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!

Le Mans 1995

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is he bitter? You decide.

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

“How come?” I asked.

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

“So what went wrong?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What happened then?” I ask.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Andretti pits, Thompson attends

The Triple Crown

When I was a teenager in the early 1970s, I was a firm and faithful follower of motor sport, although (probably more so than today) I had many other interests besides. What I don’t remember is much of a fuss being made in 1972 about Graham Hill achieving the “Triple Crown of Motorsport”.

According the The Sun (in June 2018), the Triple Crown is “one of the most sought after in racing”, and it is claimed “by winning the three most prestigious races in the world… the Monaco Grand Prix, the Le Mans 24 hour and the Indianapolis 500”.

Not being one to argue with Jim Sheridan (who wrote the piece), I thought I should double-check on Wikipedia, which agrees with The Sun and notes that it is an “unofficial motorsport achievement”, and that the only driver to have achieved the feat is Graham Hill, who won Monaco (for the first time) in 1963, the Indianapolis 500 in 1966 and Le Mans in 1972.

So I went back and checked Autosport magazine, which had eight full pages devoted to the race, as well as a full page tribute to Jo Bonnier, an editorial and various news items in its Pit and Paddock section. There was no mention of the fact that Graham Hill had gained the distinction of adding the Le Mans trophy to those he already had from Indianapolis and Monaco, nor did it speculate as to how long it would take another driver to record the same achievement.

Then I went to Motor Sport magazine, and was pleased to note that at least the Le Mans report in 1972 was penned by Denis Jenkinson, as I recalled that in 1971, ‘Jenks’ did not even attend the Vingt-Quatre Heures, preferring instead to head to Hockenheim for a non-championship Formula One race that was being held on the same weekend.

I have to admit Jenkinson’s report left me somewhat open-mouthed, as I was reminded not merely of the dangers of the sport in those days, but of the way in which they were viewed. This, remember, was the type of prose I was reading as an impressionable, fifteen-year-old budding motor-racing enthusiast. Hopefully, I am not infringing any copyright laws by pasting it in below:

On the next page, DSJ went on to describe the start, but before he did, he noted changes that had been put in place for the 1972 race:

If you have nothing better to do, then I wholeheartedly recommend that you go to the Motor Sport archive, here, where you can read the whole report for yourself. Trust me, it is worth it.

And if you don’t have the time, you will just have to accept my word for it that there is no mention at all of the Triple Crown, or how worthy the achievement of Graham Hill by winning it. Nor even, it has to be said, the hint of a suggestion that team orders in the dominant Matra team allowed “Hill’s car” to win the race ahead of its sister cars. Far more to the point was that the French drivers, Pescarolo and Cevert were put into the blue cars to bring them to the chequered flag in the first two places, 19 and 9 laps ahead of the third-placed car.

If Fernando Alonso equals Hill’s achievement by winning the Indianapolis 500 later this year, I will be very pleased for him, for he is unquestionably a great driver, whose record does not adequately reflect his talents (although he is not unique in that – there are many such drivers). What I will be sad about is the media frenzy that will no doubt be unleashed with all the extreme hyperbole of which today’s writers are capable.

I found it fascinating, researching this piece, getting lost in the articles that were written in 1972 (even the letters pages, which included one from an indignant Ian Titchmarsh!). I am well aware of course that we no longer live in the 1970’s, and that times have changed, but nevertheless I think the writers of today would do well to take a step back and look things from a different perspective from time to time.

I wonder if anyone will still be reading this in 46 years’ time? And if they do, I wonder if anyone will think it as relevant and entertaining as DSJ was in 1972?

Bathurst Ruminations

The 2019 Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12-hours was a remarkable race – it would have been good to have been there. However, the coverage was excellent, so it was possible to follow the action from far away, and despite the virtual jet-lag, it was still possible to get a good flavour for the race.

It was particularly pleasing to see so little of the race disrupted by caution flags – only nine caution periods accounting for just 22 of the 312 completed laps (or 313 if you count the pace lap, which arguably you should, since that is when the timing for the 12 hours started). With some justification, much was made of the fact that driving standards were high, and serious incidents were few and far between. However, it should also be recognised that still there was 1h 48m of running behind the Safety Car.

Compare this to 19 Code-60 interventions for a total of 3h 57m for this year’s Dubai 24-hours and it is not that different (provided you divide by two to account for the different race lengths!). But at Dubai, there was little talk of how few caution periods there were – most people I spoke to were more eager to say that the number and frequency of the Code-60 periods were much more than they had expected (or wanted). In a way, I suppose this merely puts Bathurst in context – one really expects to have more cautions, so close are the walls and so tortuous is the track.

Another way to look at it is to consider that six of the nine pit stops made by the race winning Earl Bamber Motorsport-entered Porsche were made under green flag conditions. Certainly, that meant that strategy played a bigger role in this year’s race that it often does.

In both 2014 and 2012, there were also just nine safety car periods, and in 2012 those accounted also for just 22 laps. However, in 2012, there were only 25 starters, and only 8 of those were proper GT3 cars. In some ways, it is hardly surprising that they kept out of trouble, despite the atrocious weather that blighted that year’s race.

The only other occasion since then when there have been fewer than 40 starters was in 2016, when 36 cars started, 58% of which were GT3 class cars, and 27 laps were lost due to Safety Car periods. This year the race boasted 38 starters, two fewer than were initially expected, but 66% of them were GT3 cars. To me, there seems to be a pretty strong correlation between number of starters and number of Safety Car periods. Although to be fair, it depends as well on the mix between GT3 cars and the ‘others’.

Year	Starters	%age GT3	SC periods	SC laps
2019	38	66%	9	22
2018	50	56%	16*	47
2017	51	61%	16	35
2016	36	58%	13	27
2015	50	54%	20	73
2014	40	30%	9	31
2013	53	34%	15	43
2012	25	32%	9	22

*In 2018, the race was terminated early with a red flag.

Note that in the calculation of the percentage of GT3 cars above, I have not accounted for whether the drivers were Pro or Am or a mixture of the two. Clearly, this also can influence matters. This year was the first that there were no GT3 cars driven only by amateur crews.

In any event, this year’s Bathurst 12 hours was a race to be savoured. The international aspect that the race has acquired in recent years was joined this year by an injection of youth. Matt Campbell (just 23 years of age) drove a storming stint after the final SC, moving from third to first in the final twenty minutes, passing first the Mercedes of Raffaele Marcielllo (at 24 years of age) and then the R-Motorsport Aston Martin in the hands of Jake Dennis (another 23-year old). But neither the Aston Martin nor the Porsche that were battling over the lead of the race at the end were really the quickest cars out there, although you would be forgiven for thinking so, based on that last frenetic hour.

The overall fastest lap of the race went to Josh Burdon in the no. 35 Nissan GT-R Nismo, at 2m 03.5382s, although this was almost two seconds slower than Shane Van Gisbergen achieved in during the 2016 race in the Tekno Autosports McLaren 650S.

The best average laps (looking at the best 20% of green laps) went to the two M-Sport Bentleys, the no. 107 being the quicker of the two. Mercedes, Audi, Ferrari and Nissan were all quicker, using this metric, than either the Aston Martin or the EBM Porsches. It should be noted that the difference between the GT3 field (as used by the wizards of BoP) was less than 0.5%, however, so I don’t think that any complaints are warranted.

Let’s look at some other numbers from Bathurst and compare them to Daytona and Dubai:

	Dubai	Daytona	Bathurst
No of lead changes	15	50	30
No of cars that led	8	7	13
No of cars in 'top' class	13	11	15
Winner's average speed	136 km/h	154 km/h	162 km/h
No of starters	74	47	38
Cars outside 70% of winner's distance	24 (32%)	4 (9%)	13 (34%)
Cars within 5 mins of winner	1	2	7
Winning margin	1 lap	13.5s	3.4s

I present this data as it stands, without wanting to make any point in particular. You can read into it what you want. Certainly I am guilty of comparing apples with oranges – Daytona is for prototypes, Bathurst runs to a 12-hour duration, Dubai does not use Safety Cars – all this impacts the numbers shown, to varying degrees. Nevertheless, I found it interesting to compile, so I hope you find it interesting to read.

And to close, a couple of maverick thoughts. A lot of the appeal of endurance racing is the fact that it is multi-class racing. Different categories of cars racing at the same time on the same track – involved in different battles, but fighting on the same battlefield. Dubai this year had fewer non-GT3 cars than ever before, Bathurst too. The Spa 24 hours runs pretty much exclusively to GT3-specification cars (albeit with different grades of drivers) and has done for several years now. Personally, I don’t think this spoils the spectacle. It unquestionably changes the dynamic of the race; it changes the appeal and the spectator impact. It alters the way that teams and drivers have to approach matters of strategy.

But here we are in 2019 – things are anyway different in endurance racing from how they were thirty or forty years ago. Maybe there is a place for single-class endurance races? Not as a replacement for the multi-class ones, but as an addition.

And second, what about the “holy mantra” of a 24 hours race distance? I think Bathurst proves that you can have a perfectly good 12 hour race. There are more 24-hour races these days than ever there used to be in the past. I have argued before that having more events has the overall effect of devaluing the status of the individual event. I admit that there is something very special about staying up all night, experiencing the exhilaration of completing 24-hours non-stop racing and the fatigue that goes with it. But you can have too much of a good thing. Dubai, Daytona, Le Mans, Nürburgring, Spa, Portimao, Barcelona…it all gets a little too much.

Races of eight, ten, twelve or even eighteen hours all require strategy, fortitude, durability and consistency. And would provide race organisers with a little more variety with which to spice up their seasons.