Anniversaries

A month has now passed since Le Mans, and I realise with some concern that I have not posted anything on this blog all year. I have always said that this blog is a personal outlet for me to indulge in various ramblings, and that I won’t be held to deadlines on it – it is, after all, my choice when and what I write. But what should you, my loyal readers, do? Well, that’s up to you really. At various points in the past I have posted detailed analyses of races here, travelogues of some of my visits to races, and personal opinions on the state of different championships and racing categories. Now I find myself just writing something because it’s a long time since I did so.

First, a quick medical report – for those who follow my ups and downs closely – my multiple myeloma remains in remission. I have been told that this won’t last forever, but I can live a relatively normal life these days, with the biggest health issues relating as much to my advancing years as to the cancer.

This means that I have been able to have a busy year thus far. On the racing front, I have worked with Red Camel at the Creventic races at Dubai, Mugello, Spa and, just last weekend, Estoril. On top of that I have commentated on the PA at Silverstone and Donington Park, and – the highlight of the year – at Le Mans.

Although it was pretty special to be at Le Mans last year, after a two-year hiatus finally getting to my 40th Le Mans 24-hour race, this year’s 100th anniversary was in many ways even more special. The presence of Ferrari, Porsche, Peugeot and Cadillac meant that the paddock atmosphere was buzzing, and my one trip into the spectator enclosures during Wednesday evening qualifying confirmed that spectator attendance was indeed record-breaking.

It's been a big year for anniversaries, and these days there seems to be a greater need to celebrate them than ever before. The fact that the first Le Mans 24-hour race took place one hundred years ago this year was difficult to miss – as was Porsche’s 75th anniversary. The Spa 24 hours was also celebrating its 75th running (although anyone who was there in 1993 will be unable to forget the abandonment of the race early on Sunday morning, following the unexpected death of King Baudouin). Silverstone is celebrating 75 years since its first race this year – the Festival later this year will remind everyone – and talking of Silverstone, the British Racing Drivers’ Club is 95 years old this year.

For a chap called Bob Curl, Le Mans 2023 saw a particularly special anniversary. It was seventy years since his first visit to Le Mans. In 1953, at the age of sixteen, he set off from his home with his push bike and a train ticket and witnessed the fabled “hangover victory” of Duncan Hamilton and Tony Rolt in their C-Type Jaguar. Bob is a tremendous enthusiast and a splendid chap. His name is indelibly linked with the Nomad, a car that he designed and built back in the late sixties for Mark Konig. Look it up in the Dailysportscar archive, or simply type “Mark Konig Nomad” into a search engine of your choice.

(I’ll probably get into all sorts of copyright trouble if I post any pictures here, but without doubt the Nomad – all three of them – are very pretty cars).

Anyway, seventy years on, Bob was at Le Mans again: camping outside the Porsche Curves, and when I spoke to him a week or so ago, it was clear that he had a great time. So much so, that he’s already made his reservation to stay there again next year!

I have to share one other tale about Bob, and that is his autograph book. Obviously, he grew up in the years before mobile phones and selfies became the rage, when small boys would get the autographs of their heroes. I was honoured a few years ago, not just to see, but to hold in my hand, Bob’s autograph book; and it must surely be the most complete record of the leading lights of motor sport over the years. Nuvolari, Fangio, Moss, Clark, Stewart: they are all there. He even has SCH (Sammy) Davis, winner of Le Mans for Bentley in 1927. When Bob first showed me this autograph book, he showed me the gap which had fortuitously been left on the same page as Davis’s scrawl and asked me if I thought that it might be a good place for Fernando Alonso, winner of the race some 91 years later, to sign. Of course I said it was a splendid idea, and at Silverstone later that year, Fernando duly signed in the gap and, being Fernando, thought it was all brilliant.

Anyway, Le Mans 2023 was unquestionably a thrilling race and I was so glad to be there to witness it – even if I did spend most of the race in the broadcasting studio of Radio Le Mans. It certainly exceeded my expectations and I must admit that I didn’t expect either Ferrari to keep their pace up as well as they did. The end result was in doubt even into the last two hours, when Toyota found themselves between a rock and a hard place. Brendon Hartley had to hand the car over or go beyond his drive time limit, and Sébastien Buemi had already had nine track limit warnings to his name. Toyota did not want to risk him getting a penalty and that left Ryo Hirakawa, who could feasibly have caught Alessandro Pier Guidi’s Ferrari in that final shift, but for his unfamiliarity with the braking on the Toyota, which had become a lot more erratic in the closing stages of the race. The Ferrari was also not without its problems – restarting the car after the pitstop was a known issue, which could have changed the outcome completely. It was a proper ending to an endurance race, with the reliability of both of the two cars fighting for the lead in doubt.

In the glory days of Audi, I became good friends with Howden ‘H’ Haynes, who engineered Audi to success in the 24 hours in 2008. ‘H’ was co-founder of Progressive motorsport, whose competitive spirit and attention to detail not only introduced Kyle Wilson-Clarke (later race engineer at Porsche, after Audi’s withdrawal), but also Leena Gade, who went on to engineer the winning Audi in 2012.

Another graduate of Progressive was Justin Taylor, who continued the winning tradition by running the no. 51 AF Corse-entered Ferrari at Le Mans this year. I have heard that Justin was using the (manual) stop watch given to him by H to determine the car’s position on the track, and thus to know when to talk to the driver on the circuit. Anyone who has seen Audi’s “Truth in 24” movie will have gained a bit of an insight into H’s approach to a race: he is highly intelligent, meticulous and competitive. It is a way of working that he shares with everyone that he comes into contact with and he has undoubtedly had a big influence on Taylor. I should have known better than to doubt that philosophy continuing to influence the race!

Speculation about the distant future...

I’m not really one to peer into crystal balls and make predictions about the future, but I do listen to and read what a lot of people are saying and writing about motorsport, whether it is Formula 1, WEC, GT or whatever. I also spend time on my own thinking about those things and the things that history can teach us. One thing that has been gnawing away at me recently is where we might be in, say, eight to ten years’ time. I was half-considering a blog post on the subject, and then this photo from Martin Spetz was posted on twitter – with a caption by Graham Goodwin (the editor of www.dailysportscar.com): “Spot the prototype!” - so here I go:

Although I would hate to see it happen, and at the moment I’ll admit it seems extremely unlikely, but just suppose that the LMP1 technology race self-destructs: that Porsche, Audi and Toyota move out, leaving the playing field to the privateers. Meanwhile, the manufacturers that have been pouring their multi-million dollar R&D budgets into GT programmes want more exposure on the world stage, particularly at Le Mans.

Then reflect on the extent to which sportscar racing categories are already controlled by regulation, and consider how difficult it would be – or not – for the FIA Endurance Committee to come up with a formula that made a full-house manufacturer GT car able to compete with a privately-entered prototype over a long distance race.

It’s not a fanciful possibility. Twenty years or so ago, readers may recall – and if you’re too young, then buy Quentin Spurring’s “Official History” for the 1990-1999 decade – there was such a balance of performance. The Dauer 962 was a GT car (officially), and won the 24 hours in 1994 ahead of prototype opposition from Toyota. In 1996, the Joest-entered TWR-Porsche beat the works 911 GT1’s. In between, of course, a McLaren (entered ‘privately’) triumphed against Yves Courage’s prototype in the hands of Mario Andretti, Eric Hélary and Bob Wollek.

Balancing performance has come a long way in twenty years, and I don’t see any good reason why the ‘privateer prototype’ class that we have in the WEC, along with the American IMSA prototype class, should not be restricted (by different amounts) so that a less-restricted GT class could be within 5% of each other’s lap time. That 5% difference could then be equalised by allowing the GT cars a larger fuel tank and faster refuelling procedures.

Of course, I’m not suggesting that this is going to happen in 2017, or even in 2018. But it strikes me that a solution has to be found to the two struggles going on in endurance racing at the moment: first that the privateer wants to enter races with more than just a class full of privateers as competition; and second, that there seems to be as much or more interest from manufacturer teams in GT racing than in prototypes.

Although Toyota, Audi and Porsche claim relevance of technology transfer from race-track to road car, both Audi and Porsche are already active in the GT3/GTE arena, and Toyotas competes successfully in GT500 racing in Japan with the Lexus brand and surely would not be slow in converting to a new, uprated GT class on the world stage?

Just imagine the prospect: here is a purely speculative entry list for the 2022 Le Mans 24 hour race:

Prototypes:		GT Cars:
Rebellion-Oreca		Audi
Courage-Peugeot		Aston Martin
Strakka-Dome		Bentley
Ligier		Porsche
Alpine		Lamborghini
Gibson		McLaren
Oreca		Ford GT
Kolles-Lotus		BMW
Manor		Mercedes
Mazda		Nissan
Riley		Jaguar
GM-Corvette		Ferrari
Ginetta		TVR
HPD-Honda

Inevitably, I fear, there would be debate about whether manufacturer teams should be allowed in the Prototype class. My suggestion would be that it should be restricted to private entries, but that becomes a difficult definition to regulate, especially when things as important as Le Mans victories are concerned. But then Le Mans’ history is littered with examples of works entries masquerading as privateers (as 1995 and 1996 show), so maybe we shouldn’t get too precious about this.

There is also the whole matter of crew composition, amateur drivers and grading, which I have deliberately avoided. Despite my misgivings, there are quite simply not enough world-class drivers available to crew fifty or sixty cars with three drivers per car – so non-professional drivers will inevitably be part of endurance racing for many years to come. Rightly so, for herein lies a good deal of the attraction of the place and the event.

The important aspect of this vision is that while the concept of multi-class racing has been key to the success of endurance racing over the years, it may be that – just as in the world of touring cars – equalising the top of some classes might have some benefit.

What do you think? Am I barking mad?

Dailysportscar

Readers of DailySportsCar.com will have noticed, if they are paying attention, that I have been appointed as Features Editor. This is something that Graham Goodwin - the editor of dailysportscar - and I have been discussing for some time, but only now has it come to pass that it can be made official.

The idea is, that with an increasing amount of content on dailysportscar being free now, there is something for the subscribers that will cause them to renew their subscriptions, when they become due, and moreover, that the increasing number of viewers of the free material will be tempted into subscribing when they see a little of what they are missing. As a business case, it does make sense. The annual subscription, at just £35, is not extortionate, and if enough 'free' viewers are prepared to subscribe, then the coffers will fill sufficiently to pay for the roster of writers that will make up the "features team".

So if it doesn't work, then the subscription only features will have to stop - simple as that. Not that I do this for the money - indeed there is no money at all to be made out of blogging - but I do prefer to 'formalise' such things... so that readers know what they are going to get. If all the plans come off, then dsc subscribers will be seeing a 'feature' every few days - an average of two a week.

As Graham said to me recently, "more 'Motor Sport' than 'Autosport' ". We'll see how it goes. One concern that I do have is that the time taken to look after my new responsibility will have to come at the expense of something. And one of those things might be this blog.

I don't want to steal Graham's thunder by revealing here the full roster of writers, but it is a funny feeling to be put in a position to "edit" the writing of folk that I've read for years and who have been making a living from writing, while I have been 'doing a proper job'.

I just hope that we (Graham, the writers, and me together) can make it work, and maintain a level of consistent quality that is too easy to lose once initial enthusiasm for the new project has worn off. Meantime, the season progresses: Spa this weekend, then the Nürburgring, then it's Le Mans. That should provide sufficient inspiration for us all to find something to write!

Sebring coverage on dailysportscar.com

I'm sure people who read this will have noticed already, but DSC's Sebring coverage is free to all to view.

And tomorrow, you should see my reflections there on the "Four Hours of Sebring".

Enjoy!

And if time permits, I might look at the GT classes at some point too.

Looking ahead on dailysportscar.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

September comment for dailysportscar

Well, my column for dailysportscar.com has just gone in for typesetting. I won't post it here - might increase dsc subscriber lists if I force you to go there... but the theme of the piece is the McQueen rant (see below), then a few grumbles about driving standards and team orders.

Not particularly insightful, but it keeps my name in the limelight (?) until after the Silverstone 1000kms, when hopefully I'll be able to produce another of my analysis pieces.

It promises to be a good race actually - it will be interesting to see if the Audis are anywhere near the pace of the Peugeots. And I'm looking forward to seeing the new Arena track layout. Not sure whether we'll be using Stowe or Becketts boxes at the moment (or maybe both!) Hopefully the weather will be kind, and here's to the success of the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup!

Le Mans preview (for dailysportscar.com)

By the time you read this, it will be June, and the focus, I suppose, of most readers of this will be on Le Mans, where yet another fascinating 24 hours is in prospect. There is no doubt that the battle for overall honours will once again be between the mighty (quiet) diesels from defending champion Peugeot and ‘only-beaten-twice-this-century’ Audi.

Regulation changes for this year’s race have centred on revised aero rules, and along with further reductions in the restrictor sizes for the diesels, we will see an increase in lap times compared with last year. By how much, remains to be seen, but bear in mind that changes to the regulations last year caused lap times to increase by three to four seconds a lap for the LMP1 cars, and I suspect we’ll see a similar increase this year. Don’t forget though, that in 2008 lap times improved by nearly eight seconds compared to 2007, so I suspect that we’ll not be far off the times seen three years ago, when Stéphane Sarrazin put the brand new Peugeot 908 on pole with a 3 min 26.344 secs.

I suspect that lap times for the LMP1 cars this year will be roughly the same as the times we saw in 2007, when Peugeot first arrived at Le Mans with the 908 HDi, and in which Stéphane Sarrazin set the first of his three consecutive pole positions in 3 mins 26.344 secs.

Theoretically, due to the way that the regulations have been altered this year, the petrol-powered cars should be closer to the diesels this year than they were last. However, my impression is that the challenge from the Aston Martin Racing cars is not as committed this year. As a result, I anticipate an excellent fight for ‘best of the rest’, between the Lolas of AMR and Rebellion, and the diesel-powered Kolles Audi R10s, possibly joined by the ORECA-AIM – and maybe even the Beechdean-Mansell Ginetta? Maybe not. But I would be surprised to see any of them as high up the order on Sunday afternoon as the Aston Martin was last year.

Another difference this year is that whereas last year’s timetable had Wednesday given over completely to free practice, this year there will be two hours of Qualifying on Wednesday night (from 10pm until midnight), following four hours of free practice between 4pm and 8pm, as well as the traditional four hours of qualifying on Thursday, between 7pm and midnight, with a break from 9pm until 10pm. This should provide a better opportunity for those who are minded to, to ‘go for it’, and could well give us an excellent fight for pole in all the classes.

In the LMP2 class, the Highcroft-entered Honda Performance Development car, with two former outright winners at the wheel, must start the race as favourite. However, I expect Danny Watts to put the similar Strakka-run car on the class pole. But speed is not always a recipe for success in this class, and Highcroft have less experience at Le Mans than any of their class competition. So RML, Quifel-ASM and the Kruse Schiller Motorsport entries must all be taken seriously as contenders for the class win by virtue simply of familiarity with the event, if nothing else.

Following the paucity in last years GT1 class, I am (guardedly) looking forward to seeing a race in the class this year. Although I would not be surprised to see the GT2 class winner finish ahead of the GT1 winner in the overall positions. The jury is still out as far as the future of GT1 is concerned; I think the ACO will need to re-evaluate what part the class has to play in the 2011 24 hour race after the dust has settled following this year’s race.

As ever, GT2 looks extremely competitive: perhaps even more so this year. The arrival of works teams from Corvette and BMW in the class, joining the vastly experienced ranks of Ferrari and Porsche entrants augurs for a very good race indeed.

So who will win? In terms of the individual classes, I will leave it to you to debate among yourselves. Along with the discussion of whether the Kolles Audis should be in class ‘LMP1-bis’, the name I coined a couple or three years ago for the ‘best non-works Audi / Peugeot’. Hopefully the ORECA Peugeot will be able to keep up with the works cars.

For the outright win, it really has to be one of the six works diesels though, doesn’t it? Audi or Peugeot? That is the question. The trouble is, that in answering the question, one only has the Spa 1,000 kms race where both teams raced against each other. And if you believe everything that was being published, even then the Peugeots were running in a Spa-specific set-up, whereas the Audis were in full Le Mans trim.

Certainly, when it was dry, and all other things were equal, the Peugeots were consistently quicker over the course of a lap. However, Allan McNish (who else?) in the no. 7 Audi set the fourth fastest lap of the race – behind two laps from Montagny in the no.2 Peugeot and one from Bourdais in the no. 3. If Peugeot were consistently so much quicker, I would have expected them to be more dominant than that.

Other points to note from looking at the lap times:
· Montagny was generally quicker than Sarrazin (note that Minassian did not drive no. 2)
· Davidson was generally quicker than Gene or Wurz
· Dumas was generally the quickest driver in no. 9
· Tréluyer and Lotterer were well-matched in no. 8
· The fastest laps of both Dumas and Tréluyer were quicker than Kristensen’s

But these are very general observations, and there may be good explanations for all of them.

Since I have the sector times from Spa, though, let me share some of them with you. Before I do, I should explain where the sectors begin and end.
· Sector 1: start line – La Source – Eau Rouge – Kemmel Straight
· Sector 2: Les Combes (pif-paf) – Rivage – Pouhon – Fagnes
· Sector 3: Stavelot – Blanchimont – Bus Stop – start line.



In sector 1, McNish again set the fourth fastest time, but this time it was behind two times from Davidson in no.1 and one from Lamy in no.3.

In sector 2, the best time from Dumas in no.9 was half-a-second quicker than the best that the no. 7 Audi could manage (in the hands of Capello). However, even the best that Dumas could manage was more than a second off the fastest Peugeot time through this sector.

And in sector 3, Dumas (in no.9), Lotterer (in no.8) and Capello (in no.7) were all quicker than any of the Peugeots. Interestingly though, McNish’s best time was nearly half a second slower than the car’s best – in the hands of Capello.

As I have mentioned in a previous column, at Spa, the ‘dress rehearsal’ developed into a ‘proper race’, and special circumstances (safety cars, power cuts, rain) mean that making predictions for 24 hours at Le Mans using the data of Spa is speculative and highly unreliable. And in any case, Spa is not Le Mans.

Whichever way you look at it though, it seems certain that, with the R15-plus, Audi has clawed back some of the advantage enjoyed by Peugeot at Le Mans last year. The race will be finely balanced indeed. In the end it will probably come down to the team that has the fewest incidents, whether they are of their own making or not.

My view? It’s too close to call. Lucky we don’t get ‘hung races’, like we get ‘hung parliaments’.


Paul Truswell

April Comment column for dsc

I sent this to dailysportscar for my end of April comment, I'm sure they'll post it soon!

I missed the Le Mans series race at Paul Ricard – “les huit heures du Castellet” – as we were flying off on our Easter family holiday. And having to contend with the ash cloud from Iceland’s volcanic eruption, as well as a water pump failure on my car (happily the Airbus was more reliable) getting back was a bit more arduous than I had hoped. As a result, I haven’t done my usual in-depth analysis of what happened.

Of course the re-vamped Audi R15 ran away with the race, and although the British-built Lolas filled the podium places, it is still clear that diesels enjoy a performance advantage over the petrol-powered cars. However, I was interested to compare the works Audi performance to the Oreca Peugeot 908, which finished just off the podium, following an 18-minute pit stop in the first hour. Despite (or perhaps because of) its delay, it managed to complete the race on two fewer pit-stops than the winning car (seven rather than nine), which had to make an unscheduled stop to fix a mirror, as well as a stop for wet-weather tyres. But even taking this into account, the Peugeot was able to cover 32 or 33 laps on a tank of diesel compared to the Audis clockwork stints of 31 laps.

It was running slightly slower than the Audi of course, which might account for the better consumption, and twice round Paul Ricard is still less than a lap round Le Mans, so the difference (if there is one) might not be important. And of course only the men from Ingolstadt know how much fuel actually went in at each stop. Sandbagging has been known before, after all. We’ll see in six weeks time.

Before Le Mans, though, there’s May to survive. I was looking through my diary (checking how long until Le Mans) and was astonished at the schedule facing the sportscar racing world in May. The action kicks off with the Silverstone Supercar meeting, featuring the second round of the FIA GT1 World Championship and the opening rounds of the GT3 and GT4 European Championships, all on the new Grand Prix circuit. The following weekend sees three of the newly revamped Audi R15s battling against a similar number of Peugeot 908s over 1000km of Spa-Francorchamps, and then there’s just week until the classic 24 hour race over the Nürburgring’s tortuous Nordschleife (or to be more precise, the ‘Gesamtstrecke’, which comprises both the Nordschleife and the Grand Prix ‘loop’). A week later sees the second proper round of the 2010 American Le Mans Series at Laguna Seca, California, which clashes with the third round of the FIA GT1 World Championship, again supported by the GT3 and GT4 series, which are at Brno in the Czech Republic.

Five major races over four weekends. I can think of many people who will be at three of those five events – a couple I know might even take in four. And when you think about it, for specialists of sportscar racing – and I am sure you would not be reading this if you weren’t a specialist – these events offer superb variety within the genre. Whatever you think of performance equalisation, the FIA’s GT1 World Championship certainly provides the opportunity for evocative sounding and looking machinery to go racing on a world stage, with a world title at stake.

The Spa showdown provides spectators and analysts alike a wonderful curtain-raiser for the Le Mans 24 hour race in June – just as the Silverstone Six Hours used to in times past. And at the spectacular Laguna Seca raceway, it will be enormously interesting to see once again the battle between the two flavours of Le Mans prototype running in a single class in a battle for overall supremacy.

Brno may be the poorer relation of the group, but at least the circuit has some character and a history, and should provide a stirring backdrop for the spectacular GT cars. One hopes that by then the performance arguments might have been sorted.

Differing formats as well; from the 199 entries (on my most recent list) for the 24-hour marathon at the Nürburgring, to the more manageable grids and easily-packaged-for-TV sprints for GT cars, with the 1,000km at Spa and the six hour distance for Laguna Seca providing a sort of (ideal?) happy medium.

But is this glut of sportscar racing a good thing? “Less can be more”, so the saying goes, but the opposite is also sometimes true. Looking at the amount of emptiness in a glass can sometimes be revealing. Audi was absent from Sebring, just as the factory Peugeots were from Paul Ricard. None of the American based teams contesting the ALMS will be at Spa, which is the first time that we’ll see the two major works teams going head-to-head. Spectators at Silverstone and Brno will see no fewer than six one-hour races, and I’m guessing that there will be many for whom the differences between GT1, GT3 and GT4 will not be apparent. And there may even be some who ask why there isn’t a race for GT2.

I sometimes wonder if it would be possible to have a World Championship for Le Mans cars. A single set of regulations, a single calendar, running at proper venues (Monza, Kyalami, Suzuki?). Send your list on a post card to the editor.

But the trouble is that today, there are too many people with vested interests; too many egos. I think that Bernie Ecclestone is to blame. Thirty years ago, he dragged Formula One out of the state that it was in and made it the global media circus that it now is. And now people see him as a role model. Who do you think is trying to be “GT Racing Supremo”? Or “Endurance ring-master”? “Le Mans Csar”, anybody?

As long as there isn’t a single autocrat (or powerful governing body) in control, it isn’t going to happen and we will continue to get a multiplicity of flavours of sportscar racing vying for our attention, each run by someone with a business model, a financial plan, but not necessarily any heart and soul for the sport. In the long run, the value of each individual event is reduced. The reason that the World Cup in football is special is that it only happens once every four years. Ecclestone has somehow succeeded in convincing us (has he?) that Grand Prix motor racing is still worth the name when there are nineteen or twenty events a year – those with longer memories than me will be able to recall the early years of the world drivers’ championship when only six or seven races counted. There were other races for Formula One cars of course, but a Grand Prix was something special.

Of course there should always be a place for strong national sportscar championships, which may need to cut their cloth differently, but wouldn’t fewer, bigger World Championship rounds bring in bigger crowds and be more worthwhile for the entrants?

Having said that, I have to admit that I’m expecting May to fairly fly by, and we’ll be at Le Mans before you realise it!

Looking forward to Le Mans

I know that the Le Mans Series is holding its official test this weekend, that Sebring is just around the corner, and that the attention of many sportscar teams and fans will be focussed elsewhere at the moment. But as the wintry days of February give way to more spring-like weather of March, I find myself pondering the prospects for “The Big One” in June – from a wider perspective.

One of the benefits of being alive in the 21st Century is the fact that everything works more reliably. Wherever you look, televisions, washing machines, central heating systems, even stuff like clocks, telephones, etc. they just work. Sure, things go wrong, but we have a much better understanding nowadays for why they go wrong, and almost inevitably, we take actions to ensure that they don’t go wrong again.

My parents, and their parents before them, became used to the unreliability of things, and became adept at fixing things, or at using things in such a way so as not to wear them out in the first place. They were cautious in their acceptance of new technology, as ‘new’ often meant ‘fragile’, and frequently also brought a level of complexity that meant that fixing became out of the question, and replacing became the norm.

Cars are especially a case in point. A perfect Sunday morning for my father was to be under the bonnet of his Ford Zephyr 4 (while the rest of us went to church), adjusting the points and fine-tuning the carburettor. Vocabulary, I fear, that will soon be lost forever. Apart from topping up the washer fluid, there is not a lot for me to do under the bonnet of my car, even if I would have the mechanical know-how.

The point is that, these days, we do not expect to have to carry out arduous maintenance on anything – we expect it merely to work. The Le Mans 24 hour race is similar. So many teams arrive at the race with a ‘package’ so reliable and so well-engineered, that they can justifiably expect (and not just hope) to get through the 24 hours without having to do much more than change the wheels and put fuel in the car.

I suppose I should applaud advances in engineering that allow sports racing prototypes these days to be driven flat-out for twenty-four hours. For it is the engineering precision and the understanding of the life-ing of components that go a long way to providing the improved reliability of many household items. It’s just that component failure during a 24 hour race is so unlikely these days, that it takes away some of the fascination of the race.

One of the (many) reasons that I stay up all night and monitor what is going on so closely at Le Mans is that ‘things happen’. But ‘something happening’ is becoming less and less common. I’m not really talking about accidents, or weather (it has been alleged that ‘it always rains at Le Mans’), but more about those failures of gearboxes, turbo-chargers, wishbones, etc, that ‘just happen’. Something that the team manager knew was a weak spot, and hopefully something that he had a contingency plan to deal with – be it telling the drivers to be careful over the kerbs, or a smart way of repairing – Audi’s quick-change drivetrain replacement being an example.

These things add uncertainty - add spice - and for the spectator add interest and fascination. In recent years, the 24 hours has turned into a bit of a long Grand Prix, in which if you have a problem, however small, your chances of a good result are ruined, as it is so unlikely that your competitor will have a similar problem.

Remember 1988, when Klaus Ludwig ran out of fuel in the works Porsche, and was forced to complete a slow lap back to the pits? Even though this handed an advantage to the no 2 Jaguar, there were sufficient (and justified) doubts about the Silk Cut car that everyone present was enthralled by the chase. In 1995, no-one really expected a McLaren F1 to survive a 24 hour race, let alone win. The film “Pursuit of Perfection” captures team manager Paul Lanzante stressing to his drivers the need to be gentle with every single gear change, to avoid hitting kerbs, to treat the car carefully. He knew that the only way to be in with a chance of victory was to ensure that the car was still in the race when the chequered flag fell. To put it another way, “to finish first, first you have to finish”.

Nowadays, though, (and this is not just my opinion, but one echoed by a number of drivers and team managers up and down the pitlane), to win Le Mans, you need to be flat-out throughout. Realistically, with three works diesels from each of the Peugeot and Audi factories, it would be a surprise if at least one car from each team didn’t make it to the flag without an unscheduled stop. And, most likely, the outright winners will be one of these. The romantic notion that all the works cars will have a problem and allow an Aston Martin, a Rebellion Lola or even the Mansell’s Ginetta to win is just pie in the sky. The fact is that the Le Mans 24 hours is simply much more predictable nowadays than it was in former times.

I am being a little unfair here. No disrespect to David Brabham, Marc Gene or Alex Wurz, but their car was not the fleetest of the Peugeots last year. Nor was the Audi R10 which won in 2008 quicker over a single (dry) lap than any of the French cars. In both cases, the triumph was one where efficiency and teamwork played vital roles. But the margins are so tight now, that pace cannot compensate for a problem.

Short of making it into a 48-hour race (now there’s a thought), I am not sure if there is a way to change this – you can’t un-invent technology, after all. However, there is one simple change that I would like to see to the ACO regulations concerning pit stops (although I am not sure that it really addresses the point I have been making here) and it is this. Forget about all this choreography about changing the wheels with one wheel gun and two mechanics and go back to a simple limit of four mechanics in total, who have to do everything: re-fuel, clean the screen, change the wheels, etc. And disqualify the car if it goes into the garage. Simple as that. All work has to take place on the apron in front of the car’s pit, where everyone can see it.

Think about it for a while, then tell me (or email the editor) with all the reasons why it would make things any worse. I know that this means that a more reliable car will be at even more of an advantage, but I guess I’m thinking that if certain repairs would cost a car more time being fixed in the pits, it would place a greater premium on the driver to ensure that the car steered clear of trouble, or the engineers coming up with better ‘endurance’ cars.

And of course it would improve the show for the spectators and make life easier for the Radio Le Mans pit reporters.

DSC February Comment

I subscribe to the French language magazine "Le Mans Racing" and jolly good it is too.

In an article last year, editor François Hurel struck a chord with me in a piece he wrote about the use of safety cars to establish a “full-course caution”. I wonder how many readers, like me, were astonished how few safety cars proved necessary in Le Mans Series 1,000kms races last year? In the last three races of the season, in the Algarve, at the Nürburgring and at Silverstone there were a total of precisely zero laps behind the safety car. A jolly good thing that was too, in my view. It allowed the pattern of the races to emerge, rewarded good strategy and enabled the spectators to follow progress more easily. That’s the trouble with a full-course caution – aside from the fact that it interrupts the flow of the race, it also introduces an element of luck: inevitably, however efficiently the safety car (or cars) is / are deployed, you will end up giving an advantage to one competitor, or disadvantaging another. Those familiar with Formula One will recall Singapore 2008. Whether Renault was cheating or not, the safety car period clearly enabled Alonso to win the race and deprived Massa of a world championship title.

For my money then, periods behind a safety car should be avoided at all costs. I grant you that it can spice up a dull race, if a spread-out field is bunched up again, but surely deliberately manipulating a race should only be done in the direst of circumstances?

It’s a bit of a culture thing. In the USA, full-course yellows are commonplace. And are frequently – it seems to me – called on a whim. But racing in the USA grew out of ovals, often extremely short ovals, where a full course yellow is perhaps the only way to ensure safety when there is an incident, short of stopping the race altogether. This, surely, is how the practice arose in the first place. Racing in Europe, though, began on long road courses, where most of the circuit lay beyond the direct view of the race control building – and this has led to a different culture.

At Le Mans, the first use of a safety car was as recently as 1981 (I call that recent – does that make me old?). Then, they were called pace-cars, and were regarded very much as an ‘import’ from the USA. However, in the intervening thirty years, ‘pace car periods’ have become very much a feature of racing the world over, and not just endurance racing. The ability to make a good restart from behind the safety car is these days regarded as a vital element to a driver’s skill set.

I have been at the Nürburgring 24 hour race the last two seasons – and unsurprisingly, the organisers do not use full course cautions, nor do they have the phrase ‘neutralise the race’ in their vocabulary. It would be madness to sit behind a safety car when the lap is 25km long.

What they do have though is the concept of a ‘neutralised section’ of track. Without the use of a safety car, they force drivers to slow down by using cones to restrict the available width of the track and enable marshals to work on cars or damaged barriers safely. Drivers have to slow down, just as you do on the public highway when lane closures occur on the motorway due to road works. Sufficient marshals are available to wave yellow flags, transgressions are reported, but most importantly, drivers are responsible and slow down sufficiently to minimise risk. On occasions when this happened during the 2009 race, it appeared to the folk in the media centre that there was merely an increase in lap times (was it maybe raining on the far side of the track?), and for the fans in the non-affected areas, the on-track action continued unabated.

Surely there is a lesson to be learned here somewhere? Due to a combination of circumstances, the organisers end up without spoiling the spectacle of the race, yet are able to keep the cars competing against one another and keep the race flowing.

What about the weather though? Particularly at the Nüburgring, where fog can be a hazard. But there have been occasions elsewhere recently when the safety car has been deployed in the face of particularly heavy rain. Last year’s Petit Le Mans event is an obvious example, but I am also thinking of the closing stages of Le Mans 2007, when we saw torrential rain, TV pictures showing Emmanuele Pirro holding a piece of card, with “Safety Car?” written by hand, and reports of team managers going to race control, requesting that the race be neutralised.

Now I find all this ‘appealing’ to race organisers a bit unpalatable. As I noted in last month’s column, there seems to be a general malaise these days, in which sportsmen (and women) in every field use whatever means necessary to try and achieve their ends, and are regarded as merely showing ‘commitment’ when they do so.

The question of safety cars in extraordinary weather though, is a very difficult one. The trouble is, that once you send the safety car out because of rain (or fog, or any other extreme weather condition), you need to find a good time to withdraw it again.

One of the reasons I am so averse to safety cars is that two of the most dangerous parts of the race are the deployment of the safety car (as some drivers have a tendency to miss it, and do not slow down, others over-react and slow down excessively), and the restart after the safety car is withdrawn, when cars are bunched-up and drivers are unsure how much grip is available under race conditions.

So often we’ve seen a long period of running behind the safety car followed by another caution period immediately afterwards as another incident occurs at or shortly after the restart. Someone with far more experience in these things than I once suggested to me that Ayrton Senna would still be with us if safety cars did not exist in Formula 1 – but I think that is another debate, and not one to which I feel qualified to contribute.

Suppose, just suppose, that safety cars were not deployed at Petit Le Mans last year, and suppose, just suppose, that the race had not been stopped. Here’s an imaginary conversation between Allan McNish and me.

PT: What are conditions like, Allan?

AMcN: Awful, the car’s undriveable!

PT: OK, bring it into the pits, we’ll wait for conditions to improve.

AMcN: What? You’re kidding me, we’ll lose positions!

PT: You have no choice. It’s either that or crash.

AMcN: You don’t understand! I’m a racing driver! It’s up to the organisers to stop the race!

I know, it wouldn’t happen, would it? The reason why it wouldn’t happen is that most racing drivers these days have stopped thinking about their responsibilities as human beings and focus single-mindedly on racing and driving the car as quickly as it will go. Felipe Massa was recently quoted as saying that he forgets about his wife and newborn child when he gets in his racing car and only remembers he has a family when he gets out again. Whether or not this is wholly true, I would not call it wholly responsible.

Listen to interviews with the great drivers of the fifties, Moss, Fangio, etc. and they all say that they would leave a margin when racing, in order to have some room for manoeuvre when they needed it – and they did need it, since often lives depended on it – and not just their own.

In the recent snowy conditions that prevailed in this country, I left the car in the garage for two days. I took a judgement and decided it wasn’t worth the risk. My decision was influenced by the fact that technology and my boss permitted me to work from home. A friend who has some snow chains, fitted them to his car and went off to the hospital, where he works in A&E. My wife felt less comfortable in the conditions, and didn’t move her car for the whole week. The point is, we each evaluated the conditions, took account of the circumstances, made a judgement and lived with the consequences.

I’m not really having a moan here, honest I’m not. All I’m asking is that we in this sport – all of us, drivers, organisers, team members, media and even spectators, take our responsibilities more seriously. I didn’t say that racing drivers these days can’t think, indeed many that I have met are far more intelligent than I am. I’m not saying that full-course cautions should never be used either, just that they are used too often, and they can cause more problems than they solve. If a well-respected race director gave a proper race briefing, explaining to drivers and team managers the (very limited) circumstances under which safety cars would be deployed, I think we might just get some better, fairer races, without jeopardising safety.