Category: Sportscars

I’m Watching… #2

This weekend was all about one race…. at least, it was supposed to be.

We all know that F1 races are quite boring this year. We also all know that the battle between Audi and Peugeot for overall honours over the 24 Hour race at Le Mans has turned into an epic annual contest which has been enthralling for several years now, with further depth through the classes.

Not this year.

Le Mans 24 Hours

I didn’t think the 2010 24 Hours was a classic, but a mediocre race at Le Mans is more evocative than a decent race at many other venues.

– LMP1

It promised much, but as early as Wednesday night’s qualifying session Peugeot laid down lap times so fast as to effectively smack down the improved Audi’s challenge in terms of an out and out race. This was going to be a reliability run rather than a strategic battle, and with Peugeot having successfully completed a 30-hour endurance test it looked all sewn up before the race had started.

As it turned out, Audi’s race pace wasn’t that poor and they seemed to be able to maintain their top pace for much longer – Peugeot had far faster cars but they couldn’t maintain 3m19s laps for long. This mean the French team held a 1 or 2 lap lead over the German team for a considerable amount of time, but no more. All of the seven cars were pushing.

In terms of an actual race, things went wrong early when a Safety Car period for Mansell’s crash split the frontrunners, giving the four Peugeots an extra minute over the three Audis. On the green flag the Audis held that gap for ages, proving they could’ve got amongst the Pug’s early on had they been given the chance. Once we were into the meat of the race the Peugeots were easily the things to have and they extended a gap, so there wasn’t much in the way of racing, either passing or on pit strategy.

This was ‘run until someone either wins or breaks’. Eventually all four Peugeots broke down or were involved in incidents (and one of them broke surprisingly early), and the Audis didn’t ran near-flawlessly save for an ‘off’ by TK. Win sealed, go home. It wasn’t enthralling waiting for something to happen for so many hours. Interestingly it was the faster car from each team that dropped back – that is unless the others were managing their pace while these two pushed to catch up) and while both cars put in their customary supreme stints overnight, it wasn’t for the win.. Didn’t grab me.

Petrol cars:  AMR were ‘best of the rest’ for nearly the whole race but died near the end, leaving ORECA’s other car to take the spoils. Not necessarily a bad result, it had been quicker than I’d expected it to be and could’ve won it on merit, but as it turned out it was the last car standing. Again though, not much of a race because the team I expected to really hustle AMR – Rebellion and its pair of Lolas – suffered all manner of difficulties, which was a shame. This sub-class turned into a survival of the fittest. I know that’s what Le Mans is about, I guess we’ve just been spoiled with a different type of fight in the past.

– LMP2

Two cars were the class of the field: the two HPD (nee Acura) chassis run by Strakka and Highcroft. I tipped Highcroft for the win because they are so good in the US and this is Strakka’s first year with the car, plus Highcroft had 3 good drivers and Strakka had 2+ 1 average. As it turned out it went the other way, Stakka’s experience of 24-hour racing shone through and they led the class throughout – well done to them. Highcroft were racing outside North America for the first time, in a 24 hour race for the first time, unfamiliar with the ACO’s different way of doing things and without as much support gear with them as they are used to. Highcroft ran into several difficulties during the race but they seemed to pick themselves up and push on, all credit to them. Unfortunately this meant the expected duel between the two never really materialised for any length of time.

There were a few other good teams – notably RML – but they couldn’t stay in contention, and there were the usual few makeweights/fieldfillers.

– GT1

Pathetic. To think that this class used to provide the best race in the field, and now the cars can barely finish let alone even beat GT2. In fairness to the class it has been completely neutered so that the power advantage it had is now reduced, they barely have a time advantage over the GT2s, while the extra weight and fuel consumption and therefore extra pit stops drops them back every time. I’m sure the development this style of racing is famous for would recover much of that over the coming years, they won’t be allowed the chance to find out, the class has been removed for 2011 in the mistaken belief the cars can’t be turned into endurance racers. Ostensibly this is because of the increasing cost of the previous regulations which did need addressing, but the ongoing bunfight between the SRO and ACO has lost us the chance to rebuild the class at a more reasonable cost – instead we get some lame GT2 sub-category for amateurs. A real shame.

– GT2

This class featured the best racing and the most contenders for victory, and the highlight of the entire race for me was the on-track race for the lead between the Corvette and the Risi Ferrari, the positions changing from straight to straight for several laps – at sunset, no less! That’s Le Mans fever right there. It was a real shame the Risi car suffered the gearbox problem, and then (much) later the two Corvettes had their own issues with one breaking the other apparently being pushed off track by a Peugeot, if not by physical contact then by not giving the ‘Vette the racing room. Attrition hit this class too, leaving the Felbermayr Porsche to take the win.

A very high attrition rate throughout the field this year, was that due to underfunded teams, a harder pace, or some other unknown reason? I have a feeling it is a mixture of those things. Still, new rules for 2011 and 2012 see the 24 move into a new era – let’s see what it brings.

F1: Canadian Grand Prix

What a race! This was easily the best Formula 1 race of the year. Every season F1 throws up two or three excellent races, this was one of them and the best F1 race I’ve seen since Brazil’s title decider last year. There was action throughout, split strategies and sometimes it seemed like guesswork. The soft tyres were entirely inappropriate for what turned out to be a far more abrasive track than Bridgestone anticipated, yet that was exactly what created such a good race. Could the softs last long enough? Had they brought a compound step higher this could’ve been another snorer. Thankfully Bridgestone won’t be around to make use of that lesson next year!

McLaren were expected to walk away from the rest with their F-Duct, but then they deployed their ‘interesting’ strategy of using the soft tyres first in the hope of a Safety Car that never came. And yet… it worked! I’ve no idea how they pulled it off, in a race with so many early stops it left the Lotus of Kovalainen in 7th for a short while it was difficult to know what was going on for a while, thankfully I had the aid of live timing else I’d have been completely lost.

One more note on Canada – did you see how full those stands were?! Absolutely brilliant, and I’m sure there were more than usual. Welcome back to the schedule, Montreal – you were missed.

Other

Among this glut of racing I managed to catch the England v USA World Cup game, which ended in a disappointing but perhaps expected draw. I have a feeling both teams can win their remaining games and will both qualify, I hope so.

I also booked my ticket to the Goodwood Festival of Speed! I’ll be there on the Sunday and I’m really looking forward to it.

Allan McNish chats with The Feeder Series

Jon from The Feeder Series has bagged a lengthy interview with the legend that is Allan McNish, two-time winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Pretty good timing since the 2010 edition of the big race is next week and McNish is, as ever, expected to be at the forefront of the Audi attack.

Allan talks about his career to date and also his involvement in the Jim Russell driving school in the US, as well as one of the young drivers he’s starting to look after as he moves into driver development. Fascinating listen, as it always is with McNish.

Check it out RIGHT HERE.

Big props to friend-0f-the-blog Jon for securing the interview, and of course to Allan for giving up half an hour of his time to an up and coming site/podcast in the lead up to the biggest race of the year.

A Visit to Silverstone

I spent Sunday at Silverstone during the FIA GT1 World Championship event. There were two reasons for going, firstly I wanted to see the big circuit layout changes for myself and secondly I needed my first post-winter fix of live racing.

I got there a little late after not realising just how far away the circuit is from my house, I’d underestimated by a full hour and I had got away late too – I must have arrived 90 minutes after the time I’d intended. This meant I missed the GT3 race and most of the GT4 race. Luckily I’d been directed to park at Abbey corner so I was just a short walk from the first part of the new section, where I watched the last ten minutes of the GT4.

Abbey

The first thing that struck me was the building site opposite. This is the location for the brand new pitlane. The only thing finished is the track itself, the new pitwall, and whatever existing facilities were not torn down. There is dust and dirt on the track surface, not helped by the wind which must be blowing plenty of it from the construction site in the infield. It had also been raining.

Revised Abbey corner
Revised Abbey corner. Former track runs where cones are, even older track in foreground. (c) P.Wotton

The new Abbey is a very fast corner! It is much tighter than I expected it to be yet the cars carry a lot of speed through there. I would expect F1 cars to reach 150mph+. The GT cars were travelling quickly too but were hampered by the low grip on the damp circuit. I’ve never watched a race on the old layout from here but it seems clear to me these changes improve this viewing spot considerably – far better to watch cars flying at speed than the heavy braking of old. Remember this will become the first corner in a year or two when the start line is moved down here – until then I don’t expect much passing at this point.

Here are a couple of shots I took of the new pit area as it looks right now – it is early days yet and they have rightly been focussing on completing the new section of track. You can see how tight Abbey looks, but because it opens out again they can carry a lot of speed.

Unfortunately there was nowhere to watch the exit of Abbey as there’s a little campsite / motorhome park in the way. I could probably have sneaked in actually, never mind. I hope they move the camping area and put a stand or a spectator bank here, it would be great to see the cars coming toward you at speed as you’d be able to see the cars move around and see the drivers working to control them, especially in the damp conditions we had.

Village/Loop/Aintree

Moving further up the new section, I entered the grandstand at the Village corner. I’m hoping this was a temporary stand as it wasn’t quite big enough, it seemed to be the busiest stand at the circuit as it was full for this race and people were being turned away. I must give a shout out to the steward in the left-hand side of the stand where I was, very friendly and he did everything he could to make sure every seat was filled before he apologetically and reluctantly turned anyone back, checking every time. He even seemed a little disappointed when I moved on halfway through the race, as if I thought it wasn’t good enough when in reality I only wanted to see a different angle. Much better than some of the jobsworths you can get doing that job – I have to say I’ve come to expect anyone in a flourescent coat at a race track to automatically hassle you or check your ticket and say you don’t have the right pass – this was quite the opposite, two thumbs up.

If and when they build a bigger stand it does need to be angled slightly clockwise, to give a better view of the run into the corner so you can see an overtake move being set up, rather than finishing. Those at the far right had a good view.

What I liked about this stand was the closeness to the track. I’m a little disappointed my only decent photo to illustrate this was of a Safety Car! I do have a short video, limitations with WordPress mean I can’t embed it here.

Village corner
The view at Village corner, up close to the cars. (c) P.Wotton

It looks to be a good place to watch a race if you like to see cars for longer periods of time. It puts them in front of you for longer and you can really see them working to slow down, then hard on the gas for the short section before hard braking and turning in before the other guy can get inside on the left. You can see the Loop does set cars up for an overtake through Aintree and along the following straight, and cars were side by side as they left our vision, but you don’t see how those moves are resolved until they come by again – a big screen may be needed here. There was also no circuit commentary at this point, though this is sometimes useless as it is drowned out by the engines I do find it helps for when the cars are at the other side of the track and when there is a Safety Car.

FIA GT
GT cars through The Loop and Aintree corners, from Village stand. (c) P.Wotton

GT and F3 cars seemed to be able to make it work, it was hard to tell not really being familiar with the paint schemes of anything other than the Vitaphone cars (I do like that car), that and the cold biting wind making my eyes water. To be honest I wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention to the race order, I was really watching to see how the drivers worked the new section and whether there was much side-by-side action.

I think F1 drivers will be able to line up a pass into Village, they will have to be very optimistic if they expect to make it stick though. If they do get alongside they will have to watch out in The Loop because several times I saw cars go for the same piece of track, and the car on the inside (left) had to back out of it almost every time. What will probably work better is the way The Loop upsets the rythym of a driver if he gets it wrong so we should see lots of passing attempts into Brooklands corner.

I do think it’ll make a great MotoGP track, we could yet see the best MotoGP race of the year here.

Wellington Straight
I made my way over to the Maggotts grandstand, in doing so I had to cross the National straight which has now been renamed for the Wellington bombers that were once stationed here. This was the first race I’d witnessed the Corvette C6.R in person, and what a sound! The Ford GT was similar and surprisingly so was the Nissan. Great to hear all sorts of engines sounds in one race. Just a few pics I took on the walk:

I made it to the Maggotts/Becketts sequence, there is a grandstand on the left side of the track and if you stand at the top row or along the right-hand side you can look behind you at the new layout.

The grandstand on the outside of the circuit at Becketts has been dismantled but let me tell you, when the replacement is up it will be a prime viewing position. You’ll have fast cars in front of you and in the background you’ll see the new section where you may have cars passing and getting into trouble – plus it means you see the cars twice per lap, last year you’d have seen them 60 times during the F1 GP and this year you’ll see them 120 times, instantly helping to justify the high price of the tickets.

For those where I was stood on the infield side, you’ll have to be sure to get as far right in the stand as possible and be ready to crane your neck. While you do get neckache and with a crowd you may struggle, you do get a better idea of how battles are progressing when you see them twice. I followed a Maserati and a Nissan for a couple of laps and even in the half lap between Becketts and Village it was clear the Nissan was faster – I believe it overtook for 3rd.

Aston Martin DBR9
Aston Martin DBR9 at Aintree corner, viewed from back of Maggotts stand. (c) P.Wotton

Rest of the Day
I stayed in this position for the start of the British F3 race but this was as tedious as most F3 races are, at least it seemed it to me. I didn’t see much passing, there was an incident at The Loop where a car tried to pass on the inside but instead tagged the guy on the outside into a spin – I suspect this will happen a lot in open wheel cars here. James Calado and Oliver Webb fought it out for the win which eventually went Calado’s way.

While they were doing that I made my way to Copse and watched the end there, before wandering around the fully open (if somewhat deserted) paddock. The F3 teams were wheeling their kit back through and various GT teams were packing up, that was about it. I managed to buy a Vitaphone Maserati jumper – which was on discount – for even less after confusing the German shopkeepers and then realising I didn’t have enough money. I think they just wanted to get rid of me!

Final Thoughts on Silverstone
The changes are very good. We’ll mourn the loss of Bridge corner for the driving challenge, and we’ll celebrate the different challenge the new section brings. It is tight and the drivers will need to get their elbows out. Brooklands should now feature passing.

Okay so Silverstone looks scruffy at the moment. The place is half-finished. None of the grandstands on the main straight were open, some are old ones still being put back together, some are brand new ones that haven’t been finished yet – if it looked quiet between Copse and Luffield, that’s why. The stand at Village needs making bigger and others aren’t even there at all. These things will be fixed by June for the MotoGP race.

The track is surrounded by upturned mud. Most of this will surely have grass seed in it and will look great next year, if not sooner. The construction site will be an eyesore for the 2010 Moto and F1 GPs and then it’ll be gone.

Silverstone 2010 as a place is a work in progress and a venue in transition. It will get better – in some ways it already is better, it offers better viewing locations already.

Just one more thing. The food vans are overpriced and the one I visited – infield by the fairground at the crossroads – served cold food and lukewarm tea. All concessions had shut before the last race had finished. I wanted to watch the races and then get something for the road – I had a 3-hour drive ahead of me. This is not good enough. This was the first big event after a very public relaunch, you should be bending over backwards for people. Just keep them open until ten or fifteen minutes after the last chequered flag. Admittedly it was a very late programme and the race didn’t finish until 5.30pm, but that is not an excuse to close. Fix this.

You can view more of my photos of the day at my Picasa site. There are also a few more short videos on my YouTube account.

2010 Race Calendar

During the 2009 season I thought it would be a great idea to create a race schedule in Google Calendar featuring different racing series. I was busy with accounts studies at the time and I never got around to taking it further. Early last month I decided it was worth exploring so I set up a trial with F1 and IndyCar dates. I’d add more later if I decided it looked okay. Again I let it drop when other things got in the way.

Christine from Sidepodcast recently created a calendar highlighting F1 events and the SPC / F1 Minute podcast schedules and she did a great job, enough to inspire me to get on and finish my idea.

Here it is!

(note – WordPress doesn’t allow the iFrame code that makes the embed work so I have had to leave it out for now)

My schedule includes F1, F2, GP2, IndyCar, Le Mans 24hr, ALMS, LMS, MotoGP, WRC, IRC and WTCC. I’ve also put in Dakar, Goodwood and a couple of other things. I’ll add NASCAR Sprint Cup and DTM soon – there are categories already so if you add them the events will hopefully appear in your calendar automatically.

Christine’s calendar is F1-specific and it includes Free Practice, pre-season testing and car launches. My calendar includes none of these things, only qualifying and race. I highly recommend adding Christine’s F1 calendar if you would like this extra information.

Click the “+GoogleCalendar” button to add to your own Google Calendar account. I have split events by race series so you can just pick the ones you want. I think there is a way to get them into iCal and other systems, though I don’t know how.

The calendar is set to UK time because that’s where I am and that’s most useful to me. I’m not sure but I believe when you import it, it will adjust it to your own default timezone. Have a play with it and see.

Race start times are estimates apart from F1 and Le Mans. This information is surprisingly hard to find. E.g. IndyCar.com only lists TV start times, not race starts. Many sites only give the dates and I’ve had to improvise. Then there’s the issue of timezones which I may have got wrong. I plan to make each forthcoming weekend as accurate as I can, beyond that just use this as a guide.

I’ve included qualifying for F1, Le Mans 24Hrs and IndyCar (times estimated). I don’t intend to include any more qualifying.

I hope you find this useful and please let me know if there is anything you would like to add. If the demand is there and I think it warrants adding, I’ll do so. I’m already considering Indy Lights.

As you can see I’ve also added a list version to the sidebar. When I create the new site I will have a version similar to the one above on its own page.

EDIT – WordPress does not allow embeds so I have linked them on the sidebar. This means you can pick and choose the series you are interested in! I’ve also since created calendars for Indy Lights and GrandAm.