Handicapping

I am not really very good at this blogging thing. A marketing person told me earlier this year that I need to be posting on social media every day, and that if I want to attract followers to my blog, then I need to write something new and interesting at least once a week. Apart from the fact that I find the expression “you need to” a rather objectionable one, I am also not so sure that social media is exactly where I want “my profile” to be.

I have also maintained that what I “need” to do is to provide for myself and my family, and as writing blog posts earns me no money, then it is consequently somewhat lower down my list of priorities. However, I do enjoy sharing some of my thoughts and insights on this platform, and equally I have enjoyed reading some of your comments on the subject of my exploits over the summer. Happily, it has been a busy time, my family is provided for (more or less) but this week I find myself with some time to kill.

The subject for an article did not immediately occur to me. Two things recently have got me thinking, however. First, was the decision of the FIA World Endurance Championship to adopt a “Success Handicap” system for its 2019-2020 season, and second, the concept used in both the International GT Open Championship and the British GT Championship of “Success Seconds” added to fixed pit stop times.

There has been some controversy and comment on this, and clearly they are artificial mechanisms introduced to make it harder for successful competitors to continue to have success. The concept is surely not alien – handicapping is routine in horse-racing and golf, and probably other sports besides. And while I agree that it interferes with the purity of the sport, the nature of motor-racing surely justifies some kind of re-balancing when the cars that are competing are patently not equal?

Let us also not forget that motor races have had handicaps since, well, since the earliest days. Some readers may be familiar with the name A. V. Ebblewhite, the famous handicapper and timekeeper at Brooklands between 1907 and 1939. Albert Victor Ebblewhite, known to everyone as ‘Ebby’, had the idea that racing at Brooklands, although fast, would be enlivened if the drivers of the fastest cars were made to start later than the drivers of the slower ones. So he devised staggered starting procedures, designed so that a close finish would result. It was certainly a successful exercise: he achieved three dead-heats between the two World Wars.

There was also the ‘Brooklands Chicane’, a temporary affair of wattle fencing and oil drums, through which there were four different routes, each of which required cars to slow down to a different extent. Depending on the performance of each car, its driver had to negotiate a specific lane. History does not record how offences were dealt with.

The problem with handicapping is the danger that it can lead to accusations of unfairness. The handicapper is in an invidious position. Competitors may be tempted to hide their true performance in order to avoid too severe a handicap in future. At Silverstone earlier this month, when the International GT Open series visited, what could have been a thrilling four-car battle for the lead of the race disintegrated when Martin Kodric, in his Teo Martin-run McLaren, decided he didn’t want to suffer a time penalty in the next round and deliberately slowed, causing a degree of chaos behind.

We have been told that the Toyota TS050 that won the first round at Silverstone will as a consequence suffer a 1.4s per lap penalty at the next round of the WEC at Fuji. After six hours, that should amount to more than five minutes. Based on the advantage that Toyota had over Rebellion at last year’s race, and that all other things are equal, that means that the Japanese manufacturer will only win by 40s this year, rather than four laps as it did in 2018. Artificial? Yes probably, but more exciting, surely?

Formula 1 races no longer excite me as much as they once did (although I have to admit that I haven’t been present at an F1 race for many years), but nevertheless I recognise that more people watch F1 than any other branch of the sport. But people talk of the racing in F1 not being exciting, despite the introduction of artificial aids such as DRS. Is the answer handicapping? I don’t know, but just imagine the appeal of a race where a McLaren, a Williams or a Haas might win. And how much easier would that make the task of finding sponsors for those teams? It wouldn’t need to be anything as complicated as restricting the output of the power units or adding weight, a simple additional pit stop – the length of which would depend on the number of championship points you had – would do the trick.

Just look at the Constructors’ Championship table. I am not suggesting that the pecking order should be changed; just that if some of the gaps would be reduced then more excitement would result. There is no reason to suppose that anyone other than the best driver over the full course of a season would become World Champion, but I am sure that an increase in spectator appeal would follow. Done in an overt way, so no-one would have any illusion that Mercedes (or Ferrari) were not actually doing the best job by overcoming (or not) the biggest handicap, would it work, do you think? And inevitably, if it were to happen – and work – in Formula 1, then the rest of the sport would follow.

Maybe Pierre Fillon, Gerard Neveu et al are on to something.

Le Mans 1995

Having been to the Le Mans 24-hour race as often as I have, people sometimes ask me which was the best, or the most memorable, or my favourite, and I never really know what to reply. They are (nearly) all memorable, in one way or another, and the best always has to be the ‘next’ one surely? I am told that Tom Kristensen has been asked to choose which of his nine wins was his ‘best’ and his answer is along the lines of “it’s like your children: they are all your favourite”.

For a number of reasons though, the 1995 edition of the race is one that stands out. Not least because it is the only Le Mans 24-hour race that my wife went to (although it should be noted that we weren’t married at the time, but despite the many traumas of the weekend, it failed to spoil our romance!).

It was a win first time out for the McLaren F1 GTR – a car that according to its designer, Gordon Murray, was “absolutely not meant to go racing”. The weather was appalling. Not that the rain was especially heavy, but it was simply relentless. Watching JJ Lehto going twenty seconds a lap faster than anyone else during the night was certainly memorable. On Sunday morning, as it seemed to be easing off, another band of rain passed through, then another.

The race is the subject of the sublime “Pursuit of Perfection” video, which I still maintain is one of the best Le Mans films of all time (including “Truth in 24”). These days, you don’t need to buy tapes or disks, just go to youtube and look for “McLaren at Le Mans: Pursuit of Perfection”. If you weren’t there, it will give you a flavour, and if you were, it will bring it all flooding back.

It was remarkable in that, prior to Le Mans, no McLaren had completed a race longer than four hours, yet not only did the combination of JJ Lehto, Yannick Dalmas and Masanori Sekiya win the race outright, but there were three other F1 GTRs filling the top five places.

The one non-McLaren in the top five? It was a Porsche-engined Courage C34, driven by Mario Andretti, Bob Wollek and Eric Hélary. Remarkably, Hélary was the only previous winner among the three of them, but a stronger line-up would have been difficult to find. As far as Andretti was concerned, although he wasn’t a Monaco GP winner, he was a Formula 1 world champion and winner of the Indianapolis 500, so saw this as probably his final chance of winning that ‘Triple Crown’.

Another of those ‘memorable moments’ occurred towards the end of the fourth hour of the race, when Andretti came up behind Antonio Hermann’s relatively slow Kremer-Porsche K8 ‘spider’, coming into the Karting ‘S’. I read somewhere that Andretti later claimed he thought it was the sister car, piloted by Hans Stuck, so didn’t expect driving of the standard of the less-experienced Brazilian banker. A bizarre comment, since Stuck’s car was bright red, and the Hermann car was yellow.

Whatever the case, Andretti lost control of the Courage and clouted the wall, damaging the rear suspension and wing assembly. Repairs took nearly half-an-hour, losing six laps and dropping the car to 25th position.

Much has been documented about the McLaren story over the years, but less from the side of the Courage team – at least that has come to my attention. Possibly because McLaren is British, and most of the teams running them were British, but it should be recognised that Courage had a British race engineer, in Michael Phillips, who was running the no. 12 Chevrolet-engined Courage C41 and a couple of British mechanics – Jason Thompson and Mike Lowman, who had come from the G-Force organisation that had worked on the suspension for the Courage C41. In fact, Jason was the crew chief for the no. 13 Porsche-engined car (the C34), and I met him recently to discuss the whole episode.

Is he bitter? You decide.

“The thing is,” he began, “that pit stop to repair the car after Mario’s shunt should never have taken so long.”

“How come?” I asked.

“Well, we had a spare car, and we robbed it for parts for the race car. Not just the bodywork, but the suspension as well. We’d set up the suspension, tracking, camber and so on, and got it just right in practice, then we took it off the car and put the new suspension on for the race. Top and bottom wishbone, uprights, brakes, everything. So we had a car ready for the race, with a complete spare corner, all ready and set up. And we knew the suspension we’d got spare could just be bolted on, we would just drop the bolts in and it would go, ready to race. We knew we could change the whole corner in seven minutes, because we’d practiced.”

“So what went wrong?”

“Well, when the crash happened, it was ‘right, where’s the spare suspension?’, and the truckie, who was a super-nice bloke, he said, ‘well, it was all in the way… so I’ve taken it back.’”

It turned out that “taken it back” meant that it had gone back to the Courage workshop, which in those days was not at the Technoparc on the inside of the circuit, but was outside, near to the motorway. A pit stop that should have seen the car back in the race in just a few minutes, ended up taking 29 minutes.

It wasn’t helped by the fact that the mechanics tried to fix the car on the pit apron first, before it was pulled back into the garage to be worked on properly. “I was shouting and pointing for them to pull the car back into the garage, but there was a bit of a language problem,” admits Thompson. “Courage was quite an amateur team, most of the mechanics only arrived for the weekend. During the week in the workshop there had just been me and a couple of other guys, but then on race day we suddenly had ten mechanics for each car. And because the no. 12 car (another Chevrolet-engined C41) had been disqualified in qualifying for being underweight, that car’s mechanics got shared out to the other two cars. So all of a sudden, the garage was rammed and none of them spoke English. I speak only a tiny bit of French.”

There was another issue in the early stages, Jason explained: “Early on, when it started to rain, the race engineer (Dominique Méliand) made a terrible, terrible tyre call. Mario was out in the car and I was on the radio to him, because none of the rest of the mechanics could really speak English. Initially Mario was out on slicks, but with the rain, he called in and said he wanted intermediates. So we got the intermediates out, but the engineer wanted to go to full wets. So because none of the team could speak English, they went and got the wets out. And as Mario was driving in, he could see the wets and he was on the radio, saying ‘No, intermediates… intermediates!’. And they put wets on, and Mario went out on those, but he wasn’t happy.

“That was where it all fell apart, really, because I couldn’t speak the language and the engineer was just telling the mechanics what to do. Even though I was the crew chief, I was elbowed out.”

More than twenty years later, Jason’s voice still expresses the frustration. “Even though we lost so much time, we still could have won, the car and the drivers were quick enough, whatever the weather did. We ended up on the lead lap, less than three minutes behind at the flag.”

It doesn’t end there though. Jason explains: “And then of course there was the second incident with the engine cover… which cost us a four minute pit stop.”

“What happened then?” I ask.

“It was just after half past nine in the morning and we were in third place,” Jason explained. “I had been working out whether we would be able to catch up with the leaders – with more than six hours to go, it was still possible, I thought.”

Jason went on, “Mario had just got out of the car, Bob had got in and we were walking away from the car. Then all of a sudden there was pandemonium and we were like, ‘what’s going on?’ because the engine cover was off and we didn’t know why – there was no problem with the car.”

It turned out that the problem was commercial, not mechanical. Even now Jason is unsure, but it does seem clear that the replacement engine cover had additional “MEITEC” stickers on the wheel arches. And of course it was nice and clean, so the “Texaco Havoline” and “JVC” stickers were also more clearly visible.

“But when they went to change it,” says Jason, tersely, “they yanked it off, and they broke one of the mounts. It didn’t take long to get the old one out and wind another one in, but still it lost us another two minutes unnecessarily.”

We have spent more than an hour talking, looking at photos and reminiscing. It is time to go to the pub. As I put on my coat, Jason says “I’ll always remember, I came out of the back of the pit after the race, and I saw my Dad, and he said ‘fantastic, you finished second!’ and I was in such a rage, I was thinking they [the Courage team] were idiots, because we had thrown this race away. I said, ‘we could have won, we would have won’. It was so frustrating.”

In the pub, we discussed other cars that over the years could have won; should have won but for this or that, and I reflected on the intensity and emotion that the Le Mans 24 hour race always seem to bring out in people. Jason Thompson still goes to Le Mans every year, with his brother and a group of friends, to watch as spectators. The passion burns very brightly here.

The Courage C34 at scrutineering - Jason Thompson with hands on hips

Wollek waiting to rejoin with shiny new rear deck. Thompson in white cap in front of fuel rig

Andretti pits, Thompson attends

Dan Gurney

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

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

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

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

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

John Surtees

I was saddened to hear of John Surtees’ death at the end of last week.

For one thing, I didn’t know he was ill – indeed the last I had heard of him was that he was still working hard ‘at the coal-face’ of Buckmore Park, which has undergone something of a face-lift since his taking over of it a few years ago. It has been a face-lift that I been able to watch at first hand as my son and I regularly visit the place. He had been due to attend their annual awards dinner last year, but had to cancel at the last minute, and I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t disappointed – not least because Robin had been there to pick up an award, and even if it was no more than a name to him, at least to have met the man would have given him something to tell his children about.

There are a couple of other reasons why ‘Big John’ was particularly relevant to me, in the way that he seemed to be an oft-recurring theme in my experiences of motor sport.

It is odd the way that these things stick in the mind, but he was the first racing driver that I ever saw. I remember that day at Brands Hatch in 1967, at the Race of Champions: his Honda (number 7) was the first car out onto the track at the beginning of the day, even though Surtees qualified second-fastest and therefore would start the first Heat from the middle of the front row. In those days there was no left-hander at Brands Hatch named after him – what we now call Surtees, was then South Bank Bend, taking the cars out of the Brands ‘bowl’ up the hill and out into the country.

As only road cars had been making relatively slow laps of the circuit at that point (I later realised it was the marshals heading to their posts), the speed of the Formula 1 cars heading out of paddock and up the hill to Druid’s seemed to my young eyes as truly breakneck. Forever more, Surtees was the one, despite Dan Gurney’s win and Jack Brabham’s fastest lap in the final, who took my racing virginity, if you’ll pardon the indelicacy of the phrase.

Fourteen years later – in 1981 – he was present again, at another ‘first’ for me, again at Brands Hatch. It was the ‘John Surtees Days’, a two-day event, the first of which was for motor-bikes and the second for cars – and my first ever visit to a commentary box. The whole event was the brainchild of John Webb, and featured a ‘parade of champions’ in which Surtees made only his second public appearance on a motorcycle (inevitably, it was an MV Agusta) since his retirement from the two-wheeled sport in 1961.

Since then, he has been an ever-present force on the motor-racing scene; giving interviews and speaking often on a wide variety of topics. Always lucid, sometimes controversial, and usually right, in his frankly-expressed views.

The last time I saw John Surtees was at the Motor Sport ‘Hall of Fame’ awards last year, where he was inducting Valentino Rossi into the exclusive club of which he himself became a member in 2012. The fact that The Henry Surtees’ Foundation will be the official charity partner for this year will be especially poignant. I was indeed impressed with the grace with which John handled the whole business last year. Those who were there will know what I mean.

‘That Horrid Motor Track’

Lack of time prevented me from writing about a splendid day out spent earlier this year at Brooklands, in the company of Charles Dressing and Paul Tarsey. We were hosted by the ever-enthusiastic and knowledgeable Allan Winn, the CEO of the Brooklands Trust, which looks after the Museum and the site.

The phrase ‘looks after’ hardly does justice to what Allan does – Brooklands is in the process of a grand plan for re-engineering, which will include a restoration of the Finishing Straight. If you are at all interested, I suggest you visit the website and then arrange a visit for yourself. You surely won’t be disappointed.

However, while digging through my memorabilia shortly afterwards, I came across the following, which was sent to me (I forget by whom) more than forty years ago. It is from a diary written in 1907, and apart from its content, I just love the period feel of the prose.


We went down to the Barnes’s at Fox Holm near Weybridge. Mr and Mrs Locke King came to dinner. They have been building this awful motor track and are so hated by their neighbours, many of whose houses they have simply ruined, that hardly anyone will speak to them. I was rather uncertain whether I had better go and see this horrid motor track, but as they offered to take me in the Fox Warren motor I thought it would be stupid of me not to go. I was well rewarded for going by having a nice talk with Mrs Wilfred Ward, the clever Roman Catholic (formerly Miss Hope Scott) who has written novels (One Small Scruple, Out of Due Time, and others). I made her acquaintance, first at Mrs Cave’s, at Ditcham, long ago.

The motor track is a perfect nightmare. It has cost more than £150,000 to construct; a great oval of cement 60-100 yards wide and more than 2½ miles round. It is for motor races. Within it stands a ruined farm and cut down trees, mere desolation. A more unenjoyable place to come to on a hot Sunday afternoon I cannot imagine. The beautiful Surrey landscape looks down into this purgatory of motor stables and everything that motors require, seats for thousands of spectators cut in the side of the hill. There were some twenty of these snorting beasts, and Mr and Mrs Locke King were there looking most depressed. But as she offered to drive me round in her motor I got boldly in and sat by her on the ‘box’. She put it to 43 miles an hour – I felt my eyes pressed in by the air at that terrific speed, and I could hardly breathe. I went round again in the Fox Warren motor, much slower. I find I don’t care to ‘go round’ – what I like are the lanes and roads and views, and the getting to one’s destination so quickly and easily. The enormous size of the arena, almost like a great Roman work, and the controlled strength of the motors, prevents this great horrid place from being vulgar. I might have felt differently last week when 20,000 spectators arrived, and 1,200 motors. No wonder the neighbours thirst for Locke King’s blood.
From A Victorian Diarist: later extracts from the journals of Mary, Lady Monkswell, edited by the Hon. E C F Collier, 1946

Which goes to show that you cannot please all the people all the time. Sadly, Lady Monkswell died in 1930, but I wonder whether she was ever won over to the sport? I fear probably not. Now if they would have visited Le Mans, it might have been a different story...

The State of Silverstone

I spent a rather good day at Silverstone last Friday – on the first day of practice for the 2016 British Grand Prix. It was one of those days when I got to experience racing from the spectator side of the fence – one of those days, indeed, that reminded me of those days when as a young man, I became a motor racing fan. It was the second such day in the space of a week, as I also attended the London E-Prix at Battersea Park, but apart from the fact that both involved single seater racing cars and the word “Prix”, there was not a lot in common between them.

Bearing in mind that we actually bought “Pit walk” tickets for Battersea, the cost, to the paying spectator, was slightly less to the Grand Prix Friday than it was for the E-Prix, although travel costs meant that the two days were very comparable in price.

I did the same ‘double’ last year and recorded my impressions here, but I have to say that Silverstone gave me a far better day out than Battersea Park, and without hefty persuasion from my son, I don’t think I’ll be going back to Formula E wherever it ends up next year. The trouble is that, whatever the organisers of the E-Prix do, they will struggle with trying to give the spectator a decent view of the track. And by its very nature, it is rather a one-trick pony: although the Park offers off-track entertainment, with only one race on the programme, it doesn’t really stand a chance against the offering that Silverstone serves up.

Arriving at Silverstone last Friday just as the first Free Practice session for the Formula 1 cars was starting, I sat in the grandstand opposite the pits and ticked off the cars in the entry list. My first (and probably only) complaint – the PA speakers were either not switched on at all, or were woefully quiet. Luckily I had remembered to bring my FM radio, so could keep up-to-date with what was going on thanks to the entertaining and informative commentary team of David Addison, Ian Titchmarsh and Bob Constanduros, assisted during support race action by Alan Hyde.

There were at least three big screens in sight on the pits straight, and the current standings were easily visible on the Rolex scoreboard gantry under which the cars drove as they exited the pit lane. Provided you knew that the second-named driver in the programme was the one driving the car with the yellow roll-hoop camera, and were familiar with the three-letter abbreviations of the drivers’ names, all was reasonably straightforward. I enjoyed watching Charles Leclerc at the wheel of the ‘first’ Haas, and knowing it was him rather than Gutiérrez.

For the GP2 Free Practice session, that came next, I moved round to the grandstand on the outside of Club Corner – and what a good view that provides! At £300 a seat for next year’s GP, I suspect it probably exceeds the Truswell family budget, but I would expect them to be sold out by Christmas!

One of the things I miss from my days of PA commentary at lower classes of racing is watching new, young drivers coming up ‘through the ranks’, and watching the young guns in GP2 and GP3 had me reminiscing anew at the same time as wondering which of the current crop would end up in F1 racing in future, which would find homes in prototypes and GT racing and which would sink without trace.

For the second F1 Free Practice session I wandered down to Stowe, and I found the availability of such a wide range of hot and cold food and drink simply astonishing. There was, quite literally, something for every taste, whether that was Indian, Thai, hog roast, burgers, fish and chips, beer, lager or simply coffee or tea. Of course, although it was busy on Friday, the crowd was probably less than half that which would be there on Sunday, so how they all coped as the weekend wore on, I cannot say. Based on Friday’s experience though, queuing times were entirely manageable.

And despite its reputation, Silverstone has some pretty good vantage points for the spectator. After the spectacle of Hangar Straight and Stowe Corner, I continued my walk: Becketts, Copse, Woodcote and Luffield, all pretty proper, by any measure, even if overtaking opportunities in a race situation would be limited at any of them.

Apparently even Bernie Ecclestone was complimentary about the place, calling it a worthy Grand Prix venue. Maybe at last the investment and dedication of the BRDC has been rewarded. I was also pleased to hear about the Silverstone Heritage Experience, which is due to open in October 2018. The idea, as Sally Reynolds, Chief Executive of Silverstone Heritage Ltd., told me on Friday evening, is to provide not only an additional attraction for those visiting Silverstone on racedays, but also to provide a reason for visiting in its own right. More than 450,000 visitors per year are anticipated to the interactive, inspirational and educational experience – to be housed in the World War Two hangar to the right of the main entrance.

In addition to providing a permanent exhibition, research facilities to the BRDC archive and tours around the circuit, a further objective of the project is to encourage more people into the engineering industry, recognising as it does the part that the UK-based motor sport industry has played in the development of the sport across the world. The project has received a £9.1 million grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, and is looking to raise a similar amount from businesses and individuals to ensure that the proposed timetable is met. With the patronage of HRH Prince Harry, and Ian Phillips in charge of fund-raising, the project has a good foundation from which to move forward.

I look forward to seeing it all come to pass. Silverstone deserves it!

Keeping Safe?

For the second time in successive races, the field started the Six Hours of Shanghai behind the Safety Car. Given the fact that the Free Practice and Qualifying sessions had all been held in dry – and in some cases, sunny – conditions, this was probably a sensible decision. The same thing happened three weeks before that in Fuji - although the rain was somewhat heavier, practice had been held on a dry track. Indeed, it was the second time in three years that the Six Hours of Fuji was started behind the Safety Car – maybe there is a lesson somewhere there for the calendar-maker?

I have written previously about starting a race behind a Safety Car and while I have to admit reservations about the purity of such a start, I suppose it is best summed up as the ‘least-worst option’. The pity of it is that 22 minutes (in the case of Shanghai) and 38 minutes (in the case of Fuji) of the 360 minutes scheduled racing were lost.

In 1977, I was at Brands Hatch for the World Championship of Makes Six Hours, which in dire conditions, had to be stopped after 37 laps. It was restarted as a 2h 45m race, once conditions had improved somewhat, but annoyingly, those first laps were deemed not to ‘count’ and the efforts of drivers in part one went unrewarded. I was standing in a puddle of ever-increasing dimensions as I waited for the decisions to be reached, and although track conditions improved towards the end of the afternoon, it was all rather dismal.

In 1982, again at Brands Hatch, again it was raining and the 1,000kms race again had to be stopped – after just nine laps. This time though, it was calculated as a two-part race, with times from the first twenty-minute part being added to the time for the rest of the race (a little over five hours) to create an aggregate result, albeit 27 laps short of the scheduled distance. This allowed Jacky Ickx (sharing with Derek Bell) to take victory, even though he didn’t manage to get past Teo Fabi’s Martini-sponsored Lancia, which won ‘on the road’, by just 1.7s, but which had finished the first race 6.4s behind the Rothman’s Porsche.

Had the rules for 1977 applied in 1982, then not only would Fabi and Patrese have won the race at Brands, but also Ickx would not have been world champion!

Although a Safety Car (then called a Pace-car) was first used at Le Mans in 1981, it took until the end of the decade before its use – to ‘neutralise’ the race – became widespread in racing across Europe. Particularly at Le Mans – for obvious reasons – but in all forms of racing: endurance racing, single-seaters, touring cars, the circumstances in which a race would be stopped became fewer and fewer. As a result, ‘aggregate’ races became consigned to history. Having the race decided ‘on the road’ became of critical importance, even if it meant that big leads were wiped out at a stroke as the Safety Car pulled onto the track. ‘Picking up the leader’ became crucial as well, of course, which meant that cars continued to circulate at racing speed, while the Safety Car driver chose his moment to accelerate. It seems to me that the aim of ‘Safety First’ was already being compromised as officialdom tried to implement safety procedures.

It wasn’t long before teams began to build the inevitable Safety Car period into their race plan, and race organisers were left playing catch-up trying to deal with the perceived unfairness that arose.

As a result, procedures became ever-more complicated, in the interests of preserving safety without compromising the race, and teams became ever-more adept in developing tactics to make the best of things. In US sportscar racing, it is rare for a Safety Car period to be less than 20 minutes – surely in this time, the race could have been stopped and restarted?

Worse though, is that different organising bodies have adopted different procedures. With a simple waved yellow flag it is easy. Drivers learn from their first race its meaning: “Great danger ahead, no overtaking, slow down, be prepared to stop.” But with a Safety Car Procedure it is not so simple. Mistakes were made: not only by drivers, but by officialdom as well.

In this year’s World Endurance Championship, there are three different and distinct ways of providing a safer environment to allow incidents that occur on the track to be handled, in addition to the ‘traditional’ yellow flag (see above), without having to resort to the dreaded ‘race stoppage’.

First, of course, there’s the Safety Car. But the procedure for using the Safety Car is different, depending whether we’re at Le Mans or not. And either case that’s different from procedures in the US, where many of the WEC drivers are occupied on non-clashing races.

Second, there’s the Full Course Yellow – similar to the so-called ‘Virtual Safety Car’ procedure in F1, but entirely different from a Safety Car procedure, in that drivers are required to keep to a blanket speed limit, imposed at the same time on the whole circuit. Theoretically at least, this should lead to ‘no bunching’, but Lewis Hamilton jeopardised even that theory by his antics at the US GP.

And third, there is the Slow Zone – again, requiring drivers to keep to a speed limit (80km/h), but only for a specific, and hopefully short, section of the track.

I hope you, dear reader, are keeping up here. Because if you’re not, then what chance the 100-odd racing drivers that take part in every round of the WEC?

At Shanghai, there were four periods of Full Course Caution, and at Fuji there were three. In three of those seven periods, pit stops were made by one or more of the Porsches and Audis that were at the sharp end of those races. Quite obviously, there is a lot to be gained from pitting during a FCY period, and if teams did not realise this initially, it is now common knowledge. Only two of these periods lasted for more than ten minutes, the rest were five minutes or less. In terms of laps, only one period was for more than three laps.

If the Safety Car is used, then the pit lane is closed for the first three laps. This rule is in place, not for safety reasons, but to avoid that some cars gain an advantage. There doesn’t seem any logical reason to me why the SC should close the pit lane, but that a FCY period should not – the advantage to be gained is identical. In fact, at Shanghai and Fuji, the SC laps were quicker than those spent under FCY conditions, so the chances of a car running out of fuel was actually greater – except for the fact, of course, that the SC was only used at the start of both races.

In the tennis match of rule-making, the ball is now in the FIA WEC Endurance Committee’s court to close this loophole and close the pit lane during a FCY period.

Although the option of a Slow Zone has been available to race director Eduardo Freitas, it has not been used since Le Mans. Bearing in mind the carnage that ensued as SZ procedures were not properly implemented - on more than one occasion - at Le Mans, one can see the wisdom of this. But, it is only by implementing these things, and learning from the experiences, that we will get to a satisfactory position.

It is interesting, that in drivers’ briefings, they are told that, in the implementation of a FCY, there is a “reaction time” element: enabling drivers (in effect) to choose the moment when they reduce speed to 80km/h. This is entirely sensible, since you don’t want to be hitting the brakes halfway through a long, high-speed corner. The main problem with the existing SZ procedure is the transition into and out of it. Preceding any Slow Zone is a yellow flag zone, through which drivers have to slow from racing speed to 80km/h. After the Slow Zone, the green flag indicates an immediate return to racing speed is possible. It is in the transition zones where the problems arise, particularly due to less-experienced drivers in some of the less powerful cars.

It seems to me that race officials need to recognise this and make suitable allowance in the procedure, to make the Slow Zone a more effective tool. At the moment it is under-utilised and wasted, in my opinion.

Familiarity with the procedure, whatever it is, undoubtedly helps, as does a clear message in driver briefings. These days, telemetry and GPS data are available to Race Control, so identifying transgressions and dangerous driving should not be as subjective an issue as in former times. If penalties for dangerous driving were draconian but fair, and safety rules and procedures were consistent, not just during a season, but across different series and championships, regardless of territory, organising body or racing discipline, then drivers would respond, and perhaps could then trusted to behave appropriately when following safety regulations.

It will never be possible to completely remove the element of chance and luck from racing. But to ensure that safety procedures commensurate with the times in which we currently live are feasible, drivers, race officials – in the control tower and on the circuit – as well as the spectators, need to know and understand what is going on. Then, and only then, will it be possible to create maximum safety with minimum disruption.

1971

I was having a bit of a spring clean recently, and in the course of re-organising my book-shelves, I came across a copy of Anthony Pritchard’s 'The Motor Racing Year No. 3'. Sadly the cover has come under attack from some paper-eating animal, but the pages are still intact, and I was drawn to Part 2 - The Sports Car Year. It is fascinating looking back, and I wondered what might be learned from examining the state of sports car racing forty years or so ago and comparing it to the state we are in today. That there was a (World) Sports Car Manufacturers’ Championship was not remarked upon, nor was the fact that it took place over eleven rounds in which Le Mans was round nine, and the final race of the season was before the end of July. Different days indeed.

However, Spa, Le Mans and Sebring were all on the championship trail, all venues steeped in sports car racing history. There is something very reassuring about consistency of this nature - it makes you feel that the subject of your interest is more worthy, more honourable, in a way. It reminded me of Andrew Marr's recent documentary about "The Diamond Queen", in which we are told of the Queen's constant presence over the last sixty years: despite all the changes in the social and political background, the monarchy has always been there and somehow one thinks it will always be there.

Not like sports car racing. Or is it? I found particularly fascinating the doom-laden tone of much of the text of the time. Take this, the introduction to chapter 6: “The 1971 season was not exceptional by any standard, as one vital ingredient for exciting motor racing was lacking, the absence at most races of any serious opposition to the overwhelming Porsche onslaught.” Audi’s approach to 2012 may not be such an onslaught, but it struck me as ironic that, forty years later, there are strong parallels.

That's the beauty of looking back - as any student of history will confirm; you find uncanny similarities with the past, as well as unexpected and unpredictable contrasts.

Then there is the review of the Le Mans 24 hours race itself: “Le Mans has degenerated into a long, tedious marathon of attrition, with most of the faster cars retiring and with very little interest or drama except in the first few hours.” Pritchard continues: “The 1971 race attracted the worst entry for many years,” but goes on to assert that the ACO had seventy-four entries from which to pick the fifty-five starters. Seems strong enough a level of support to me, but there seemed little space for optimism in 1971. Is that true in 2012?

In 1971, Motor Sport's DSJ wasn't even at Le Mans, covering instead a non-championship Formula One race at Hockenheim. The 24 hour race was reported for Motor Sport by Andrew Marriott, who wrote:
"Undoubtedly, Le Mans has lost much of its old magic and in this, the last year of the present 5-litre cars, there were few high spots as the most famous of all sports car races played itself out.

Don't you just love the closely packed text?

"The 1971 Le Mans 24-Hours will go down as one of the less memorable races for a variety of reasons. Perhaps the main one was that, with a couple of minor exceptions, there were no really new models in the race.

"Yes, the Le Mans magic has faded, and several of the old faces were missing including MOTOR SPORT's Continental Correspondent who was giving the race a miss for the first time in almost twenty years."

The zenith of Group C is far in the future, the complete disappearance of a world championship in the 1990's unimaginable, and yet, here we are, approaching the eightieth running of the great race with its popularity intact and probably, if anything, on the increase.

In his Continental Notes in MOTOR SPORT's July, 1971 edition, however, Denis Jenkinson did suggest, that with the introduction of the 3-litre formula for sports cars, scheduled for 1972, an era could be envisaged in which Grand Prix and Sports car racing would be able to converge: "Could we possibly be entering on a new phase of equality between Grand Prix and Sports Cars where the best of both worlds are combined into a one-type racing scene, with the scrapping of the Drivers' World Championship and the Manufacturers' Campionship, and the introduction of an overall Racing Championship for the best team (and/or driver) in motor racing."

Hardly. And now Formula 1, as Grand Prix racing seems to have become known, is further from any other form of the sport than even Jenks can have expected. But Sports Car racing still fills an important niche, with the ACO particularly willing to encourage and embrace new technologies with relevance to road car development.

Just as today, the 1970's were full of economic uncertainty, a severe fuel crisis, and the ACO had to react to world events with innovative regulations, often in the face of conflicting direction from the CSI (the then sporting arm of the FIA).

Apart from the sheer joy of wallowing in history, I think the point I am trying to draw out here is that ever since the announcement of the World Endurance Championship for 2012, media outlets have been portraying the negative aspects. Such is the nature of the media. I would not pretend that everything is necessarily as rosy as it could be. But by examining the past and understanding it, you become better placed to make the right decisions in the present to the benefit of the future.

In general, interest in sports car racing is high. The organisation is trying to make things better, not worse and I believe that, from a technical point of view, sports car racing is in good hands. What I sometimes doubt is when political or sporting decisions are made, they are frequently off beam - full of shortsightedness or riven with unintended consequence.

What we need now is wisdom and a strong nerve - not just in sports car racing, but in the world in general. 1971 gave us the Porsche Curves, and a 24-hour distance record that survived until 2010. I hope that 2012 can provide similarly iconic legacies.

Le Mans 1981 - personal recollections

In October last year, I posted some recollections of the first race I ever attended, the 1967 Race of Champions. With Le Mans 2011 fast approaching, I thought readers might be interested to read memories of my first trip there to see the fabled Vingt-Quatre Heures du Mans in 1981. I was already a keen follower of motor-racing, having attended Grands Prix at Silverstone, Brands Hatch, Austria and Monaco, as well as other races at most of the UK’s major circuits. On the endurance front, I first went to the BOAC 1000 at Brands Hatch in 1972, and had seen quite a few 1,000kms and six hour races at Brands and Silverstone after that. I was also able to visit the 1,000kms at Monza in 1980 (won by Alain de Cadenet and Desiré Wilson by just a handful of seconds).

I remember that a friend of mine from university, Steve Davison, had suggested a couple of times that we should go to Le Mans together, and finally we agreed to go ahead and do it. At the time I was living and working in Redhill, Surrey, and a work colleague of mine at that time, Malcolm Gimblett, also decided to come along.

So we booked ourselves a ferry (Portsmouth to Le Havre), got some tickets and set off; the three of us, with a tent each, in my Alfasud, heading for the White Panorama campsite. We left in the morning of Wednesday 10th June, with me driving, and Malcolm (who had longer legs) alongside advising on whether it was safe to overtake or not. I felt his indecisiveness and caution were slowing us down, though, so after a stop for fuel, we squashed Malcolm into the back seat, and Steve (who had ‘navigated’ for me on some University-run treasure hunts in the past) took over as co-driver. Most of the road down from Le Havre was quite clear - a couple of helpful locals flashing headlamps to warn of ‘Gendarmes ahead’ - and we made good progress. Even so, night was falling as we sought out the ‘Parking Blanc’ signs, which we reckoned we needed to follow, and finally we found our campsite just after 10pm. The plots were marked, but un-numbered, so we found a good-looking flat-ish plot, parked the car and decided that, as we could hear practice in full flow and the fact that it was due to continue until 11pm, we’d find the track and put the tents up later, despite Malcolm’s warning to us: “do you really think that’s wise?”

As it was so late, the gates were open, so we didn’t have to show our tickets, but simply scrambled up a bank and found ourselves on the outside of the circuit, just past the Dunlop Bridge. It’s one of those memories that has remained clear in my mind ever since. The image of cars having just crested the rise, appearing from underneath that famous bridge and thundering away from us, downhill toward the Esses has not faded. That final half-hour or so of practice; my first encounter with the narcotic that is Le Mans, was truly intoxicating. They were fast - so fast - and they were spectacular - headlights illuminating the way and turbo-chargers flaming out as drivers lifted off the throttle before the Esses. All mighty impressive.

After practice ended, we put the tents up, and on the Thursday morning Steve went off to buy himself an admission ticket. I can’t remember the details now, but I think I had sorted the camping and entrance tickets for Malcolm and me (probably through ‘Just Tickets’), but Steve hadn’t. No worries, we thought, until Steve came back, complaining mildly that he had had to pay rather more than we had for ours. So we compared them and discovered that his was “Enceintes General” and ours “Enceintes Virages”. We went back and established that this meant that Steve could get into the start-finish area in front of the main grandstands, but that Malcolm and I could not. This would only apply for the race itself, though: for practice this evening we would be able to go anywhere.


Lancia MonteCarlo - note token barrier to keep crowd out!

At the time, I didn’t think much about the fact that we could get pretty much anywhere we liked during Thursday. The paddock in those days was spread out behind the pits, which were not the sophisticated and well-equipped garages of today. The teams were camped under awnings, where they worked on the cars between practices sessions and the cars had to be pushed round into the pit lane, to sit in front of the pit boxes, at the start of every practice session.

As a result spectators could wander around the transporters, awnings and motorhomes practically at will, and cars could be easily seen as they were being worked on.

We went up onto the top of the pits to watch practice for the support race (Renault 5 Turbos), then through the tunnel to the outside of the circuit to watch final practice (which was from 6pm to 10pm).  


Tiff Needell in the IBEC, entering the pits straight

Then it was down to the funfair, located on the outside of the Esses in those days. Although I had been to funfairs in England before, I wasn’t expecting the sheer size and variety of things on offer at Le Mans. And the range of folk that were there was simply astonishing. It seemed to me that some were there specifically for the funfair, who found the car noise somewhat distracting, others whose high-heels and furs prevented them from leaving the relative safety of the ACO ‘Welcome’ building and still more dedicated race-fans like myself, trying to get the most from every experience.

I was reminded of Epsom Downs on Derby Day (when it used to be on a Wednesday), and the infield of the racecourse was open to everyone, and people turned up in their tens of thousands, not all interested in horse racing, not all honest, but every one contributing to the atmosphere of the event, making it something unique.

On Friday we went exploring into town to buy provisions. We drove round the track, at least as far as you could, we had a beer in the Restaurant des Vint-Quatre Heures, and then we went back and looked around the paddock some more, taking photos.


Derek Bell - can you imagine him allowing himself to be photographed like this nowadays?





Brian Redman

Saturday morning was bright and sunny - in fact the whole weekend was a scorcher. Armed with his ‘posh’ ticket, Steve went off to the grandstand area to watch the startline jollities; Malcolm and I trudged over the Dunlop Bridge and went down to watch the start from the outside of the first part of the Esses - on a well-inclined slope, looking straight at the cars as they descended the hill from the Dunlop Bridge towards the Esses.

Pace lap - Mass ahead of Ickx in the Porsches

We split up soon after the start… I continued to walk up to Tertre Rouge - watching from the inside, then through the tunnel there to the outside of the circuit. This was the first year that a pace car was used to neutralise the race, and I remember several incidents which required its deployment. It was only on Sunday morning, when I bought the newspaper, that I learned of the death of Jean-Louis Lafosse in the Rondeau. And only on the ferry back did I discover that a marshal had also been killed in separate accident earlier in the race. Such was the way of things in those days.

I headed back to the Esses, on the outside of the circuit, ignoring the dubious pleasures of the funfair while there was a race going on, as darkness began to fall.

Around 2am, I must admit to snoozing on the bank on the outside of the circuit, just before Tertre Rouge… it was completely dark and hard to see the numbers on the sides of the cars. I kept my notebook with me though, and had an appointment most hours (on the half-hour) to listen to Bob Constanduros give his English language update over the loudspeakers.

As dawn broke, I decided it was time to visit other parts of the circuit, so started the walk from the Esses, down to the Dunlop curve and out onto the service road behind the grandstands (not forgetting my ‘contre-marque’). Not being allowed into the ‘tribune area’ I continued the walk until the point where holders of the “Virages” ticket were allowed back in. I watched the cars braking for the Ford Chicane and followed the track as far as the spectator enclosure went, in the direction Maison Blanche, which in those days was not very far. Then it was back onto the public road (aware that this used to be the track, before the Porsche Curves were built) all the way to the crossroads (now a roundabout) where the road to Arnage leads off to the right.

This was the road I took, conscious that I was headed away from the track, but plodding on with determined resolution. Over the level crossing, I turned left, following the sign to Virages Arnage and Mulsanne. It took me the best part of three hours, as I remember, and the merguez at Arnage when I finally got there was very welcome indeed. Arnage was wonderful in the morning sunshine - the marshals had a stork in the infield area, I remember.

I found a man selling Le Maine Libre and spent some time sitting on the bank overlooking Arnage corner. This was one of the few places where you could hear the loudspeakers and see the track at the same time, as the cars were off the throttle and not quite so loud. This enabled me to piece together some of what had been happening during the race and to recover after my long walk.

I then felt strong enough to continue my trek around the track, walking up to Indianapolis, then found a path leading into the trees, which seemed to be heading in roughly the direction of Mulsanne Corner.

The path quickly petered out, but the cover of the trees provided a welcome respite from the heat of the day, which was building rapidly. I could see Armco barrier to my left and the flash of cars going past, through the trees, but the forest was too dense to get very close. There were a couple of rolls of barbed wire to hop over, I remember, but a couple of people way ahead of me, who seemed to know where they were going encouraged me to persevere. Then a few houses came into view, and eventually I came out at a large woodshed, and was able to find my way back into a proper spectator enclosure at the exit to Mulsanne corner.

From here I could see the signalling area, and a suddenly gained another fascinating insight into how Le Mans works. One car actually stopped and the driver had an animated conversation with the signallers, before heading off again. Throughout it all, the Porsche 936/81 of Jacky Ickx and Derek Bell was running like clockwork and was getting further and further ahead of the opposition.

Bell in the winning Porsche at Tertre Rouge early in the race

I managed to find my way back to Indianapolis on the public road designed for such a journey - which saved me having to stumble over any more tree roots and pine cones, but deprived me of the view of the cars through the trees - and I watched the finish of the race from Arnage. By my watch, the flag marshals started invading the track waving with their flags a minute or two before four o’clock, which by my reckoning meant that the cars were still racing, which didn’t quite seem safe somehow. On the other hand, to watch the drivers respond, slowing down and acknowledging the marshals, stirred the emotions in a way that I wasn’t expecting. The sheer fatigue, shared by everyone, provided a huge sense of achievement. It brought a new angle to the meaning of “endurance”, more than just the achievement of winning the race, or a class, but just being there at the end, that even today I find difficult to put into words. As the cars passed on their final lap, the public was able to come onto the track as well, which gave me an ideal opportunity to walk back to the start-finish area on the track (a mere 4 kms), rather than going the long way round. Then it was back to the campsite, and I’m sure we must have gone out for a meal somewhere, but I remember only getting very grumpy with Malcolm and Steve. Not their fault, more the fact that I was unused to dealing with sleep deprivation.

We drove back to Le Havre on Monday, taking a night ferry back and arriving in Portsmouth on Tuesday morning. And to start making plans to revisit in 1982.

(All photos copyright from my private collection)

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...

Early memories

I thought it might interest readers to hear of my first motor sporting experiences, and maybe inspire some to leave a comment of their own about early racing memories. I had a notion that one day I might write an autobiography, but as the years pass and reality sets in, this looks increasingly unlikely, so this may be as close as I ever come.


I was always interested in cars and car racing. Where this came from, I have no idea. Certainly not from my parents. My father had more of a passion for boats and the sea, having served in the Royal Navy, and Mum was just, well Mum. And my two older sisters (much older) were more into The Beatles and Girl Guiding, and occasional dinghy-sailing.

I was probably about seven years old, when I remember we drove past Silvermere Golf Club (just off the A3 between Cobham and Byfleet) and I asked my father if we could go to Silverstone one day – word association, you know.

He suggested Brands Hatch was closer and would be easier, but in those days I hadn’t heard of the place, but I slotted it away in my memory to be brought back as and when required.

It was Mum, though, who happened across someone with whom she helped to do school dinners, and whose husband happened to be a marshal, who provided the real trigger, just before my tenth birthday. I had for several years swapped the doubtful pleasures of a birthday party (which I had to share), for a birthday treat (in which the attention was heaped on me). And this other dinner lady provided my mother with details for the Race of Champions, coincidentally held the day after my tenth birthday, 12th March, 1967. So when my loving parents offered a birthday trip to Brands Hatch to see the Race of Champions, I didn’t need to think about it for too long. This was Formula 1, after all, and all the well-known names (apart from Jim Clark and Team Lotus) would be there.

We arrived early on race morning (attending practice days was far in the future for me), and Mum had prepared a picnic lunch for us. In addition to support races, there were to be two heats of ten laps each for the Formula 1 cars, to be followed by a forty lap final. As far as I remember, the only purpose that the heats served was to establish the grid positions for the following race, but it meant that we had three Grand Prix-style starts to experience. And from our initial vantage point on Top Straight (as it was then), we had that experience to the full.

Forty-something years later, it is perhaps surprising that so many memories of that day still abound. Especially when I struggle to remember who won the last Grand Prix. In fact where was the last Grand Prix?

But I can clearly remember the first car on the track that day – the Honda (number 7) of John Surtees, who drove round at what seemed to me breakneck speed to take up his slot on the 3 x 2 x 3 grid. Earlier in the day, the only cars on the track were service vehicles and occasional road cars (I later learned that these were probably marshals going out onto the GP loop to take up their signalling positions). And with such benchmarks, the speed of a Formula 1 car, even on a warm-up lap, just knocked me for six.

Jack Brabham was the reigning World Motor Racing Champion, and hence was number 1, but that day he could not keep up with the Eagle-Gurney Weslake (number 5) of Dan Gurney. Brabham was the only one to pass Gurney, though, as he unlapped himself in the final, following a pit-stop. To my eye, even then, the Eagle was a more attractive car than the functional-looking Brabham, but with so little experience, I did not fully appreciate the iconic status of Dan Gurney’s mount.

After the race, I pushed my way to the fence in order to show my appreciation as the winning car was towed round the track on a trailer, with Gurney and his mechanics waving to the crowd on their ‘lap of honour’. Dad took a photo, as I recall, which I must have somewhere.

Then there was the queue to get out. In those pre-M25, pre-M20 days, the way home was through Croydon (and over the flyover – as hi-tech as civil engineering went then). But just getting out of the circuit, let alone getting to Croydon (with still another hour to drive thereafter) sent Dad into a rage of ‘never again’. Luckily he relented, and I went again to the Race of Champions for my birthday treat in 1968. Then I managed to persuade him to take me to the British Grand Prix in July, and it all sort of snowballed from there!