Snetterton

I was happy to read in Motorsport News this week that work on the proposed changes at Snetterton are going ahead – and it would seem, are on schedule. The Norfolk track has a special place in my heart, for while I would not pretend to deserve Norman Greenway’s title of “the voice of Snetterton”, I was pretty much a fixture in the commentary box from 1986 until 1990.

Arguably, the place always lived somewhat in the shadow of its more illustrious brothers in the MCD conglomerate, then run by John Webb, whose focus was more firmly on Brands Hatch and Oulton Park. Although I first visited Snetterton in 1977, back in the sixties, Formula One races were held at Snetterton. While Brands had its Race of Champions, and Oulton its Gold Cup, Snetterton didn’t really have a talisman event. But it did have the Norwich Straight in those days, and at 2.7 miles long, represented as much of a high-speed challenge as Silverstone.

In the mid-eighties, however, after ‘Motorsport Norm’ had retired, I found at Snetterton a real family. Regardless of the organising club, the circuit staff always seemed to be the same, and I was welcomed by one and all.

Over the years, various proposals have been raised for Snetterton, various track re-vamps have been considered, as have suggestions to build a housing estate on the site. Each time, the proposals came to nothing, and although small changes have taken place (including the emasculation, probably correctly, on safety grounds of the Russell chicane and a rebuilt pit complex), Snetterton remained fundamentally the same.

So the news that work is underway (and the photographic evidence) is just great. And with Jonathan Palmer at the helm, one can realistically expect a successful project. It has to be said that Palmer and his MotorSport Vision organisation has done a great job for British motorsport. Wouldn’t the Autosport International exhibition be a good place to recognise his achievements?

A few highlights of memories from Snetterton:

• Willhire 24 hour races in the late eighties and into the early nineties, including the longest race on which I have ever commentated, the Willhire 25 hours in 1989, to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the event sponsor.

• A ride on a microlight, commentating into a tape recorder during qualifying for the Willhire in 1987.

• Commentating live from a helicopter during the opening laps of the 1988 Willhire.

• Allan McNish’s debut in 1987 (on the subject of whom, I am supposed to be seeing him at an informal Audi dinner this evening, so stand by for news of that).

• Hitching a ride back to Biggin Hill in MCD’s twin engined Cessna - taking off along the Revett Straight at the end of the race meeting.

• Chatting with Ronald Leigh Hunt (the actor who played David Townsend - John Wyer’s persona – in the ‘Le Mans’ film) about Steve McQueen, who had died a few years previously.

• Staying in various well-meaning but mostly dreadful guest houses in Thetford and Attleborough

With suitable encouragement, I might even expand on some of these, but my day job is calling right now!

Happy New Year to all my readers...

Well, dear reader (if I have any readers, that is), we are now in 2011, and that surely must be sufficient of a reason for another entry in this little Blog of mine.

And to my loyal (if occasional reader) I wish a very prosperous New Year. But also I must offer an apology for not being as prolific a writer as I would like to be. As an excuse, I can only offer that I got laid out by a bout of flu just before Christmas, and then spent a much longer time recovering that I wanted to. But in any case, I have been lacking inspiration, and despite several aborted starts, did not find that any of my attempts passed my own (admittedly somewhat lax) standards for publication.

But hang it all, who cares? This is largely for my own benefit anyway. And I would dearly love for someone, just once, to write me a comment. Please? At least give me the feeling that I have a readership!

Anyway, enough waffle. Down to business. This is the time of year when reviews of the past season are published, and prospects for the coming season discussed. So I shall not be very different. Over the past twelve months, and, from the looks of things, the coming twelve months, sportscar racing can be divided into two camps.

I might be being unfair, but I find that the division comes down pretty much in organisational terms. On the one hand, is Stephane Ratel and the various GT championships, and on the other is the ACO and the various categories carrying the Le Mans tag.

Now at my age, cynicism is an occupational hazard, but I find it impossible to swallow every press release from either the ACO or the SRO without a pinch of salt. I felt a bit sorry for Andrea Bertolini and Michael Bartels when I saw the pictures of the FIA Gala presentations in Monte Carlo. There they were, standing alongside two very scruffy world champions, in the shape of Sebastian Vettel and Sebastien Loeb, having received their trophies for the FIA GT1 World Championship from Jean Todt, and yet I had to ask myself who really cared that they were there. Who would have got up at three in the morning to watch the final round of their championship? Particularly given the nature of the spectacular St Luis circuit in Argentina? I have added it to the list of circuits I ‘must visit’, but whether in hope or anticipation, I am not sure. I am sure though that I am not alone in thinking that people care much more about the outcome of the 24 hours at Le Mans than Ratel’s funny little championship, even if it has the cachet of a world title. An FIA World Championship does not necessarily bring with it gravitas though. And even if the ‘man in the street’ couldn’t name a single driver of the three who won this year’s Le Mans 24 Hours, both Vettel and Loeb are practically household names and as such deserve the FIA accolade.

Despite Ratel’s efforts though, despite the fact that the FIA GT1 championship visits some great circuits, despite the fact that the cars look and sound terrific, I still can’t take it seriously as a proper sportscar world championship. And in 2011, it will all happen again, building on the success of 2010, according to the press release, visiting a new circuit in China, to further warrant the “World” billing. But who’s going to participate? I get the impression that it might fall before it even gets going. Ratel’s biggest problem, it seems to me, has been to fail to win the hearts and minds of the competitors in a way that they are beating a pathway to his door. The lessons of the premature death of last years GT2 championship do not seem to have been learned.

Then there’s the FIA European GT3 championship, which will extend itself into Russia for 2011. But again, it seems dependent on the participation of certain factions who will pander to Ratel’s ego, and I am sure that there are many, like me, who do not really go for the sprint formats.

So I was quite interested to read of the Blancpain Endurance Championship for GT3 and GT4 cars. The Spa 24 hour race is a classic, which will in 2011 be part of this championship. The rest of the series will comprise of three hour races, and I must confess, it holds a certain appeal for me, as a spectator. Time will tell whether it succeeds, but many of the ingredients for success seem to be in place.

One of the things that comes with the passing of the winter solstice, is the publication of the regulations for the coming year’s 24 hours race of Le Mans. And this year, a number of significant changes have taken place. The most compelling of these, I found was the way – I almost want to say ‘the insidious way’ – that the ACO is proliferating its regulations across many areas that it previously left well alone. Whereas in the past, the ACO has held to Le Mans as its holy grail, and the FIA has veered towards and away from the French classic as its politics has driven it, so today, the FIA is leaving well enough alone, and the ACO is now filling the vacuum that is left and providing a series for everyone. At least for everyone who wants to play. With the arrival of the Intercontinental Le Mans Series as the principal series of interest for those wishing to compete more than simply at the 24 hour classic at Le Mans, the American Le Mans Series and the European-based Le Mans Series races are now left with an uncertain position in the world-class racing hierarchy. And then there are two Asian Le Mans Series pencilled into the 2011 calendar as well.

On one hand, a co-ordinated approach must be a good thing, but on the other, the way that the series overlap one another is as confusing as anything that the sportscar world has ever dreamt up. And those with long memories will remember how confusing the various categories and championships of sport car and endurance racing have been over the years.

Despite my concerns for a world endurance series (is it a championship? is it a cup?) run by the ACO without the FIA’s blessing, I am optimistic for 2011 though. And I haven’t even mentioned Grand-Am, Dutch Supercar, Japanese SuperGT, VdeV or the British GT Championship, all of which have their individual strengths.

Finally though, a thought of a possibly unintended consequence. One of the overriding themes of the ACO regulations is the need to increase lap times for LMP1 cars to the ‘magic’ 3min 30secs, by reducing engine power. In consequence, the other classes also have to make do with less power this year. At the same time, the desire is clearly there to improve efficiency, in terms of fuel consumption, tyre wear, etc. But despite increasing numbers of very competent drivers, the ACO still wants to have (indeed, by insisting on ‘bronze’ level drivers in GTE-Am, will encourage) some drivers who, by definition, are not as skilled as their counterparts on the track. If you’re going to reduce power, then improved lap times are going to come through increasing cornering speeds. My concern is that this will lead to some difficult moments at Le Mans, and possibly more ‘Anthony Davidson’ moments, especially as Le Mans increasingly features sequences of high-speed corners where commitment is all-important.

In general, the aims of the regulations are exemplary, and it may well be that my concern is ill-founded – in the past few years driving standards at Le Mans have been extremely high – and I am particularly looking forward to how the diesels fare against the petrol-engined cars, and to see how the ACO manages to manipulate the regulations mid-season (importantly pre-Le Mans) to ensure parity between cars using different fuel types. What will Peugeot do? A fascinating season in prospect – I’m looking forward to it!

Christmas stocking

I must be the luckiest boy in the world! In addition to putting the 2010 Le Mans Annual and the DVD review in my stocking, Santa Claus also brought me a copy of the limited ‘Prestige’ edition of the new Le Mans encyclopaedia. This has been much advertised in Le Mans Racing Magazine, and should actually have been published in July, but various delays meant that it only appeared in mid-December. So Santa decided to intercept my copy and put it under the Christmas tree, to await my eager hands on Christmas morning. Through a number of complex circumstances though, it didn’t actually get opened until the afternoon of the 26th.

What an amazing book it is. Three volumes, in both French and (predictably stilted) English, covering every participant in the 24 hour race from the very first race in 1923 until the last race in 2010. However, more than just a photo of each car, as the previous Moity / Tesseidre book did, there is a cameo portrait on many of the significant entrants, and also coverage of those who came to the race without making the start (step forward Tim Lee-Davey!) And move to one side, Time and Two Seats, as you are no longer the biggest book on the bookshelf. Although I am not sure that the brushed aluminium case will go on the bookshelf – it might have to stay on the floor, such is its weight.

I admit that I pushed the boat out somewhat when I ordered it, as it is far from cheap. But there seemed to be only once chance to get it, and hence I decided that the Prestige edition was worth it. My copy is number 4 out of 500, and from the web-site, I would suggest that around 100 of them have already been sold. I am sure that the regular copy is just as good, just not as exclusive, but what I really want to know is who has numbers 1, 2 and 3. Anyone reading this, please let me know!

And when I have given it a more thorough going over, then probably a review for dailysportscar.com will be called for!

More thoughts on team orders

More on team orders…

I wrote a few months ago on this subject, but the events of the weekend just gone have inspired me to raise the topic again.

I had my eye – although due to various family events, not my entire attention – on two events in particular: the Brazilian Grand Prix at São Paulo, and the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup race at Zhuhai, China.

In the first case, Red Bull Racing issued no team orders at all, and allowed their two drivers, Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber, to finish the Grand Prix in first and second places respectively, even though that will still allow the possibility that Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso will be able to win the world championship by finishing third behind the two Red Bull cars in the final Grand Prix of the season at Abu Dhabi. Had the order been given to change position, allowing Webber to win the race ahead of Vettel, then Alonso would have to finish second in Abu Dhabi to clinch the title.

In the other case, in China, the Total Peugeot Sport choreographed their two team cars to hold up Tom Kristensen’s Audi as it chased down Stéphane Sarrazin in the Peugeot 908. Whether the result of the race was affected is not completely clear, but it is certainly clear that Bourdais’s actions in the lapped Peugeot materially affected Kristensen’s progress.

In both cases described above, the suggestion has been raised in various quarters that the ‘wrong’ decision was taken on the pit wall. Peugeot has been criticised for organising its drivers in order to ensure its car won the race, and Red Bull similarly criticised for doing completely the opposite, in the interests of the series championship.

There are differences, however: not least that Formula One and Sportscar racing are very different disciplines. In the one case, team orders (or lack of them) influenced primarily the outcome of the championship; in the other, it was merely a race result that was at stake. Also, Peugeot’s actions involved blocking another driver, or at least providing an overtaking challenge for that driver. Red Bull merely had to ensure that its two drivers swapped places. The opposition would not have been physically hindered.

Of course, another material difference in this discussion is the way that blue flags are treated in the two championships. When I started watching racing, the blue flag (held stationery) meant: “Another car is following closely” and (waved) meant: “Another car is trying to overtake”. Not the current Formula 1 subtext of: “after three blue flags, you must move over”.

What’s the answer? Who is right and who is wrong? Does anyone in Formula One or in the ILMC have a justification in crying “foul”? Readers no doubt will have their own opinions, but I think all is fair in love, war and motorsport. The prospect of a no-holds barred fight between Vettel and Webber in Brazil was tantalising (about the only tantalising thing about an otherwise pretty dull race). And had the glove been on the other foot in China, I am not sure that Audi wouldn’t have done the same thing.

In the end, it all goes back to a very old soap box of mine, which is that we seem to have forgotten these days that it is the manner of winning, not the action of winning, that makes competition worthwhile. Many things play a part in any victory, and one of those things is the way in which one deals with failure to win. Honesty, integrity and a little grace are excellent assets in anyone, whether they are champions or not.

The Yorkshire Dales

When I started this blog thing, it was my intention to limit myself to the subject of motor racing and although I have explored the edges of my subject occasionally, I have stuck pretty much to this objective. And I will continue so to do, I hope.

However, through this medium, and on the autobiographical theme, I am exposing myself in such a way that some of you may feel that you know me quite well, even if we have never met. That’s all well and good, and indeed to an extent my purpose for being here. No-one, after all, who puts themselves into the public domain, can expect their lives to remain totally private.

Bear with me, then, in order to reach the car theme of this post. And I am afraid it is only a car theme, not a racing theme; but there you are: complain at will.

Last weekend, I drove, with my family (Tatjana, my wife, Sophie, my twelve year old daughter and Robin, my nine year old son) to a cottage in Dentdale (actually just in Cumbria, but part of the Yorkshire Dales National Park). And - lucky me - I was given a car from the Audi press fleet in which to make the trip.

What car? An RS6 Avant, that’s what. If you’re not familiar with it, this is based on the A6 estate chassis, so it’s quite a big car. It quite happily took all the family luggage for a week away, along with various boxes full of food for the self-catered cottage that we were staying in, a cool-box, walking boots and umpteen jackets and coats. What makes the RS6 special though is not the luggage compartment; it is what’s under the bonnet. It has a 5 litre twin-turbocharged V10 engine, giving 572 bhp. That’s more than an R8, although by my reckoning, where the R8 Spyder gives you 305 BHP per tonne, the RS6 is ‘only’ 282. I am sure the performance figures are available elsewhere on the web for those who want to look, but the acceleration was quite simply awesome. As the car accelerated, there was absolutely no drop-off, it just kept on going faster and faster, with cars that were alongside at the traffic lights becoming smaller and smaller in the rear-view mirror.



The car comes with a 6-speed tiptronic gearbox as standard and this too was a new experience for me. At first, I simply left it in fully automated mode, but as I became used to it, I found it extremely easy to use. And it also served as a way to avoid the jerkiness caused by the kick-down facility. The trouble was, with all four of us in the car, it would sometimes decide that two downshifts were necessary to respond to my demands for acceleration. This resulted in a massive jerk as 50 mph cruising suddenly turned into 70mph (officer) and accelerating (causing my wife, who suffers from neck problems, to complain bitterly). However, with a little practice, I could lift off the throttle, tap the left hand (downshift) paddle to select the appropriate gear, and then gently squeeze the accelerator to give the same phenomenal effect, but without the strain on the neck, either upshifting manually or letting the automatic system take over.

The seats were perfectly comfortable (although I do not enjoy heated seats, my wife does, and found this a further luxury), every possible setting of height, rake and steering wheel position being available, which I also like to vary as I travel, to avoid travel cramps. And the steering wheel helpfully moves up away from your knees when you turn the ignition off, to assist entry and egress for the more ‘traditionally built’ driver. And a courtesy light, fitted under the wing mirrors provides a useful floodlit area outside the front doors when you arrive at the car in darkness. Believe me, the darkness in the Dales is very dark.

Such luxury touches abound on this car, to the extent that one struggles to find shortcomings. There’s the price tag of course – but in my opinion there are plenty of less-worthy cars costing £80,000 and more on the market these days. And the fuel consumption is predictably very, very high: I was getting between 15mpg and 20mpg, depending on the traffic conditions. But here is a car that does everything; it ticks all the boxes. It has high performance; it’s comfortable and practical; and as well it is easy to drive and to live with.

The Audi RS6 combines the performance of a Ferrari with the function of a Land Rover. The only real alternative is to go out and buy two cars, which suddenly makes the price look more affordable.

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!

Britcar 24 hours thoughts

What a great weekend at Silverstone! The Britcar 24 hours was indeed a very thrilling race and I thoroughly enjoyed being able to be part of the commentary team. In the overall scheme of things, I suppose that we were lucky that there was such a good battle for the lead – it certainly made it easy to maintain interest and avoided the set-in of boredom at any stage. Looking back on it now, and with the benefit of my notes and the lap chart from TSL (thanks, Tony), it is staggering to reflect on just how close it was for so long. By my reckoning, the no. 8 MJC Ferrari and the no. 22 JetAlliance Porsche were at it hammer and tongs from midnight through to the finish at 4:30 on Sunday afternoon.

Of course, the battle was assisted in no small part by three factors: the two penalties to the MJC Ferrari, one for speeding in the pit lane, and one for going through the red light at the pit lane exit; and then the fact that the Porsche was held (wrongly, it would seem) at the pit lane exit for a lap while the safety car was out. These 'external' influences ensured that the two cars seemed constantly to be battling with each other.

In my opinion, it looked like the JetAlliance crew held the upper hand most of the time, but from the moment that John Gaw got in the Ferrari with two and a half hours remaining, the prospects for Witt Gamski's team changed completely.

I may end up giving a full analysis article to dailysportscar.com, but as a reward to my loyal blog readers (however many of you there are), here are some highlights:

Time in pits:
  8   MJC Ferrari:               38mins 16.3secs (17 stops)
22   JetAlliance Porsche:    35mins 18.1secs (18 stops)
42   AZT Porsche:             38mins 35.9secs (17 stops)

Driving time:
8 MJC Ferrari:                 No of laps          Time
        Gamski                            41                1 hour 30 mins
        Robinson                       203                9 hours 33 mins
        Gaw                              241                9 hours 49 mins
        Dryburgh                         80                3 hours 08 mins

22 JetAlliance Porsche:    No of laps          Time
        Lichtner-Hoyer                83                 3 hours 44 mins
        Eckert                             86                 3 hours 31 mins
        Seefried                         130                 4 hours 33 mins
        Nykjaer                         168                 6 hours 56 mins
        Rich                               121                 5 hours 17 mins

(Note: For the purposes of this table I have excluded the penalty laps for the Ferrari. In fact Robinson and Dryburgh each completed one more lap than shown).

Which brings me to my contentious matter. I said on the commentary at the time, and I have done some further analysis since, and I am pretty sure that Martin Rich drove a stint of 3 hours and 7 minutes, in contravention of the regulation limiting drivers to three hours. The stint in question was from 22:42 (when the car exited the pits, starting its 161st lap), until it re-entered the pits at 01:48 (completing its 230th lap). In between, the car also stopped twice (during safety car periods), but as far as I know, there was no driver change during either of these stops.

If anyone reading this can confirm or deny this, then I would be happy to know. I am not about to mount a protest or anything, just wanting to establish the truth of the matter.

At the end of the race, there were rumours flying around that the Porsche would be credited with an extra lap, on the grounds that it was wrongly held at the pit lane exit at the end of its 16th pit stop (at 12:56, Sunday lunchtime), thus giving it the win. It struck me that this would have been ironic, since the Ferrari had already been penalised two laps, one of which was for going through the light at the end of the pit lane when at red.

Fortunately, from the point of view of the credibility of the series, the result was allowed to stand, although I suspect that the JetAlliance crew might well have felt disgruntled. But surely there can be nothing worse than changing the result after the presentation ceremony? And in any case, without those two penalty laps that were applied to the MJC car, the race would have lost a good deal of its excitement.

Funny old business, isn’t it?