Impressions of Daytona - Sweet Sixteen?

For the second year running, there were sixteen caution periods during the Rolex 24 at Daytona. Despite an interruption that accounted for 1h 25m, during which time the race was actually stopped with the red flag, the time spent under full course caution this year was actually less than during the 2013 edition of the race.

Last year, you will remember, we had heavy fog in the early morning, which led to a full course caution of 1h 45m, so at the end of the race, the total time spent actually racing was seven-and-a-half minutes longer this year than last. With the cars stationery for around an hour while the rescue workers did their jobs following the Gidley/Malucelli incident, it was never going to be a record distance: in the end, the Corvette DP of Bourdais/Fittipaldi/Barbosa completed 695 laps, fourteen fewer than in 2013.

By the way, for the purposes of timing the race, I am assuming that the time spent stopped was actually part of the full course caution: but the “lap time” for the stoppage lap was just over an hour.

Had the cars been running behind the safety car for that period, they would certainly have been able to complete more laps than in 2013; but they weren’t, so they didn’t. In the end, the race distance (695 laps) was the same as in 2008, when there were 22 caution periods for 122 non-racing laps. I always struggle to count the number of laps under caution, what with wave-bys and what-not, but by my reckoning, the race winner passed the start/finish line 95 times while the yellows were waving.

I’ll confess here to not having followed the race itself very closely, as I had no professional involvement this year and too many other things to do at home on the domestic front. But from what I did see, it didn’t feel to have much of the American Le Mans Series about it and it did feel to have a lot of Grand-Am about it. I’m not really surprised by that, of course, as the United SportsCar Championship has clearly been a takeover rather than a merger, despite all assurances to the contrary.

From the data that has been forthcoming from the timekeepers, though, I have managed to extract the total time spent in the pits for the first three finishers, and it looks like this:

No.	Car	No. of stops	Total Time in Pit Lane
5	Action Express Millenium	29	36m 59.915s
10	Velocity Wayne Taylor	30	40m 29.334s
9	Action Express	29	38m 23.274s

Note that, as regular readers will be aware, the time spent in the pit lane includes the time taken driving down the pit lane, and the pit exit point at Daytona is just round turn 1. By my calculation, the time taken for this without stopping is around 49s, at the mandatory speed limit of 60kph, so the actual time spent working on all three of these cars indicates the high reliability factor of the Corvette DP.

It is worth making the point that time lost in the pits during the Daytona 24 hours is not as significant as at other endurance races, though, since so much time can be recovered under the caution periods. Speed on the track (particularly in the last eight minutes), is all-important.

No analysis from me would be complete without looking at average lap times; even though a hard-earned few seconds gained on the track can be wiped out by someone else's front bumper lying on the track and causing another full course caution. Let's look at the fastest 100 laps of each of the top three finishers:

No.	Car	Average Lap Time
5	Action Express Millenium	1m 40.485s
10	Velocity Wayne Taylor	1m 40.196s
9	Action Express	1m 40.981s

For comparison, the average lap time over the same distance by last year’s winners, the Chip Ganassi Riley-BMW, was 1m 41.996s - an indication of the changed regulations as much as of technical progress, I fear.

Interestingly, the average of the no. 6 Muscle Milk Oreca-Nissan for its best 100 laps was 1m 41.653s, so maybe the organisers' performance balancing of DP and P2 could have been fairer. We'll see at Sebring - where again I will have no professional interest, unless someone reading this has any bright ideas!

Long Distance Runners in Dubai

The Dunlop Dubai 24 hours was an enthralling affair, and it was delightful to see Stadler Motorsport taking the spoils of victory. I'll confess to a feeling of Schadenfreude when misfortune struck the big teams - not that there are works teams, but it is undoubtedly true that there is factory interest in the goings-on at several of the pit garages, and to see a truly private team triumph in those circumstances is never a bad thing... pour encourager les autres - to be rather polyglot.

I walked down the pit lane after the race, and found the Stadler Motorsport team celebrating their victory, and it was a joy to behold. The delight of the “little man” when he overcomes the odds and triumphs against the “big guy” is easy to understand, and – the vagaries of the Creventic regulations aside – it was hard to find anyone who didn’t enjoy seeing the Swiss team savouring their win. To say it was like a lottery win would be unfair: although luck played its part in the win, the car was, as Rolf Ineichen noted, dirty but unscathed – throughout the 24 hours it had had no contact with anything – neither the barriers nor another car. It may not have been the fastest, but all five drivers conscientiously stayed out of trouble.

In my dailysportscar article, I pointed out that the lion’s share of the driving was done by Rolf Ineichen and Christian Engelhart, and I thought that here might be a good place to develop that theme a little, by looking at the number of laps completed by each driver in the race. The top ten, in terms of number of laps driven, were as follows:

No.	Car	Driver	Laps	km	miles
38	Mercedes	Marc Basseng	249	1,344	834
20	Porsche	Rolf Ineichen	247	1,334	827
888	Ferrari	Jordan Grogor	219	1,182	733
38	Mercedes	Rob Huff	214	1,155	717
10	Lamborghini	Jeroen Mul	207	1,118	693
30	Ferrari	Jan Magnussen	205	1,107	687
9	Porsche	Emmanuel Collard	188	1,015	630
30	Ferrari	Matt Griffin	188	1,015	630
20	Porsche	Christian Engelhart	187	1,010	626
2	Mercedes	Adam Christodoulou	185	999	620

It is also interesting to note that 5 drivers did duty in two cars: the most notable of whom were probably Jeroen Bleekemolen and Khaled Al Qubaisi, who both drove both of the Black Falcon Mercedes-Benz SLS entries. Compared to the drivers above though, they were relative lightweights, completing just 163 and 134 laps respectively in total.

Javier Morcillo only just failed to break into the top ten above: he drove 52 laps in the no. 28 Team LNT Ginetta and 119 in the no. 127 KPM Golf, making a total of 171 laps altogether - more than nine hours measured in terms of time at the wheel. That is practically the same time that Basseng spent at the wheel, admittedly driving a lot faster, and covering around 200 miles further, but nevertheless a mighty effort. Interestingly, in a reciprocal agreement, Paul White did double-duty in the same two cars, but only did 66 laps in the Ginetta and 54 in the Golf.

For completeness, the other competitor who drove in two cars was Ralf Oeverhaus, who drove the no. 27 BMW Z4 for 128 laps and the no. 159 Bonk Motorsport BMW M3 for 34 laps.

All fascinating stuff, and if I weren't so busy doing other things, I might ramble on for longer.

I always welcome your comments and encouragement though, so please leave messages below!

World Endurance Championship - Season Review

I suppose I always knew when I started this blogging thing, that there might be times when nothing inspired me to write. I suppose I also knew that, as there is no money to be made from blogging, there might be times when my motivation to write anything was also reduced. There are also the other things in my life that occupy my time, such as my family, my day job, writing for dailysportscar and - hard though it may be to believe that I have any - other interests.

All of this has kept me from posting anything recently, and if you have been visiting and have been disappointed not to find anything, then I apologise, but hopefully the year ahead will be a year of change: and that might mean I get to write more; but it might equally mean that I don't.

Anyway, here we are in 2014, and it is almost too late now to look back on the year past, but I am keenly aware that, at some point during 2013, someone asked me about fuel consumption at different circuits, and I promised that I would write something on the subject.

I have now had a chance to crunch some numbers, and in the following table show the respective fuel consumption figures for each of the factory LMP1 cars in each race (figures shown are miles per gallon):

Race	No. 1 Audi	No. 2 Audi	No. 3 Audi	No. 7 Toyota	No. 8 Toyota
Silverstone	6.94	7.01		5.57	5.61
Spa	7.10	7.17	7.21	5.01*	5.74
Le Mans	7.82	8.01	8.19	6.70	6.68
Interlagos	7.50	7.77			4.00*
Austin	7.03	6.79			5.60
Shanghai	7.05	6.97		5.31	5.22*
Bahrain	6.91	6.51*		4.28*	5.06

For the purposes of the calculation, I have assumed that the car always started with a full tank of fuel (which is probably fair enough), and always finished with an empty tank (which is patently wrong, particularly in those cases - shown with an asterisk - where the car stopped before the end of the race).

Even so, and although it is an interesting exercise to mull over the fuel efficiency of Messrs McNish, Kristensen and Duval, or to ask what was different about the configuration of the no. 3 Audi at Le Mans, it is probably still misleading data, as it is the average fuel consumption for the whole race, including periods of slower running: for example, behind the safety car. So questions about the actual consumption of the cars are not answered.

So what I have done in the table below is to take a single stint and calculate the fuel consumption for that stint, based on the distance covered in the stint and the amount of fuel put in the car at the end of the stint. I have, as far as possible, chosen stints that were unaffected by Safety Cars or by adverse weather, and also chosen only a 'full stint', where the car was refuelled to within 90% of its total capacity. Within those constraints, I have then chosen the fastest stint as given by the average speed achieved during the stint. What is interesting is that it is not that much different.

Race	No. 1 Audi	No. 2 Audi	No. 3 Audi	No. 7 Toyota	No. 8 Toyota
Silverstone	6.95	7.12		5.60	5.68
Spa	7.23	7.37	7.28	6.13	5.83
Le Mans	7.14	7.28	7.37	6.32	6.28
Interlagos	7.30	7.59
Austin	7.17	6.93			5.95
Shanghai	7.14	7.26		5.48	5.64
Bahrain	7.00	7.16		5.23	5.26

So what does it all mean? Well, I like to think that you, my dear readers, are a fairly intelligent lot, so to a large extent you can work it out for yourselves. Remember that these are miles per gallon figures, so the higher the number, the better the consumption (although it is interesting to compare these numbers to those that we get in our road cars. Maybe I shouldn't complain so much about the 23 mpg that I get!) To me, it seems that the teams are setting themselves a fuel consumption target, and are going as fast as they can on that amount of fuel.

Certainly, looking at the Audi figures, and recalling that they ran in both long and short tail form during the year, the variation in consumption is just 10%, whereas the average speed variation is over 25%.

Also, it is clear that a lot of fuel can be saved behind the safety car (or in the wet), as at Le Mans - although, if you look more closely, notice that Audi's race-long fuel consumption average was 11% better than its single stint average (calculated for the most economical car, the no. 3), whereas Toyota (no. 7) was only 6% better.

At Toyota, it seems that their improved competitiveness in the later season races came at the cost of worse fuel consumption, which matches what you might expect - going faster means using more fuel.

And finally, the higher altitude of Sao Paulo seems to help the fuel consumption - the calculation no doubt goes that less air into the engine means that less fuel is also required for the same amount of energy.

I have to admit that this exercise was less illuminating than I had hoped - like a lot of research, it is interesting but not earth-shattering. I hope it was worth it nevertheless. And I hope that 2014 is a good year for you all too!

Thoughts on the Asian Le Mans Series

Readers of www.dailysportscar.com will, I hope, have read my race report from the final round of the 2013 Asian Le Mans Series at Sepang, Malaysia. It was a trip organised very much at the last minute, thanks to the ACO and its partners, Total and Michelin. And it was a very short trip: my outbound flight left Heathrow late on Friday night, and I was back home early enough on Monday morning to see my children off to school.

In all, I spent a little over 24 hours in Malaysia, and a total of 10 hours at the Sepang track itself. But it was a most enjoyable trip; one which I was glad I had made, but one which by its very nature revealed the lengths to which the ACO is willing to go to promote its Asian Le Mans Series.

I spent some time talking to Mark Thomas, the man who is in charge, and you can read that interview here. But despite the upbeat nature of it all, the Le Mans Series races that have been held thus far cannot really be regarded as unqualified successes.

The first race which carried the title of an Asian Le Mans Series race was at Okayama in Japan in November 2009 - two 500km races held back to back, which was supposed to be followed by a further ‘double 500’ at Shanghai in China. A 23-car grid took the start in Japan, which was, by the standards of the time, somewhat disappointing, and the Chinese race was cancelled.

In 2010, the ACO contracted Mark Thomas’s S2M Group to take charge of sales and marketing in Asia, and ILMC races at Zhuhai in China were organised in 2010 and 2011. Renewed efforts were made, and a six-round Asian Le Mans Series for 2013 was announced last year, which planned to visit China, Japan, South Korea and Indonesia. In the end, of course, only four of those took place, with the final round at Sepang, in Malaysia, in a season of uncertainty and small grids.

What has become clear to me, though, in the last fortnight since my interest in the Asian Le Mans Series has been piqued, is the size of the prize. Or at least the perceived size of the prize. A conversation over dinner when I arrived in KL on Saturday night revealed how big the market place in Asia is to companies like Total and Michelin, and how badly they want to get a part of the economic growth of the Asian region.

For the ACO, their Endurance Racing pyramid is underpinned by continental Le Mans Series in Europe, America and Asia. Even if the American Le Mans Series name no longer exists, endurance racing of one form or another seems set to continue in the US, and the ACO will ensure that it maintains the transatlantic links originally forged by Don Panoz. In Europe, there are strong national championships, and a tradition of long-distance racing.

But Asia has been, as the ACO is all too aware, a tough nut to crack. The biggest problem is the nature of the beast itself. To the uneducated and simplistic western eye, Asia is a different culture; sure, but it is the sum of many disparate cultures. If one excludes Australia and New Zealand (which is fair enough, for that belongs to Australasia, in my mind, but then the AsLMS compromises itself by allowing drivers from the Antipodes to count as Asian, in terms of their rules concerning crew composition), one still needs to consider whether India, Russia and the Middle East should count as being within the continent, and therefore on a full Asian calendar.

At the moment, the brief is clear: the footprint is restricted to Japan and South-eastern Asia. But even within that zone, there are logistical, cultural and political obstacles to overcome. As Mark Thomas noted, there is no other pan-Asian sporting series, even on the scale of the Asian Le Mans Series; and if that is the case, one wonders why not, when the countries of the area clearly have a sporting heritage, as shown by their Olympic successes.

The answer, in my view, lies in the fact that the constituent parts of Asia do not necessarily have an ‘Asian Identity’. In much the same way, Italians, Germans and Spanish (to take but three) may be part of Europe, but they do not regard themselves as being European. For a Japanese or Chinese team to pack up and travel to, say Sepang, they might as well go the whole hog and go to somewhere with real heritage, such as Sebring or Spa.

But what is also clear, is that this is a complex situation. It may well be the case that there is more money available in Asia for business in general, and racing teams and sponsors in particular, to go after. Just look at the brand visibility of names like Petronas. Traditionalists like myself may drone on about motor-racing heartlands and the heritage of the sport, but the future doesn't belong to us; it belongs to those with vision and an entrepreneurial spirit.

I am put in mind of the so-called Serenity Prayer that can be found on tea-towels in cheap tourist shops: “Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference,” it goes.

It may be trite, but it is a prayer that many of those involved in the Asian Le Mans Series could well offer to their respective deities. The ACO is only a club, remember, not a multinational business. Its prized possession is the 24 hours of Le Mans. To build a structure that promotes and supports this pearl of great price is a worthy ambition, but it is that event itself that needs the focus. Its survival and prosperity are not dependent on the Asian Le Mans Series. My biggest concern, on returning from Malaysia, is that there doesn’t seem to be an exit plan.

Wirth Research

Nick Wirth is a very clever man. And as the owner of Wirth Research, whose Bicester premises I recently was able to visit, he can be proud of an establishment unique in the world of motor-sporting endeavour. The curious thing is, that nowhere on either of the two sites we visited, were there any cars. Nor even any pictures of cars (well hardly any). Just the odd Le Mans trophy perched on the edge of a coffee table in the board room – the casual visitor would be unsure what kind of ‘research’ Wirth was involved with – until one came to the Indycar-based simulator, which was undoubtedly the main attraction of the visit; and of which more anon.

The subtitle on the company logo is “Development in the Digital Domain” and after a while of talking to Wirth, you understand how his philosophy runs through everything he does. Nick Wirth himself has been involved in the world of motor sport for most of his working life, starting his career as an aerodynamicist at March, and founding the Simtek Formula 1 team in 1993. From 1996 until 1999 he worked as Chief Designer at the Benetton F1 team, but then branched out to found RoboScience, where he created the RS-01 – the world’s largest and most advanced commercial, legged robot.

Wirth Research came into being just ten years ago, initially to provide technical support not only in the Formula 1 arena but also to manufacturers and independent teams in other motor sport disciplines. Wirth is clearly a visionary, but like most intelligent people, is able to see the patently obvious when others seem myopic.

Wirth has a telling motto, which encompasses all the undertakings of his company. It is a sublime case of, not to put too fine a point on it, stating the bleedin' obvious, but I would nevertheless advise you to mull it over a couple of times before reading on:

“To develop the performance of a product substantially beyond the level at which a manufacturer has supplied it 

requires 

the application of technologies substantially more advanced than those used to design it.”

The first successes for Wirth Research were not slow in coming. Undertaking chassis development for the Honda Performance Development arm of Honda in the USA, he helped Honda to win the 2004 and 2005 IRL driver’s championships, as well as the Indianapolis 500 in 2004 and 2005.

Interestingly, Wirth relates that Honda’s focus was not Indy, however. Nor was it the IRL championship. It was to win at Motegi. For Honda, a win at Motegi was that important. Wirth believes, with the benefit of hindsight, that Honda was too successful at Indycars. “Everyone needs to have their day in the sun,” he says, “and even if we were doing a better job than anyone else, it damaged the reputation of the series that we were so dominant.”

However, the reputation of Wirth Research was only enhanced, as far as Honda was concerned, and after some encouragement from Wirth himself, they commissioned the build of an LMP2 sportscar, using the upmarket US Honda brand name of Acura to compete in the 2007 American Le Mans Series. An indication that Nick and his team knew what they were doing was the fact that the Acura ARX-01a won its class first time out in the 12 hours of Sebring.

For 2009, Wirth Research moved up to the LMP1 class with the ARX02-a, and amazingly took pole position on its debut at Sebring, against the might of the works Peugeot and Audi teams. The car was the first LMP1 car to make use of the large front wheels (although Audi and Peugeot later had the benefit of bespoke tyres on the front wheels – the Acura had to make do with using rear tyres on the front). It also pioneered the ‘swan’s neck’ rear wing mounting – another design feature of which Nick is justifiably proud. Eight outright wins came the way of the HPD (now no longer called an Acura), on the way to the 2009 ALMS title.

In 2010, the lure of Formula 1 called Wirth again, and having won a slot on the F1 entry list, intended to build a ‘cost-capped’ car for the World Championship. The Virgin Racing VR-01 was designed entirely using ‘virtual engineering technology’, CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics), and in many ways was the epitome of what Wirth Research, and Nick in particular sees as the perfect way to design a car.

“No parts ever get produced, no wind tunnel testing is necessary, we develop the whole thing using software,” he says. “We do aero work using a virtual wind tunnel - that way you don't need to create a model of the car first.” What he doesn’t say explicitly, but one can tell that the fact grieves him, is that it wouldn’t be possible, under the current F1 regulations to spend as much on CFD and computer simulation as Wirth Research currently does in the production of the ARX series of sports-prototypes.

The piece de resistance of the visit, and to some extent the final piece in the jigsaw of the virtual development environment, is the aforementioned simulator. This means that a driver can drive the car on the race-track, before the car is even built! A great deal of work has gone into the development of the tyre simulation – an area of technology that many similar simulators cannot deal with. MuriTyre (Multi-ribbed Tyre) simulates the performance of the tyre across its entire tread width, enabling the driver to experience, in the simulator, the behaviour of different tyre compounds.

The simulator, can, of course, be set up to ‘be’ a different car as required – the configuration that I tried was an LMP2 HPD, on the Mid Ohio circuit. Jonny Kane was on hand to provide coaching, guidance and general information. He didn’t provide the details, but he did let slip that the simulator could be configured to provide different levels of grip depending which part of the circuit you were on – enabling the driver to be on a ‘drying track’ for example. The grass was also, he said, just about as grippy as the track, so minor offs were easier to control. Hitting the wall at 100mph, though, as I did, meant the use of the only non-standard button on the steering wheel – a white reset button: but at least there was no expensive bill to pay or visit to the hospital to make.

Setting up information for a new track is painstaking, but glorious in the detail to which Wirth Research goes. There is a team of surveyors that hire the track for, on average two days, and they go around with laser imaging cameras to record every detail of the surroundings, the track layout, fences, trees and so on. The track surface itself is laser-scanned, so that different grip characteristics of different surfaces can be modelled, along with detailed analysis of the kerbs, so drivers know where they can use the extremities of the track.

Unfortunately, I have never been to Mid Ohio, nor have I ever driven anything remotely similar to an LMP2 car, so my evaluation of whether it was a good simulation of the real thing is not really relevant. It was, though, a great deal of fun: I had Jonny’s calm voice in the ear patiently telling me that I needed to shift down, and my ten minutes at the wheel, were, he said very consistent. Consistently slow, I said; and he was too kind to agree, but we were able to look at data traces to see where I was earlier on the brakes and later on the throttle than he was.

Given more time, I’m sure I could have improved, but the aim of the exercise was not to turn me into a racing driver, rather it was to show me Wirth’s capabilities, of which we barely scratched the surface.

Another notable development is Emersio, which is a head-mounted display, enabling the wearer to view and interact with objects in the room (or pit garage) with you. A simple example would be to illustrate the pick-up points for removing the nose-cone. Like many of Wirth Research’s innovations, this is not something that is specifically geared to motor racing. It would be entirely feasible for Emersio to be used for dismantling a washing machine, or constructing flat-pack furniture.

And this is why Wirth Research is such an exciting place right now, as it branches into architecture, transport and some very hush-hush stuff for Lockheed Martin for the US military. You come away, quite frankly, reeling from it all, and yet you know that Nick Wirth has let you see only a tiny bit of what is going on in his head.

In terms of motor-racing, he is committed to sportscar racing work, and it would seem that Honda is committed to Wirth. It would be easy to put two and two together, which is not what we were invited to Wirth Research to do; however, anything that involves a chassis with a Honda badge in sportscar racing in the next year or two will be worth watching. Whether it is the United Sportscar Championship in the USA, or the World Endurance Championship, you can be sure that Nick Wirth and his team have a winning reputation to build on.

Bahrain Preview - All about the tyres…

Having been caught out with my predictions recently, I decided that it would be best to wait until qualifying was done and dusted before trying to suggest how the final round of the 2013 World Endurance Championship would pan out.

With the LMP1 titles just about sorted out, we’re into the realms of a “stand-alone” race again in Bahrain – focus for both Audi and Toyota is now firmly on the 2014 development projects and an end-of-term feeling pervades the operational teams from both camps now.

It is clear that most, if not all, of the performance advantage that Audi enjoyed in the first five rounds of the championship has now been eroded by developments at Toyota. From what we’ve seen thus far in Bahrain, lap times have improved by around four seconds since last year’s race: I suspect that hybrid control system developments, rather than improvements in the hybrid motors themselves, are responsible.

But as Toyota and Audi have come closer together in lap times, so their respective fuel ranges have also converged. In Shanghai, Toyota could manage only one lap more on its 76-litre tank of petrol than Audi could on its 58-litre tank of diesel. My projection is showing that we’ll be getting 24 lap stints from Audi, and 26 laps from Toyota in Bahrain. The two-lap difference (on what is only a marginally shorter circuit) is purely due to the lap length suiting Toyota slightly better than Shanghai did.

In any event, if the race average lap times are between 1m 44s and 1m 45s, as I expect, then Audi will again be facing an 8-stop strategy, unless there is a safety car period, whereas Toyota will be able to run on 7 pit stops.

So Audi is going to have to be clever – or lucky – to win this one. But it seemed that way in Shanghai, and look what happened there. It could come down to tyres. If Audi can double-stint the Michelin rubber, then it will spend less time in the pits, and could win the race that way. The drop in temperature over the six hours will be significant, and that could mean that, even if the first stops are for fuel and tyres, the tyres will probably last longer in the later stints, and it could then swing in favour of Audi towards the end of the race. Traditionally, Audi sets up its cars to be fast at the end of endurance races, rather than the start – so no-one should be surprised to see ever-improving pace as the race goes on.

Toyota may have had the upper hand thus far in Bahrain, but they will have to fight for the outright win. And they will have to fight harder as the race evolves, I reckon. Just because the race seems to be going Toyota’s way in the early stages, don’t go away and do something else, as you’ll be sure to miss something!

In any case, the GTE class race looks like being a corker. I think it will be a question of making the fuel last as long as possible in each stint to enable the final ‘splash and dash’ stop to be as short as possible – I don’t think that four stops will be possible, but (as I have discussed before) it will require a stint of 1 hour 11 minutes to make it achievable. Of course, the safety car could make that calculation academic, but it looks like Aston, Porsche and Ferrari will be nose-to-tail throughout – with the fuel consumption of the re-vamped Porsche the big unknown!

The Importance of Drivers

Historically, endurance racing in general and the Le Mans 24 hour race in particular, have been less about drivers and more about the manufacturers of their cars. Traditionally, it has been the car that matters, not who drives it. Acquaintances of mine who have been to only one or two endurance races will remember that a Jaguar or a Porsche – or more latterly, an Audi – won the race but are rarely able to recall (if indeed they paid sufficient attention to have even noticed in the first place) who the drivers were.

Although Formula 1 has its Manufacturer’s Championship, and although car manufacturers spend vast amounts of money, not only on engine development but also on the promotion of their brand through Formula 1, it has always struck me that it is the arena of Sports Car Racing that provides the better shop window for car brands to market their wares.

As one reflects on the first decade of this century, it is easy, with a little thought, to recall which ‘R’ of Audi won at Le Mans: three wins for the R8, then the Bentley win, followed by two more R8 wins, then three for the R10 diesel, before the Peugeot finally got a look-in, in 2009. But, if you’re anything like me, you’ll struggle to remember which races were won by Pirro and which Biela. (Actually, that’s a trick one, because they always won together!)

The point is, though, that it is the winning car that leaves the impression, and if it has its act together, then it is the manufacturer of that car that puts the full page advertisements in the national papers on the Monday after the race. But, as one who often is one of the last to step onto a new bandwagon, I do believe that we are now in an era when drivers count more in endurance racing than ever they did in the past.

The funny thing is that it is a phenomenon that has come to pass in all classes of endurance racing. Not just in LMP1, but also P2 – and especially in the GT classes. And it has come to pass in the marathon sprint that Le Mans represents these days just as much as the six-hour sprints that constitute the greater part of the World Endurance Championship.

I have reflected before on these pages about the way things change; particularly in the culture and conduct of the sport, and I find myself once again putting on the nostalgia hat. I am not – indeed I would like to think that I am not generally – suggesting that the past was so much better and that “fings ain’t wot they used to be”. No, instead I wish to draw attention to the change as it is happening, and be aware that living in the past is for dinosaurs.

As I have already suggested, though, this is a change that has already happened. We live now in an era of endurance racing where the driver has a very real role to play, and make-weights cannot be tolerated. To keep your car in with a chance of a podium place in whatever class it is competing, it can no longer be driven by a good, consistent journeyman. It has to be driven with verve, spirit, daring and skill. You have to, in a well-worn phrase much beloved by race engineers everywhere, “push without risk”. This requires high levels of concentration and ability, not found in every aspiring racing driver.

These days, therefore, there is a much greater dependency on the drivers that you choose when you are selecting your crew for a top prototype or GT car. And the World Endurance Drivers’ Championship is surely a title worthy of high acclaim. One small error in today’s endurance races rarely goes unpunished, and ‘fault-free’ is generally insufficient to win unless it is also ‘flat-out’. Gone are the days when anyone other than a truly top driver will get onto the top step of the podium.

The trouble is, of course, that the World Endurance Championship and particularly the Le Mans 24 hours, is dependent on wealthy enthusiasts, on drivers for whom the word ‘amateur’ is perhaps inappropriate, but who nevertheless do not make a living from racing and therefore cannot really be counted as professionals. And if they are not going to get their reward, then there is a danger that they will go elsewhere and do something else where good teamwork, clever organisation and raw competitiveness can beat young, talented professionals.

Except that they don’t. The World Endurance Committee of the FIA (or is it the ACO?) have thought of that and have implemented a system of driver classifications: Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze. Having classified everyone, they have then stipulated that to run in the LMP2 class, you have to have a driver who is classified Bronze or Silver in the driving crew. Similarly, in GTE-Am, the driving crew must (now) consist of at least two Bronze or Silver drivers.

On top of this, the rules then demand that to score world championship points, each driver must drive at least 1h 45m in a six hour race for the GTE-Am class, and 1h 15m in LMP2. In effect, this means that the least-able driver must drive for more than the distance that the car will go on one tank of fuel.

So what does this all mean? For the moment, all is well in the world. You have two strong professional-only classes in the World Endurance Championship, populated with a string of ex-formula 1 drivers and experienced and well-established ‘names’ in the sportscar racing world. Then, to fill up the grids, there are two classes for fully-privateer entrants with rules specifically tailored to ensure that the classes are attractive to wealthy amateurs and other non-professional drivers. A broad mix of manufacturers involved on a number of different levels is testament to its success (although an additional P2 engine manufacturer would not go amiss).

But most importantly of all, you have a meritocracy. A category where stars can shine and chumps have no place to hide. The trouble is that all good things have a tendency to come to an end. The challenge for those in charge is to preserve the good in the WEC as we move on into a possibly different-looking future.

As always, your comments are very welcome: let me know what you think below!