Handicapping

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Visit Belgium. Race. Eat. Repeat.

My last post described the busy weeks I spent traversing Europe in June, and since then I have been equally busy in July and the early part of August, spending three weekends out of five driving to and from races in Belgium. Unusually, none of these trips was to commentate – instead I was asked by three different teams to ply my trade in the pit garage, helping (in various ways) with strategy matters.

It always amazes me how many times the same faces show up at each event – drivers, engineers, technicians – I wonder how many spectators actually visit them all?

Anyway, it started with an arrangement that had been made back in February to assist DRM Motorsport at the VW FunCup 25-hour race at Spa-Francorchamps. Readers may not be aware (indeed, I wasn’t) that DRM is a pretty major player in the European VW Fun Cup, and somehow, Team Principal Matthieu de Robiano put together an ambitious plan to run twelve cars in the 2019 edition of the “longest race in Europe”.

As can be imagined, the crew to run such an enterprise is extensive: mechanics, race engineers, tyre technicians, physiotherapists and catering staff. I don’t know exactly how many people were there for the team, but just consider that we had more than fifty drivers to cater for, and most of them had at least one (usually several more) family members along as well.

We were assigned four adjoining garages in the F1 pit lane: three garages for the cars (four in each); the fourth as a lounge/seating/spectating area for team VIPs and guests. Another factor to be considered was the “Bi-place” (i.e. two-seater) car, which, unlike the normal Fun Cup car, with its central seat position, was fitted with a full-sized passenger seat. Two championship points were awarded for each passenger that was carried during the course of the race (and you weren’t allowed to count the same passenger twice, you had to find a different victim each time).

The rules for the two-seater demanded that thirty timed pit-stops be made during the 25 hours, and so of course we changed the passenger at each pit stop. But that meant as well having thirty-one passengers (in addition to the fifty drivers) lined up, suited and booted, at the right time and in the right place. All things considered, we did quite well – I thought – to get thirty of them into the car, and a second-in-class result (as well as top points at the six and twelve-hour points in the race).

The one exception was a gentleman whose girth hadn’t been properly checked beforehand, and despite the team’s best efforts, he couldn’t be squeezed into the seat alongside its driver. Two championship points lost, but still we came out of the weekend leading the Bi-place standings.

The other eleven DRM Motorsport cars were single-seat “EVO 3” cars, which in some ways were more straightforward to run. There was no restriction on pit stops – the strategy was merely to go as far on each stint as the fuel would allow. No problem there, except that the Fun Cup car has no fuel gauge, nor telemetry to tell you how much fuel is being used. So it has to be done based purely on consumption calculations. Refuelling took place at the circuit’s Total fuel station in the paddock, and every visit to the fuel station had to be at least five minutes, regardless of how much fuel went in. Driver changes (in front of the pit box) had to be done as quickly as possible, and the whole race could be completed on two sets of tyres, so tyre changes were something of a rarity, thankfully.

Radio communication with the driver was allowed, but the coverage was rather patchy, which meant a couple of rather close calls on those occasions when the driver failed to hear the instruction to stop. There were also some challenging language issues on occasions. Each of the 12 cars had its own race engineer, who were from France, Belgium, Germany, Poland, England and any other country I might have missed. We had one car crewed entirely by Mexicans, another was an all-Chilean team, and other cars had other mixtures of both language and culture. Adam Christodoulou was a late call-up to replace an indisposed Wolfgang Reip in one car, while Nico Verdonck and Maxime Martin shared the driving of another car.

In the end, some lucky safety car breaks meant that our best-placed car finished fourth overall (just 13s off a podium place). Even though we didn’t manage to bring home any silverware for the overall positions, the team managed to get all twelve cars across the line and classified at the end of the race.

Less than a fortnight later, I was back at Spa, for the Blancpain Endurance Series 24-hour race. This time, I was working with Barwell Motorsport, who were running a Silver Cup class Lamborghini Huracan EVO for James Pull, Jordan Witt and Sandy Mitchell, and an identical car in the AM class for Adrain Amstutz, Leo Machitski, Patrick Kujala and Richard Abra.

I suppose it was inevitable, given the much higher profile of the Spa 24 hours, that this would be an altogether more intense experience that the Fun Cup. My role with Barwell was described as ‘strategy support’, which meant that the race engineers for both the no. 77 (AM) and the no. 78 (Silver) cars would decide what to do with pit stop calls, etc., but that I would be on hand to help out if things were not clear-cut. The trick with such things though, is to work out before the race what the best course of action will be in each scenario. It is better to be prepared for every eventuality, rather than having to decide ‘on the fly’ what to do under a certain set of circumstances.

As a result, a lot of time was spent, leading up to the race, looking at “what to do when”-type of questions. It was time well-spent though, because, come the race, most of the decisions had already been made, so it was just a matter of execution. Except that the rain became so bad just after half-distance that the race had to be stopped.

For a long time, it wasn’t at all clear how long the stoppage was going to be. The rain certainly eased off from time to time, but most forecasts suggested that more rain was on the way, although most agreed that the Sunday afternoon would be dry – at least drier. So, for the AM car, we spent a lot of time drawing up potential driving schedules to get us to the end of the race. But as each hour went past, it was an hour that we didn’t have to put a driver in the car for, and thus provided some more driving time for the faster drivers, whose time at the wheel was limited to six hours.

Things were simpler for the Silver Cup car, whose three drivers were able, more or less, to return the same lap times, so it was not so much of an issue – they would just cycle through in the normal order.

Finally, the race got underway again at 11:30am, leaving five hours’ racing to go. Sandy Mitchell, in the no. 78 Silver car revelled in the conditions, and asserted the cars’ position at the top of the class standings. Things were not as good for the AM car, in which neither of the AM drivers really enjoyed driving the car in the damp conditions. It was a typical Spa case of the track not really being dry enough for slick tyres, and although both Richard Abra and Patrick Kujala were able to get the best out of the Lamborghini, they ran out of drive-time, and our two AM drivers were not able to match the pace of the Rinaldi Racing Ferrari.

Second in class, and enough championship points (following a top score at the six and twelve hour intervals) to ensure that the AM drivers’ championship was won, along with a class win in the Silver Cup Class meant that there was a good deal of SRO silverware to be collected up from the podium. The celebratory curry for the whole team after the race was well-deserved.

It was a rather strange set of circumstances that led to me be asked again to Belgium for yet another 24-hour race two weeks later – this time for the Zolder 24-hours. I had been asked to the race to demonstrate the HH Timing software to Belgium Racing, a multiple winner of the race, but who would have to struggle this year with their GT class Porsche against a host of CN-class Norma prototypes. A second team, Redant Racing, were sharing the technology with Belgium Racing, so I ended up demonstrating the software to both teams.

Now, although HH Timing is strategy software, it will not make the strategy decisions for you. It merely gives you the tools to make those decisions yourself. So, come the race, it ended up coming back to me to decide whether or not to pit, particularly when Full Course Yellow or Safety Car periods came into play.

Inevitably, such decisions often involve an element of risk, and on top of that, all the clever strategy in the world cannot help you deal with things like brake wear – in the end we needed two changes of disks and pads. The pit crew were amazing, completing the second change in under two minutes. The driving crew of Louis Machiels, Dylan Derdaele, Nicolas Saelens, Marc Goossens and Lars Kern kept up a great pace, (particularly the latter two), and we managed to bring the car home in second place overall (and class winners) behind a Norma that was three seconds a lap quicker, took 40 litres less fuel at each stop and could double-stint its tyres.

At the end of the race, as I made my way back through the paddock to my car, I met Lars Kern as he returned from the podium celebration. “I’m not sure whether to be pleased with the class win, or disappointed that we only finished second,” I said. “I thought we could have won.”

“You have to be disappointed,” was his reply. “Always you have to try to win… and I have never won a 24-hour race!” Having experienced – and, I would like to think, contributed to – a fourth and a second place overall, had two class wins and two class podiums in the three races, I know what he means. Winning is important. And although I am not likely to give up commentary any time soon, nor am I going to give up getting involved with teams and trying to share in that winning feeling.

Two weeks touring Europe

I have spent a lot of time, over the years, using this blog to analyse race data, and I have spent quite a bit of time in the last few weeks looking at the details from both the Le Mans 24-hour race and the Nürburgring 24-hours. As all of that will appear in good time in either Sport Auto (in German) or in RaceCar Engineering, I thought it might be fun to use the chance of a weekend off to reflect on two weeks’ away from home in June.

In a sense, it all started at the end of May, because Barwell Motorsport had invited me to join their team at Paul Ricard for the 1000kms Blancpain Endurance race. In fact this was not a 1000kms race at all, but a timed race over 6 hours, starting at 6pm and finishing when the leading car crossed the line after 6 hours of racing, but by a happy coincidence, the distance completed by the winning car – at just after midnight – was 1,015.69km, so the race was by no means ill-named.

I flew back from Paul Ricard on the Sunday morning, and headed home to fire up the computers and check on progress at the Le Mans Test Day, which was in full flow when I arrived home at 2pm. Thanks to the ever-helpful guys at Al Kamel, I was able to get a full data feed for the Test Day (which included loading the data for the morning session that I had missed as I drove back from Gatwick).

This enabled me to contribute (meaningfully, I hope) to the RadioLeMans broadcast of the Test Day – both on the internet and on FM at the circuit, helping Jonny Palmer and Joe Bradley out with some numbers to which they did not have access at the circuit.

A couple of days catching up at home, including a visit to old friend Malcolm Cracknell at his Sussex home, were followed by a trip to Silverstone the following Friday morning to work with Barwell again for the 3-hour British GT encounter. Their damaged Lamborghini from Paul Ricard was now fully restored and we were looking forward to the highlight event of the British GT season. Unfortunately, the two Barwell cars tried to occupy the same piece of tarmac on the opening lap, so all the clever strategy options were consigned to history before the race had really got underway.

My role at Barwell is to help with strategy and timekeeping, and it was disappointing (to me) that neither at Paul Ricard nor at Silverstone was the team able to deliver the result of which it was capable. Even just planning the various strategy options requires an awful lot of preparation, but the intensity of working with a team is a huge challenge to me, compared to the work required to talk about a race on air for RadioLeMans.com.

It was my intention to broaden my horizons this year though, as readers may recall me writing in January, and Barwell has enabled me to do exactly that. However, no sooner than I had unpacked my bags from Silverstone, it was time to pack them again, as on the Tuesday after the Silverstone British GT race, Bruce Jones was arriving (at 7:30am!) to pick me up to set off on the journey to Le Mans 2019.

Aside from clothing, I always take far more than I actually need to Le Mans. I invested in a “Peli Storm” case a few years ago, and that very quickly gets filled with screens, cables, laptops and various other paraphernalia that I might just need during the race. It weighs a ton (actually 37kg, fully loaded) but I would far rather have the security of being able to configure things a little differently if I have to. In addition are my various folders, containing regulations, past results, useful facts and figures, which I like to have at hand rather than looking things up on the internet.

Fortunately, Bruce travels fairly light and the Jeep Renegade that we had for the trip swallowed up all my stuff easily.

We crossed the channel via the tunnel, and by early afternoon were headed across northern France on the péage. Our accommodation at Le Mans is in private houses – owned by friends or family of a lovely French couple that John and Eve met many years ago. On our arrival, we collect our passes and without fail there is a cold beer waiting – just what you need after nine or more hours travelling!

We arrived in good enough time to head on into the circuit and begin the set-up process. This year, it was complicated by a request from Nick Daman to provide an additional timing screen on his ‘studio-vision’ page. As I already mentioned, the guys at Al Kamel, who provide official time-keeping services for all WEC races, are extremely helpful, and thanks to them and the circuit’s IT staff, I have a direct link to the time-keepers’ booth in the ‘Module Sportif’. The issue then is to split this signal to Nick’s computer and to mine, in a way that enables both of us to show the details that we require.

In theory, it is all straightforward enough, but it always takes a lot longer than you’d think to set everything up, and make sure that the right screens have the right information on them. In the end, I left the booth at around 7pm and we headed off for a pizza, before getting an early night.

I never cease to be amazed at how time disappears at Le Mans – truly the place is the thief of time. I spent Wednesday morning finalising the set-up of ‘my’ little corner of our commentary booth, then we were on the air at 12 noon, and with the first free practice session at 4pm, there was very little time for anything else.

The Radio Le Mans crew had access to the Aston Martin hospitality suite for catering this year, and they were extremely accommodating to our rather hectic schedule. The first day’s qualifying session ended at midnight, and what with the queue to get out of the circuit, I didn’t get to bed until around 1:30am.

Thursday provided a little more time for sorting things out – chasing stories and getting organised. But with so much track activity for the support races, everything had to be done to the backdrop of a constant noise from the circuit. I remembered wistfully those days when I first visited Le Mans, when you could take a quiet tour up to Indianapolis or Mulsanne on Thursday morning and absorb some atmosphere. Nowadays, there’s always something going on, and never enough time to do anything properly.

It wasn’t until Friday that I got my first chance to look at the cars properly. Like everyone else, I took part in the pit lane ‘walkabout’, found people to talk to, and was very impressed with the high standards that are the norm of Le Mans preparation these days. In the evening, we went off to visit the Travel Destinations campsite at the Porsche Curves, and followed that with a session (including a very high-class barbecue) at their Flex-hotel. Much beer and even more talking!

On Saturday morning we were at the track at 8am, and didn’t leave until 7pm on Sunday. Immediately after the race, I have to uninstall all the computers (thanks to Bruce Jones, who always provides a willing pair of hands to help), then we go back to our hosts in Changé, who lay on a communal meal for us all. Patrick, our host, is a proper bon viveur and I love his careful selection of wines, which helps my mastery of French no end.

Monday morning after the race was a little different this year, as Bruce headed off in the Jeep back to the UK, and I had to rendez-vous with Jonny Palmer and Joe Bradley for the trip to the Nürburgring. Although we started off in convoy with John and Eve, en route we managed to get separated (I blame Palmer’s inattentiveness) and then found ourselves headed for the old Reims GP circuit.

The last time I had been there was in 1992, and since then a substantial renovation has taken place. Now it is looked after by a French equivalent of English Heritage, and it is full of character and echoes of the past. We spent a pleasant hour or so kicking up the past, before heading on to our hotel in the Vulkan Eifel, to the south of the Nürburgring.

In theory, Tuesday was a day of rest – and indeed Joe and Jonny spent much of the day asleep – but I had work to complete for Racecar Engineering, whose copy deadline was that evening, so most of my day was spent hunched over the laptop. On Wednesday, we headed into the circuit, picked up our passes, and deposited ourselves in the Aston Martin lounge, a corner of which was to serve as our commentary position for the event.

Since the Nürburgring 24 hours is timed by Wige, who are not so accommodating as Al Kamel, some jiggery-pokery was necessary to establish the links to the timekeeping system that I required, but everything necessary was in the Peli case, and it didn’t take too long to sort out a satisfactory set-up. That meant that I had the chance to go and wander around the pit lane before returning to help John with the “Midweek Motorsport” broadcast.

The first free practice session was on Thursday, as well as night practice, which went on until 11:30pm, but overall, the lead-up to the race seemed relaxed in comparison to Le Mans. Joe, Jonny and I had a lovely meal one evening in the village of Hohenleimbach; despite the presence of more than 100,000 spectators camping no more than 10km away, we were the only ones there, and the food was freshly prepared and delicious.

Friday was enlivened by the so-called “Top-Qualifying”, in which the fastest GT3 cars were given the chance to lap on a near-empty circuit, a race for the WTCR series, and the 3-hour “24h-Classic”, which is a feature for old-car buffs. On Saturday morning, there was a one-hour warm-up session at 09:10am for the 24-hours cars, which meant that there was no chance of a lie in – we were at the circuit for 8 o’clock, although to my shame I admit I ignored the two further WTCR races as I prepared for the 24 hours.

At the end of the race, Aston Martin hospitality (and a class win) meant that there was champagne, which made the packing of the Peli case a little more light-hearted, then there was merely the matter of lugging the whole kit and caboodle over to the media car park. It didn’t take long to get to sleep on Sunday night!

Winning from behind - a Timeout and "the Squeeze"

The last two weekends have both provided me with interesting opportunities to reflect on the vagaries of endurance racing. I spent the Easter weekend at Spa-Francorchamps for Creventic’s “12-hour” race: the sum of two parts of 3h 48m and 8h 48m meant it was only 11h 37m 32.882s in total, but in some ways that is not important.

Then, this last weekend I was at Silverstone for the Citroen C1 24-hour challenge, a remarkable race with 99 starters and which 11 different cars led overall at one point or another. What the two races had in common was that on both occasions the likely-looking winner was beaten in the closing stages by a faster car closing from behind. At Spa, the Herberth Porsche of Robert Renauer, Ralf Bohn and Daniel Alleman had been leading for most of the second part of the race, as the Scuderia Praha Ferrari of Matteo Malucelli, Josef Král and Jiří Písařík got the rough end of the “code-60 lottery” and fell back to be more than a minute and half behind with just under two hours to go.

With twenty minutes remaining, the gap was down to fifteen seconds, but Herberth had also managed to get themselves onto a slightly better fuel strategy, such that their final stop should have been around four seconds quicker. Even Matteo Malucelli wouldn’t have been able to close the gap in the remaining three laps. Or so we thought. The “tag” that is registered on the fuel pump had timed out while Ralf Bohn was trundling down the kilometre-long pit lane, and when the Herberth refuelling crew went to put the pump nozzle into the fuel filler on the Porsche’s bonnet, the pump did not provide any fuel. Resetting the pump was done quickly, but not quickly enough, and the stop was more than eight seconds longer than the stop for the Ferrari – the gap was gone and the lead changed.

At Silverstone, we had a classic example of what I call “The Squeeze” – where the leader is caught between a faster car closing the gap from behind and the end of the race that is just a little bit too far away.

The Circuit Pro team in car number 385, Simon Harrison, Patrick Watts and Tim Hartland had been in the lead of the race since around 7am, and had slowly drawn away from the rest of the field. By the time Tim Hartland took over at the wheel for his final stint, at 10:45am, there was a one-lap gap back to the number 321 Old Hat-entered car of Dan Bruce, Tony Hutchings, Callum Hutchings and James Keepin and two laps back to the very rapid number 347 McAttack entry of Joe Wiggin, Declan McDonnell and Simon Walker-Hansell.

The race had started at 5:30pm on Saturday, after a full day of BARC-organised racing – crucially, the green light had been shown at 17:31:29, so Hartland’s job was to be quick, stay out of trouble, and drive for 2h 10m. Tight, for a full tank of 35 litres fuel for a Citroen C1, but certainly feasible, bearing in mind that the car was under no pressure. That would give Patrick Watts and Simon Harrison similar length stints and allow the team to get to the end of the race with just two more stops.

All the competition would certainly need three more stops, meaning that the Circuit Pro team’s lead was all the more secure. Hartland duly brought the car back in at 1pm after a 43-lap stint, and Patrick Watts went back out with (one assumes) a full tank of fuel, a lap’s lead over the rest of the field, and a pit stop in hand. A safety car period just before 2pm gave Joe Wiggin in the McAttack car the chance to refuel cheaply, but of course that also gave Watts the chance to save fuel.

The turning point came when Patrick Watts brought the Circuit Pro car in for its final stop at 3:14pm after a stint of 39 laps – four laps less than Tim Hartland had done, and leaving Simon Harrison needing to stay out for 2h 15m to get to the end of the 24 hours. By the time Harrison had got away, the McAttack car had gone through into the lead, but had a pit stop still to make. Ten laps later, Joe Wiggin was in, to hand over to Simon Walker-Hansell.

For the McAttack team, the chase was now on: the gap at the end of Walker-Hansell’s first flying lap was 1m 54s, but he was lapping between one and two seconds per lap quicker. I would love to know the amount of information that the Circuit Pro team had at their disposal at this point – later this year, I am hoping to catch up with Simon Harrison, and he will probably be willing to discuss things, but for now this is mere speculation (or informed guesswork). Poor old Simon probably didn’t have much to go on from the driving seat either – team radio was banned, mobile phones not allowed: the only means of communication was via the pit board. I heard after the event that some teams had their car radio tuned into the commentary on Silverstone Radio, and apparently, it was helpful.

Anyway, from the comfort of the commentary box, I was able to simulate the progress of Simon Walker-Hansell in the McAttack car, and assuming an average lap time of 3m 03s, it seemed that he would get to the end of lap 405 at a race elapsed time of 24h 00m 29s

To win the race, therefore, Simon Harrison would have to complete 405 laps before 24h 00m 29s, but after 24h 00m, or have to go onto an extra lap. The extra lap would mean a stint of 44 laps. The car’s longest stint in dry conditions had been 43 laps. Circuit Pro’s dilemma: Pit to get more fuel? Or stay out and try to conserve fuel? Wait for a Safety Car? That could be disastrous, as it would likely as not cause the gap to close significantly.

Calculators out again: The time lost in pit lane at the speed limit of 40km/h: 40s. Driver out and in: 15s. They would probably only need two more litres of fuel; still that would take 15s. Total time lost: 1m 10s. So if Circuit Pro would have called Harrison in for the “splash and dash”, it would have reduced the gap from 1m 54s to around 45s at best. At that point in the race, assuming there were no Safety Cars (there weren’t), there were 30 laps remaining. With Harrison flat out, could Walker-Hansell close the gap at a rate of 1.5s per lap?

Looking at Harrison’s lap times, it is not easy to work out at whether he was trying to save fuel early in his stint. His first flying lap was lap 364, then laps 383, 390 and 395 were the car’s three fastest laps of the race – so it is clear from those that his main concern was speed. From lap 397 onwards, though, he hardly got within two seconds of his best lap. By this time, the gap back to Walker-Hansell was less than a minute, so Harrison’s options were limited. Actually, he had no option, he had to stay out. He was between a rock and a hard place. He didn’t have time to stop for fuel anymore, but he needed to stretch the fuel to do 44 laps in the stint. Or hope that Simon Walker-Hansell would just slow down a bit. He was feeling the Squeeze.

Rather than averaging 3m 03s, the McAttack car was doing 3m 02.2s – meaning that Walker-Hansell was on schedule to cross the line after 405 laps at 24h 00m 03s. If Circuit Pro was aware of that, the pit board would surely have been telling Harrison to push on. He appeared out of Luffield at the end of his 405th lap with 15s still on the clock. He slowed, expecting the chequered flag to be put out. The man holding the flag stood resolutely watching his stop-watch in one hand, the flag still furled in the other. Ten-nine-eight, the seconds were ticking down and Harrison accepted the inevitable and went onto another lap, despite it already being 17:31, according to his on-board clock. Did they know the race had started nearly 90s after the appointed time? Behind, Walker-Hansell had closed to within seven seconds of the leader, and crossed the line with 24h 00m 00.084s elapsed.

Lap 406, Simon Harrison’s C1 coughed as it exited Stowe, and Simon Walker-Hansell pounced. The car that had started at the very back of the grid, had then lost five minutes in the pits at the end of lap one, had managed to take the lead on the very last lap, and win by just 7.219s.

Who says endurance racing isn’t exciting?

A Day Out at Castle Combe

The Guild of Motoring Writers organised their annual Big Day Out recently – once again at the pretty, if unforgiving, Castle Combe circuit in Wiltshire. It is not every day that I get the chance to drive my road car on a race track, so I jumped at the opportunity to participate.

I had previously done this in my Audi S4, which has been my road car for nearly ten years now, but last October, I purchased an Abarth 124 Spider, and although I still have the Audi, the Abarth was the obvious choice to take to the track.

Its 1.4 litre four-cylinder turbo engine may ‘only’ have 170bhp, but it is such a well-balanced car to drive on normal roads that being able to unleash its full potential was something I was looking forward to. When it came to driving it on the circuit, I have to confess I was a little fearful, and did my braking much earlier and more gently than I needed to, and accelerated with caution. Nevertheless, it was a great deal of fun, and brought home to me the courage and precision demonstrated by proper racing drivers in real racing situations, to get the best from their cars.

The day was supported, as always, by a number of manufacturers. I have to admit that when I read the list of names, I was not particularly inspired. That said, it was great to catch up with Scott Brownlee, from Toyota, a long-time supporter of Radio Le Mans, and looking resplendent in his Toyota Hybrid Denso race jacket. The main support for the day came from Suzuki, with some additional cars being provided by Peugeot.

I had a go in the new Peugeot 508 GT, actually quite a good-looking car I thought, although I have never been a fan of the brand. The car is powered by a 1.6 litre four-cylinder turbo using petrol and provides a handy 225bhp. Its basic price is just over £36,000 and although relatively heavy, it provides a pleasant ride with adequate, but not startling, performance. The strangest thing for me was the instrument layout, with a rev counter that goes anti-clockwise. I found this most disconcerting. Surely analogue dials go clockwise to indicate increases?

In practically head-on competition was the offering from Toyota – or rather Lexus. This was the new ES 300h. At a price of £35,155 and featuring a normally-aspirated four-cylinder petrol engine of 2.5 litres, albeit aided by an electric motor, it gives 215 bhp, so which one to buy, if you’re in that particular market?

Comparing the numbers, the Peugeot gets to 60 mph over a second earlier than the Lexus, but will do 10 miles less on each gallon of fuel. As the tank of the Lexus is 10 litres less than on the Peugeot, this doesn’t mean you’ll go further on a tankful, but it does mean you’ll be spending £12 more each time you stop.

As I am not about to spend that kind of money on a new car, it is not a choice that concerns me in real terms. However, there is no doubt that I enjoyed driving the Lexus far more. Once I got out and started looking around it though, I am not sure that it is as pretty as the Peugeot. It is probably just me, but there is an element of an old Mark 3 Cortina about the Peugeot, which is quite appealing. The Lexus looks like, well a Lexus. All 21st century angles and edges.

My final drive of the day – apart from another ten-lap spin in the Abarth – was a trip in the latest Suzuki Swift Sport. If the Peugeot 508 GT reminded me of a Ford Cortina, then the Suzuki was a Mini Cooper S. Like the Abarth, the Suzuki is powered by a 1.4 litre turbo-charged engine, giving 138 bhp in a car that weighs just 975kg.

My Abarth has 170 bhp, and weighs in at 1135kg, but costs almost double, so the two cars are not really in the same market place. I don’t think it was quite as much fun as the Fiat 500 I drove a little while ago, but still, Suzuki has a car here that brings a smile to the face.

Thanks to all those who made the day possible, and as always, Jeff Bloxham for additional photos.

Mugello 12 hours - good stuff!

My first encounter with the Creventic organisation was back in 2012, when I was part of the Radio Show Limited team that covered the Dubai 24 hour race in the January of that year. Since then, I have visited 22 races in the “24h Series” and the Creventic Crew has never failed to provide exceedingly well for all our needs.

Last month, I packed my bags and headed off to Mugello – a circuit I had not visited before – nestling in the Tuscan hills about an hour’s drive south of Bologna. The drive is somewhat longer than that if you take the “scenic route”, which, unwittingly, I did on the way there. It may not have been a deliberate choice, but nevertheless it was a good one, for the views are stunning as the autostrada crosses one viaduct after another between numerous plunges into spectacular tunnels.

Once at the circuit, the paddock was a very happy place to be. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. The circuit weaves its way in and out of a couple of neighbouring valleys, providing plenty of challenging, undulating corners and many blind brows. Creventic provided a circuit map with all the corner names on – rather than just an outline showing the locations of “Turns 1 to 15”.

There were 58 cars on the provisional entry list, and it looked like nearly all of them would take part. That’s not always the case with Creventic entry lists, but in the end 55 cars took the start, split into 20 cars in the “Touring Car Endurance” (TCE) division and 35 in the GT section.

Despite having seen so many Creventic races, this was the first ‘proper’ two-part 12 hour race that I’d been to. The only other contender for that honour was the rather unusual 2018 Silverstone GT race, which was also a two-part, 12-hour race, but with the second part running concurrently with the first 7 hours of the TCE 24-hour race.

When I was young, two part races were not unknown, but they would generally be ‘aggregate’ races. In other words, the result would be calculated by adding the results from each part together, with the winner being the one who had completed the most laps in the shortest time. That might mean that the car taking the chequered flag first after the second part might not be the winner, and it might mean a bit of a delay while the time-keepers did their sums, but to my mind there is a certain purity in this approach, lost in the modern genres of motor-racing, where the ‘order across the line’ is all-important.

It seems that aggregate races are not in fashion these days (although the Race of Remembrance makes it work), so teams are faced with some strategy decisions in the final stages of a Part One, to ensure that they can maximise the advantage provided by the action of forming up the grid for the second part and closing up all the gaps. It is a bit like knowing that a Safety Car period is going to happen at a specific time. With such knowledge, you can adjust your strategy and close up to the car in front.

At the end of three hours’ racing into the darkness at Mugello, only Barwell Motorsport’s Lamborghini had managed to stay on the same lap as the Scuderia Praha Ferrari. But that did not necessarily mean that part 2 would be purely a story of the race between the red Ferrari and the black-and-yellow Lamborghini.

Interestingly, looking purely at part 2 of the race in isolation, the number of laps completed were as follows:

No.	Car	Laps
11	Scuderia Praha Ferrari	245
91	Herberth Porsche	243
77	Barwell Lamborghini	242

However, the Herberth car had lost two laps in the first three hours of the race, so despite starting part 2 with much more fuel, the German car would face an uphill battle in part 2.

Expertise in Creventic racing in crucial, of course, and this perhaps is where Barwell lost out. In part 1, the Scuderia Praha Ferrari pitted four times, the Herberth Porsche three times, and Barwell only twice. This meant that early in part 2 (in fact at the end of the first racing lap), the Lamborghini was in for fuel, whereas the Ferrari was able to go for more than twenty minutes before heading for the pits.

The Ferrari team was also much quicker in the pits than the Lamborghini. Allowing for the fact that the Ferrari was putting in five litres less fuel at each stop, one would expect their stops to be around 5-10 seconds quicker. However, the Lamborghini was routinely spending a good 20-25 seconds longer in the pit lane than the Ferrari. The most likely explanation is that Barwell was spending more time getting their driver changes done. (Of course, in the Blancpain series, pit stops are subject to a minimum stop time, leaving a little more leeway in this area. In Creventic racing, once the wheels are changed, it is the driver change that dictates how long you spend in the pits.)

No.	Car	No of stops	Average stop time
11	Scuderia Praha Ferrari	14	2m 51s
77	Barwell Lamborghini	11	3m 17s
91	Herberth Porsche	14	2m 57s

This table shows that Barwell spent less time in the pit lane (even though their stops were longer, they made four fewer visits to the pit lane), but their tactical disadvantage was that they spent more time on the track when it was under code 60 than the rival Ferrari and Porsche.

Finally, of course, we shouldn’t forget that it is the pace on the track that counts. Both Scuderia Praha and Barwell had three-driver crews (with a single Am driver). Herberth used four drivers (with two Ams).

No.	Car	Driver	Best	Average
11	Scuderia Praha Ferrari	Král	1m 50.435s	1m 51.153s
11	Scuderia Praha Ferrari	Malucelli	1m 48.948s	1m 49.603s
11	Scuderia Praha Ferrari	Písařík	1m 51.543s	1m 52.547s
77	Barwell Lamborghini	Amstutz	1m 52.214s	1m 53.665s
77	Barwell Lamborghini	Keen	1m 49.018s	1m 49.881s
77	Barwell Lamborghini	Kujala	1m 49.099s	1m 49.845s
91	Herberth Porsche	Alleman	1m 51.784s	1m 53.318s
91	Herberth Porsche	Bohn	1m 51.265s	1m 52.260s
91	Herberth Porsche	Renauer A	1m 49.696s	1m 51.076s
91	Herberth Porsche	Renauer R	1m 50.391s	1m 51.724s

I don’t really think any further comment is necessary – Malucelli is clearly very quick, but it is interesting that both Kujala and Keen matched each others’ times. It should be noted that although Amstutz did not do much more than his minimum driving time, Jiří Písařík did more than three hours in total, and in the Herberth car, Am drivers Bohn and Alleman drove over 8½ hours together.

All in all, it has to be said that Scuderia Praha were worthy winners – although the car may not have had the single-lap speed to start from pole position, the car led 302 out of the 330 laps (including all of the first three-hour part and the first ninety minutes of the second part).

But the other winner, as always, was the organisation. Not just Creventic, but the whole package; the venue, the atmosphere, the weather: all combined together to make for a terrific weekend of proper endurance racing.

Too busy...?

Well, here we are, already into the second quarter of the year, and it has probably been one of my busiest – in terms of motor-racing activity – for twenty years. Of course, I had hoped that I would be too busy to write on the blog, and so it has become, to an extent.

February was relatively quiet, with time to write up race analyses from the Daytona 24 and Bathurst 12 hours, a visit to the Classic Car Show and a family holiday to the Wye Valley, but as March came in, so did plenty of jobs for me to do. All of which meant that writing anything here got fairly quickly pushed down the priority list.

It started off with the British GT Media Day at Donington Park, which saw the announcement of a 38-car grid for the 2019 British GT series – a very healthy state of affairs indeed. Of these, 14 are in the GT3 class, with cars from Aston Martin, Bentley, Lamborghini, McLaren and Porsche joining BMW and Mercedes in the top class. Nine of these were present at the media day (with Barwell’s brand new Lamborghini Evo ending the day fastest, just 0.024s faster than the RAM Racing Mercedes).

The series kicks off at Oulton Park on Easter Monday – surely worth a visit, if the weather is kind?

The middle of March was dominated by the Sebring WEC and IMSA double-header, which I did not attend, but I did pay close attention, and despite misgivings ahead of the event, I certainly had the impression from afar that it was a successful event. It will be interesting to see what elements are kept for next year, and what lessons are learned and changes made.

If nothing else, it would be nice if the weather is better next year.

Following the Sebring weekend, and the various write-ups that I had to do as a result, was a visit to a new circuit for me – Mettet in Belgium, for the opening round of the European VW Fun Cup, about which the less said the better. Then it was a quick dash back across the channel – with thanks to DFDS for making it so straightforward – before getting myself to Gatwick for the flight to Italy for the opening round of Creventic’s European Championship at Mugello, another circuit I had not previously visited.

The twelve hour race at Mugello was split into a three-hour part on Friday afternoon (following a delayed qualifying), which ended at 7pm, with the remaining nine hours on Saturday between 9am and 6pm. The Ferrari 488 GT3 of Bohemia Energy racing with Scuderia Praha was the class of the field throughout, running a faultless race and efficient pit stops to win, three laps clear of Barwell’s Lamborghini Huracan (which was due back at Silverstone on the Monday after the race!).

As always, it was great fun working with the Creventic crew and the TV folks from the 0221 Media Group. It was good to be back ‘in the fold’ of the Radio Show Limited team. Having known and worked with John Hindhaugh, Jonny Palmer, Joe Bradley and Nick Daman for so many years, I regard them very much as family and hopefully that is an impression we can convey to the listeners and viewers of the live streaming (along with some useful information).

I am always impressed at how many of the teams and drivers that we speak to say what fun they have at Creventic races, and Mugello was certainly no exception. It’s as much of a culture thing as anything else, but somehow no-one ever seems to lose sight of the fact that the people that are putting their hands into their pockets to allow the thing to happen, are doing so out of choice. It is a lesson that other areas of the sport could do well to learn from.

As an aside, how many people keep track of the number of motor racing venues they have visited? And do you, like me, have difficulty defining the rules? Do you have to witness competitive track activity for it to count? Does it have to be an active track? Do kart tracks count? Short ovals? What about temporary circuits? Anyway, under most counts, I reckon I am now over fifty, in 17 different countries.

I make no boast of this – I am sure there are many people reading this who can make bigger claims, but it is an indication of the extent of opportunities I have been able to take, and of course I am grateful to all those who have played a role in making it possible!

Yesterday, I had the opportunity for some ‘tourist laps’ around the Nordschleife, something I have not done for around twenty years – and what I found most noticeable (on top of the rather steep hike in the price) was the professionalism of most of those doing so. In 1995, when I last went round, they were proper ‘tourist laps’, with mostly normal road-going vehicles taking part, being driven by ordinary tourists. Yesterday, it was not much short of a full track-day, with more race-prepared cars circulating than anything else, and I would not be surprised to learn that many of them were being driven by people practicing for next week’s VLN race.

It certainly got the juices flowing – although I will be at RSL’s London studio to commentate on VLN-2 with Bruce Jones – I feel much better prepared now!