation of the Grand Prix that he planned to watch while he was there should take him nearly a year later.

I first met Brian nearly 40 years ago, although I had heard his voice through the tannoy before that at Brands Hatch and elsewhere. It was through that initial encounter that I became involved in commentary (it’s all described here, if you’ve a mind to read it) and although it was not initially my ambition, my work as a commentator would never have developed without Brian’s help, advice and guidance. Brian had a natural skill for public speaking, an affinity with his listener that gave his narrative instant appeal and an ability to engage with his subject in a way that was informative and entertaining. Realising that these are skills valuable to racing drivers just as much as to budding commentators, he later provided formal training sessions, from which I am sure many others benefitted as well.

He had a remarkable ability to hold an audience’s attention, not only through what he said, but also through the way that he said it. He was a gifted raconteur: avuncular and urbane, with an acute understanding of humanity. His circle of friends was wider than I suspect even he realised. He really did seem to ‘know everybody’.

As I worked with him through the 1980’s, we became close friends and he provided me with plenty of opportunities to work with him as his ‘assistant’ at race meetings around the UK as well as trips to Cowes, Isle of Wight, for offshore power boats and Bristol for their inshore cousins. The people we met along the way – from Mark Thatcher to Gina Campbell – broadened my horizons, but seemed to be ‘just another day at the office’ for Brian.

He was always willing to share and he was generous to a fault. He provided me with my first income from motor-racing. Commentator’s assistants were not paid then (are they now? – please advise!) and I would not be surprised to learn that some of the money that I was being paid was coming directly from Brian’s fee. If anyone understood the perils of picking up a microphone, it was Brian, and I was glad that he saw fit to steer me away from many of those dangers. It is impossible to ignore your ego when speaking publicly, but it is possible to control it and keep it under control. I hope that is at least one of the things I learnt from him.

As my own career as a commentator blossomed and Brian did less PA commentary work, I saw less and less of him, but our paths inevitably still crossed as we were both involved in the sport for which we shared a passion and a common view – shaped by the likes of John Webb in our formative years. It was great fun, in 2018, to share the stage with him at the Formula Ford Festival Forum; where else, but in the Kentagon at Brands Hatch, when anecdotes were shared, beer was drunk and a good time was had by all.

Having received a sharp reminder of my own mortality in 2020 and even though I am twenty years younger than Brian, I can only hope that I might achieve a fraction of his reputation.

Brands Hatch Kentagon - 1986

The busiest weekend of the year?

I do not need to begin another post here by asserting that 2020 has been a crazy year (so far), but I will do anyway – because it sets the context for nearly everything – whether on the personal front or in terms of worldwide issues. The global coronavirus pandemic, and the mass cancellation and postponements of races earlier this year, inevitably led to one of the most congested periods I have ever seen, as the calendar has been squeezed this way and that to ensure that as many rounds as possible can be run in those championships lucky enough to have a title sponsor and that have money to organise and promote races and thus keep the wheels of the industry turning through these turbulent times.

There have been some busy weekends along the way over the past few months, but this weekend coming up is going to pretty much take the biscuit, as far as I can tell, with four international sportscar meetings being held, in Italy, Bahrain, the USA and France. Not only do these races take place across the same weekend, but for a half-hour period on Saturday afternoon (UK time), you could be following three races simultaneously (broadband data and internet permitting).

Personally, I’m quite looking forward to the prospect. From the health point of view, having escaped from the confinement of my hospital room at the end of last week, I am now under instructions to get lots of rest and relaxation, to try to distract myself and to take as much exercise as possible. What better way to provide that distraction than to turn on some computers and follow the racing for which I have so much enthusiasm through live TV streams where available, or failing that, live timing / scoring or live radio commentary – on radiolemans.com, where else? I’ll admit that the “take as much exercise as possible” box isn’t really ticked, by sitting in front a computer, but I have promised to take regular breaks from the screens and stretch my muscles whenever I can. Happily, I can report that those muscles are slowly regaining strength, and my recovery from the rigours of the stem cell transplant seems to be proceeding well.

So let’s get down to the detail, shall we? First off, there is the Mugello 12-hours, organised by the ever-friendly and efficient people at Creventic on the 24hseries.com website. Originally planned to take place at Zandvoort, itself a replacement for a race that should have been held at COTA, this will be the final round of both the 24h Series Continents’ Championship and for the 24h Series European Championship. There are trophies for both championships, awarded in the GT and TCE divisions as well as individual classes, and separate points tables for Teams and Drivers, so after the race #thisisendurance will be further tested by the awards presentations!

One thing that Creventic can never be accused of is to over-simplify things – and in addition to the complexity of the championship points, there is the structure of the race itself. As is often the case in 24H Series races, Mugello will be a two-part affair, this year’s 12 hours comprising of a 5-hour race on Friday afternoon and a further 6h 15m scheduled to take place on Saturday, with the chequered flag scheduled for 5pm local time. No-one has told me where the missing 45 minutes will go – most likely in the handing out of the trophies at the end!

It is certainly a disappointment to have only 17 cars on the entry list, especially considering that more than 50 took the start last year, but such has been the pattern this year. In the TCE division, a good race is always a certainty – there are six cars in the TCR class featuring VW Golf, Audi RS3 and Cupra TCR. In the GT4 class are three contenders: ProSport Racing’s fast but sometimes fragile Aston Martin Vantage led by the super-quick Nico Verdonck, against EBIMotors Porsche Cayman and the BMW M4 GT4 from the ever-reliable Sorg Rennsport squad. It is entirely possible that the overall GT division champion in both European and Continents championships could come from this class as well, with Sorg Rennsport leading the Continents and ProSport leading the European.

Meanwhile, in GT3, there are five entrants – two Mercedes AMG GT3s, two Herberth-run Porsche 911 GT3s and a Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo. You can take your pick, but mine would be the Herberth car (#91) which Robert Renauer will share with Daniel Alleman and Ralf Bohn.

While it is true that the entry list for Mugello is a little disappointing, and it also fair to say that the Creventic series is aimed more at the Gentleman driver than at professionals, the next two elements of the “four-way clash” this weekend are very much at the other end of the international scale of racing. The final round of the 2019-2020 World Endurance Championship (WEC) season (a super-season of its own in some ways) will take place at the Sakhir circuit of Bahrain, over a duration of 8 hours. If you’re watching from the UK, it is an 11am green flag on the Saturday, by which time you will have already had the opportunity to watch over an hour of Part 2 of the Mugello race. However, at 3:30pm on Saturday afternoon, if you’ve a mind to, there will be the call to tune in to the Sebring 12 hours.

To me, to have Sebring in anything other than March is as crazy as having Le Mans in September – but it has been that kind of year. And the DPi concept has certainly worked pretty well (taking an admittedly distant view from across the Atlantic), with cars from Acura, Cadillac and Mazda providing some great racing through the season (Daytona sure seems like a long time ago now). As a principal prototype category, it is not at all bad; and you only need to look across to Bahrain where there are going to be just two Toyotas – deliberately handicapped so that one is more than half-a-second a lap slower than the other – in a race for overall victory. I apologise if I suggested Creventic can over-complicate things, surely what they are doing makes more sense to the non-initiated than what WEC is up to?

Additional apologies as well, as I am falling into the trap of my own making and entangling the WEC, IMSA and Creventic. But those who are familiar with all the branches, it is fun to draw out their different characteristics.

A crucial element to both WEC and IMSA is the LMP2 category: but such is the way of LMP1, that LMP2 is much more crucial to WEC. More fundamental is the long-overdue restructure of prototype racing – whatever FIA/ACO comes up with, it does matter, and will have an influence on endurance racing on both sides of the Atlantic. This weekend marks the end of another season of IMSA and of WEC – I feel looking forward, not backward is the best approach and I hope that next year, we will be able to do so with optimism and enthusiasm.

I will try and give both the WEC and IMSA races their fair share of my attention – but I just have a feeling in my bones that Sebring will have more to offer than the race in Bahrain will be able to serve up, even if you take into account the unusual (in WEC terms) 8-hour race format. And however off-kilter the date, the Sebring 12 hours simply has a tradition and reputation that will draw in public interest.

There will be those who spend their time comparing the numbers – 24 WEC entries vs. 31 IMSA; 8 WEC prototypes vs. 12 IMSA; 16 WEC GT cars vs. 19 IMSA. Others with access to different data will be comparing spectator interest, twitter engagements, Facebook likes instead, but at the end of the day, the fact that the sport is in a state where it can survive such a date clash is surely quite a good sign?

Where the action will probably come from in the WEC race will as likely come from the GTE class, and that will probably be just as intense in Bahrain as in Sebring. What might have been though? Corvette, with Jordan Taylor and Antonio Garcia, have already wrapped up the IMSA championship, just as Aston Martin has in the WEC courtesy of Maxime Martin, Alex Lynn and Harry Tincknell’s Le Mans victory. A shame that Alex won’t be able to participate due to a late positive Covid-19 test, but Richard Westbrook is a worthy replacement. Will the fact that the championships have already been sorted reduce the intensity? Yes, probably, but it will still be good to see.

And if you’ve not had your fill – either of endurance racing in general, or GT racing in particular, the weekend is rounded off by the final round of the 2020 GT World Challenge Europe (SRO) – this a six-hour blast up and down the straights of Paul Ricard a mere three weeks after the chequered flag fell on the gruelling Spa 24-hour race.

With nearly all the championship trophies still up for grabs, tensions will likely be running high, and with a good live stream service available on www.gt-world-challenge-europe.com/live, entertainment is guaranteed!

It is interesting how racing manages to tread the balance between entertainment and pure sport. The various series taking place this weekend cover the different elements well: Creventic, catering for the enthusiastic amateur; WEC, in theory at least, the top of the FIA tree for sportscar and endurance racing, IMSA, a national series attracting worldwide interest and manufacturer commitment and SRO, for the more wealthy amateur wanting to push at the limit of what GT3 racing can deliver. I have written before how there often seems to be too much racing, how the market seems to be flooded and yet, there is space for weekends like this. Let’s not over-think this all too much; instead, let’s enjoy what’s good about it all!

Making Progress

Finally, both the Le Mans and Nürburgring 24-hour races are done and dusted, and I have now finished the analysis for Racecar Engineering magazine and sport auto in Germany. To say that it has been an unusual year this year is superfluous, but it is worth spelling out how much has been different this year, and why I hope we don’t have to go through anything similar again.

Both races were postponed, of course. The Nürburgring 24-hours should have taken place over the weekend of 23rd / 24th May, a good three weeks before Le Mans, which was originally scheduled for 13th / 14th June. Having the two races on successive weekends is nothing new, but having both races in September, and ‘behind closed doors’ certainly was. Strictly speaking, spectators were admitted to the Nürburgring, but by ticket only into the main grandstand on the start-finish straight. The magic of the Nürburgring is the camping places around the Nordschleife, and to see the public enclosures and car parks empty while the cars were circulating was sobering indeed. So too were the pictures from Le Mans. I have said before, but it bears repeating: an event of this magnitude loses an awful lot of its lustre when it is played out in front of empty grandstands. Neither Le Mans nor the Nürburgring could possibly deliver drama when there was no public to bear witness to it.

Then there is the fact that I wasn’t at either event. I am not sure if I wish I had been. Even if I had had the opportunity to attend, I would not have been able to – my physical health was not good enough to allow me to travel so I was spared any decision-making anyway. In fact, no-one from Radio Show Limited’s broadcast teams was present at either of the races. In my view, this had an impact on the commentary as well.

That said, I can make no further mention of the commentary without saying how delighted I was to be able to participate in the races at both Le Mans and Nürburgring. I suspect there is a pretty strong overlap between the readers of this blog and the listeners to Radio Le Mans (or RadioLeMans.com) and I have to thank all of you who contributed to social media or sent me private messages containing encouragement and wishing me well. I may not be operating on all cylinders, but the positive messages that reached me from all corners of the globe were extremely welcome and even though I did not reply to each of you individually, then please be assured that each message meant a lot, and taken as a whole, they were massively uplifting. I am grateful to John and Eve for having me on as well, of course – ultimately it is their decision who they decide to include in the coverage, and they have been unfailing in their support throughout.

I will continue over the next month with more intensive treatment. I have already had stem cells harvested from my bloodstream and these are due to be transplanted back into me in the middle of October. The recovery from this procedure will likely take some time, and I am preparing myself for a slow recuperation. Indeed, I am due to still be in hospital when the next big 24-hour race comes around.

First though, a question: while Le Mans undoubtedly stands at the top of the tree of all 24-hour races, is Nürburgring second? What about Daytona? Dubai? Spa? Now Daytona is free of its dalliance with the somewhat arcane and insular Grand-Am series, I have to say that the Florida 24-hour race is back, right up there, just as it was in theh 1980’s. But from the historical perspective, the first time that Daytona ran to a 24-hour length was in 1966. The Spa 24 hours (first held: 1924, just one year after the first Le Mans) takes the laurels using that measure. When I first became aware of racing – and lest there be any doubt about it, that was closer to 1966 than 1924 – the Spa 24-hour race was targeted at touring cars, rather than the GT category that it currently attracts. But let’s face it, the preponderance of 24-hour races these days are all targeted at Grand Tourers: specifically the GT3 class – either under the pure balance of performance specified by the Stephane Ratel Organisation (SRO) or a modified version thereof, as prescribed by the ADAC or Creventic.

Whatever makes Spa so special in the current era - and I will leave that up for debate - it is remarkable that it can still attract more than 50 cars of virtually identical performance, even in these pandemic-constrained times. Last year, 72 cars took the start. Although it is a multi-class race, the classes are dictated by the experience of the drivers that comprise the crews. The cars all run to the same regulation. It may not mean as much overtaking as you get at Le Mans, but it does enable the good drivers to demonstrate their skills – as well as exposing the weaker ones.

This year’s Spa 24 hours has not been immune to the disruption that affected Le Mans and Nürburgring either. Originally scheduled for July 25th / 26th, it will now take place on the weekend of October 24th / 25th. And spectators, we now have it confirmed, will not be admitted. Although the argument could be made that the Nürburgring is such an iconic circuit that to race on it for 24 hours is a challenge enough for drivers that the absence of a crowd in the forests doesn’t matter so much, to apply the same argument to the current version of the Spa-Francorchamps circuit would be specious: it is after all a Formula 1 venue. That’s not to imply the Spa at night is not challenging – it most certainly is, and magical and spectacular to boot. However, it is clear to me that the prime motivation in holding the race during the pandemic is, just as at Le Mans, the commercial one of satisfying the business partners and ‘putting on the show’.

I find it rather amusing how there was a suggestion that the race should be a 25-hour affair. I’ll admit that some of what follows is speculation, but my readers should know that I regard the truth as important: although a lot of the evidence is circumstantial, I believe it is a fair reflection of the truth. It was obvious in mid-April that it would be impossible to hold the Spa 24 hours on its originally scheduled date, and the end of October date was duly announced at the end of April. No mention was made (by SRO) for at least six weeks thereafter that the new date coincided with the end of European Daylight-Saving Time.

Now some may know that there is a precedent for the clocks changing during a major 24-hour race, and I will come on to that. However, the reaction from SRO, when they realised the ‘problem’, was to do as all progressively-thinking business entrepreneurs do and treat it as an ‘opportunity’. “Let’s make it a 25-hour race,” said Stéphane Ratel. It has to be said that not much consultation took place; rather it was a decision made in the “Make it so” spirit. Meanwhile, team engineers and their race simulation experts went skulking off to their spreadsheets shaking their heads. In the end, sanity prevailed, and the “Total 24 hours of Spa” will do what it says on the tin and last for 24 hours, finishing at 14:30 on Sunday October 25th, having started at 15:30 the day before.

Part of the nonsense of adding an hour’s competition to the race is that Spa already has a perfectly good 25-hour race – at least it does when there aren’t global health pandemics to deal with. The VW FunCup holds its blue riband event over 25 hours every year and has done for more than 20 years. It is a perfectly good thing and I am saddened that it will not be taking place over its full distance this year. In its place are the “Belgian Autumn Races”, to be held on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday after Ratel and his Organisation has left. If you were thinking of attending the Spa 24 hours and find yourself with a ferry ticket that you cannot redeem, you might consider going to this as an alternative. A bit of resourcefulness, planning and research will be required, but you’ll be rewarded with 12½ hours of VW FunCup racing, 14 hours of Citroen C1 / 2CV racing action and a five-hour race for the Belgian Gentlemen Drivers Club. It’s worth a thought.

I am afraid I know little of the Thunderhill 25-hour race, but it is building itself a reputation as a serious endurance race and it does have a certain history, having been run annually since 2003. Sadly though, it too has become a victim of Covid-19 and has been cancelled for this year.

Some UK readers may recall (hands up if you do!) the 1989 edition of the Willhire at Snetterton. The ‘Willhire 24-hours’ was held initially in 1980 for a mixed bag of production sports and saloon cars, with many entrants running the race as a relay – you were allowed to change cars as well as drivers during the race. From 1985 it was for saloon cars only, and for a while it became the centrepiece event in the British Production Saloon Car Championship. In 1989 the sponsor Willhire celebrated its 25th anniversary, and Peter Williams – charismatic owner of the car and van rental company which had sponsored the event from the outset – had the notion to celebrate by adding an hour to the duration of the race. It wasn’t a universally popular idea (I was there, I heard the grumblings), but the celebrity of holding what was then the longest race in the World was certainly worth the trouble and expense of an extra tank of fuel (for some).

I mentioned a precedent in the clocks changing during a 24-hour race. Yes, it has happened, but I can only find one such occurrence. Surprisingly, it was probably one of the most significant 24-hour races that ever took place – namely the first running of the Le Mans 24 hours in 1923. The race started at 4pm on Saturday, 26th May, the clocks went forward by an hour at 11pm that night and so the race didn’t finish until 5pm on Sunday. I wonder whether anyone thought “Oh, hang it, let’s not worry about the full 24 hours, let’s just finish it at 4pm and go for a lie down!”?

Ah, but that wouldn’t have been proper, would it? And it is important to do things properly.