Because I am a proper professional, the second real post of this blog is a rushed job for a race that happened over a month ago. As I alluded to in the opening of the 4 Hours race is that the blog was inspired by a couple of thoughts that I'd put together for a podcast and had no time to properly express. Unfortunately, somebody decided to ask for my opinions on the WEC races at Silverstone and Spa and it occurred to me that I hadn't written them down anywhere.
One of the unfortunate things about writing about WEC is that I have no way of knowing if the data that gets published for the two most popular classes means a thing. In the case of LMP1, the only conclusion about comparative pace that can reasonably drawn is the between the Rebellion Racing drivers.
At Silverstone, far and away the fastest car in the field was the #1 Porsche 919 Hybrid until it came together with the #86 Gulf Racing entered Porsche 911 RSR. All three of its stints were at least 0.3 seconds/lap quicker than the second fastest car. For the first two stints, that was the #7 Audi, but it was the #2 Porsche in the third. The #8 Audi was close until it ran into the electrical problems that soon ended its race. The Toyotas were a second off the pace for most of the race until Mike Conway popped in a lap at the very end of his second stint in the car that was 0.3 seconds off of the fastest lap of the race. The TS050s were the fastest cars in a straight line and were running a lower downforce package than the other two factory efforts, which is not encouraging for their championship hopes but very encouraging for Le Mans.
Rebellion continued their run of being faster than Bykolles, both dangerously close to LMP2 pace. The star for Bykolles at Silverstone was James Rossiter, who by essentially any metric was at least a second faster than both Simon Trummer and Oliver Webb. Rossiter's first stint was the only one for the team that beat any of the Rebellion's full stints. Rossiter is the substitute driver for Pierre Kaffer (who has been elsewhere driving GT3 and some GTLM) and has no seat for Le Mans.
Alexandre Imperatori for Rebellion, meanwhile, has been following standard protocol for Swiss Rebellion drivers. With Mathias Beche now at Thiriet by TDS and the only other Swiss driver on the team being the 19-year-old, silver-graded Mathéo Tuscher, Imperatori understood his task and put in the best 20% time for the privateers. Dominik Kraihamer put in their fastest stint and Nick Heidfeld the fastest lap.
Until he began racing more frequently in prototypes, it was difficult to get through a GT3 race without hearing the line, "René Rast is fast!" at least once. There's not much to that story, but he's still fast. G-Drive are in my mind the favourite to win Le Mans. The Oreca 05 is the fastest LMP2 car, René Rast is amongst the very top of the LMP2 drivers, and Roman Rusinov is one of the several silver drivers who probably ought not to be silvers. At Silverstone, Nathanaël Berthon and the fuel pump were the weakest links for G-Drive. If they can hold their car together for twenty-four hours, they are not likely to lose on pace.
Luis Felipe Derani is the other stand out so far this year. He was overshadowed by Gustavo Yacaman both in pace and in headlines for the second G-Drive entry last year, but managed to find a new ride when that squad closed shop instead of Yacaman. Once he moved to the American ESM team, Pipo almost instantly became a fan favourite. Nobody remembers that Olivier Pla was the fastest driver at Daytona, but everybody remembers Derani cutting through the field, passing DPs with ease and legging out massive gaps to the rest of the field after the rival Ligier ploughed into a GT car and then broke down later. At Silverstone, he was certainly flashy; he set the fastest lap of the race with a 1:48.909 on the second lap, the second fastest lap on lap 3, the third fastest on lap four and the fourth fastest on lap five. Rast's fastest lap was the next at a 1:49.506. The strategy was evidently to burn up the car and the tyres to build a gap for Chris Cumming, for Derani had to make his first stop after 20 laps (most made it 22 or 23). It didn't work. Cumming spun the car and gave away the advantage.
Later on, Derani struggled more as the track gained temperature and he had to run further than twenty laps. The relative uniformity of strategies in LMP2 makes comparing stints much easier. Derani finished the race for ESM, putting in the final three stints all on fresh tyres (as in the ELMS race, nobody saw a time gain in double-stinting tyres). On the first of these, he beat Berthon handily, but lost out by hundredths on average pace to Filipe Albuquerque (Albuquerque ran 26 laps to Derani's 23). For the next stint, Rast got into the G-Drive Oreca and immediately went quicker. Rast averaged a 1:51.097 over 24 laps to Derani's 1:51.258 over 23 laps. Both ran 22 laps to the end, Rast averaging a 1:51.619 to Derani's 1:51.949. Roberto Mehri in the Manor split them, incidentally, with a 1:51.747.
Why Rast was faster, who knows. Derani might have been backing off, Rast may simply be three-tenths quicker, the 05 could be proving its worth, any number of things. Pipo Derani is a very quick prototype driver and he will continue to improve as time goes on, but it's a little unfortunate that he has already become a meme in sports car racing. If and when he finally does become the best driver in prototype racing, there will be nobody left to acknowledge it because they'll all be tired of hyping him up by then.
RGR Sport by Morand won the race. None of their drivers had a particularly exciting stint. Silver graded Ricardo Gonzalez did beat Scott Sharp by half a second on average time in identical equipment during his first stint, although that was tempered by Rusinov going even faster on the second half of a double-stint on tyres. Bruno Senna ran 0.8 seconds/lap faster than anybody during his second stint (on fresh tyres), but the front runners all had their slowest driver in the car except for the #31 ESM, which had Dalziel on the second half of a double-stint. They won simply by never really going slowly during the whole race and not having any problems, which is the proper way to win an endurance race.
LMGTE Pro is an absolute mess. In GT3 racing, balance of performance works and it works well. Maybe everybody hates it, but just about every race turns out well and while certain cars work well at different places, the global uniformity (kind of) of the GT3 regulations over the ten thousand series that run GT3 cars means that the balance of performance works pretty well. If a manufacturer wants to sandbag, they have to get all of their customer teams to quit enjoying their racing and throw away points in all of the championships and whatever they win doing that probably isn't worth the loss. In theory.
That theory not only doesn't work in GTE, it doesn't exist in the first place. Two series in the world run LMGTE Pro. Customer teams exist in a very loose sense, but they are driven exclusively by professionals. IMSA races are generally ignored by the public at large when reckoning what they think the FIA/ACO ought to do in balancing Le Mans because IMSA races are held primarily on strange tracks and with a host of safety cars.
There are four manufacturers in LMGTE Pro in WEC. Aston Martin are in a transition year. They are running Dunlop tyres after years of running Michelins like every other factory Pro entry. Porsche are in a transition year. They completely axed their factory GT campaign on the world stage, leaving a single Proton Competition entry with Patrick Dempsey's backing as their Pro effort. They have a completely new car this year like everybody else, but unlike everybody else, their brand new car is still in testing and they're only running relative minor updates to last year's car. Ford are in a transition year. They're getting used to actually racing competitively on an international stage, which they don't usually do. As usual, they made somebody else build and run their car for them, but it's a step forward.
Ferrari are not in a transition year. They do have the brand new 488, but it worked perfectly as soon as they tried it out. They are the only team who have brought a factory effort that had everything together. They are the only team who don't seem to need to be running test sessions during the season itself. AF Corse is also probably the only team in WEC that would see Toni Vilander as a liability to its efforts.
Something else to keep in mind when assessing the BoP in WEC is that Ford's factory effort is being run by Chip Ganassi. Ganassi won the Grand-Am championship four years out of five using Memo Rojas's money, Scott Pruett's speed, and a second place in the Roar. Naturally, the year Bob Stallings beat Ganassi with the Pruett/Rojas combination was the one year Ganassi was quickest in testing. The team got better and better as the years went on; in 2012, they ran 6th fastest during the Roar and then won their third straight title, although it required them to torpedo one of the Starworks cars at Indianapolis. Chip Ganassi has played this game a lot.
The Fords were the only cars to double stint their tyres with every driver, which contributed to their lack of pace. Only two of their drivers were previously full-time, top level GT drivers and those two drivers outpaced the Aston Martins during their first stints before the cars tailed off. Harry Tincknell and Olivier Pla are both prototype drivers with very limited running in GT cars and Marino Franchitti has driven a little bit of just about everything. Billy Johnson has had plenty of GT experience, but it has been concentrated in Grand-Am feeder series with a side of some part time drives in the Rolex Sports Car Series and endurance entries in the ALMS and TUSCC. It's a primarily a lineup of good drivers and by the end of the year, it will probably be a lineup of good GT drivers, but it isn't yet (unless, of course, the prototype and Grand-Am drivers are just better at sandbagging than Mücke and Priaulx).
A lot of people saw the result of the first race and promptly cried foul at Ferrari's pace. A lot of people have claimed that the BoP is a joke because Ferrari are a second a lap faster. I am inclined to believe that Ferrari have earned their right to be quick given the state of their opponents. I will be sorely disappointed if a BoP adjustment between now and Le Mans costs AF Corse a win.
Then there LMGTE Am, where the name of the game is silver drivers. First place went to the #83 AF Corse. They had the fastest silver driver. Second place went to the #98 Aston Martin. They had the second fastest silver driver. Those two teams had the two slowest platinum drivers, but nobody could match them on pace. The gap between them was opened largely by the #83 stopping one less time and spending a minute and twenty seconds less time in the pits.
This is going to be a very short section; Rui Águas was the silver for the #83 and my last post explained my thoughts on him. His 20% time was less than a tenth off of Emmanuel Collard and Pedro Lamy (the #83 and #98 platinum graded drivers respectively).
Paul Dalla Lana was the fastest of the bronze drivers. He is now fifty years old, which means that he will never be upgraded to silver. For all the fuss I and others make about silver drivers who ought to be upgraded, Dalla Lana provides the same effect as a bronze with silver pace. The only difference is that there are very few bronze drivers with that potential compared to the relative abundance of super quick silvers.
As an aside, only Klaus Bachler beat Rory Butcher's 20% average time and only Bachler's and Wolf Henzler's opening stints on Sunday beat Butcher's second on Saturday.
Wednesday 25 May 2016
Tuesday 3 May 2016
16-04-2016: European Le Mans Series 4 Hours of Silverstone
This is the race that inspired this entire blog, for I saw many interesting things in its .csv file but everybody wanted to talk about Brendon Hartley and Michael Wainwright (or the really fast LMP1 guy and some GT dude, depending how how much attention they were paying).
Going by class seems easiest, so that is what I will do in order of pace.
The LMP2 categorically suffered greatly from early attrition. Lap twelve saw the two front-running Oreca 05s retire, the polesitting Thiriet By TDS with a stuck throttle and the Eurasia Motorsport entry after debris struck the marshal's emergency ignition switch. The third Oreca 05, run by DragonSpeed retired on lap 66 after struggling throughout the race with braking issues. Given the 05's success since it was introduced, its lack of reliability this weekend is quite surprising. The only other retirement in the class was the Pegasus Racing Morgan, which spun into the pit wall on its opening lap and then shed a wheel on track after ninety laps.
Of the remaining runners, there is no question the G-Drive/JOTA team with its Gibson 015S was the class of the field. Harry Tincknell and Giedo van der Garde were the two fastest drivers on track with only Paul Loup Chatin close to their ultimate pace. During his first stint (comparing third stints from the teams), silver driver Simon Dolan was the second quickest on track, losing out only to Ben Hanley in the DragonSpeed Oreca 05 on a shorter stint. The only struggles the G-Drive faced were the second stints of Tincknell and Dolan. This was a common theme all weekend; few teams were able to save time by double-stinting their tyres.
This was particularly the case for the SMP Racing BR01s. Both cars suffered greatly at the ends of their first stints, dropping upwards of four seconds a lap from the start of a stint to the end of it. Stefano Coletti put in one of the finest drives of the afternoon at the wheel on the second place #32 BR01, keeping the tyres relatively intact over the course of his double-stint at the end of the race. Three of his final four laps were in the 1:54s compared to Mitch Evans finishing in the high 1:55s to mid 1:56s, although other circumstances could have played a part.
If BR Engineering do not have a quick solution for their tyre troubles, the BR01 is essentially a one-track car. Le Mans is the easiest track on tyres that either the ELMS or the WEC visit, which ought to mitigate the effects of poor tyre management. It still may not be enough, and if that is the case, SMP face a small disaster's worth of time lost in the pits should they have to change tyres more frequently than their opponents. That all gets thrown out the window if it turns out that their high tyre wear had more to do with a poor or unlucky choice of tyre compound during the race. It is worth noting that for all of their struggles, the #32 SMP Racing entry placed second overall, but they were a minute-and-a-half behind the winning G-Drive after four hours.
Third overall was the #22 So24! by Lombard Racing Ligier. Notably, this team did not have a single driver rated gold or higher. Olivier Lombard ran quickest of the three as the team's anchor, running a double-stint comprising a twenty-four lap and an eighteen lap run. His final stint saw him catching Stefano Coletti ahead of him at the rate of 1.2 seconds per lap. Much of this pace difference is down to the JS P2 being easier on the tyres, but Lombard demonstrated something better than pro-am pace. Were there two gold drivers in the car with him, this team would be unstoppable. Instead, it has Vincent Capillaire (a quick silver) and Jonathan Coleman (the fastest bronze in the class). All three are perfect for the role of the non-gold driver LMP2 team require, but they are going to continue to rely on reliability problems to score further podiums.
The #40 Krohn Racing entry placed fourth overall, owing primarily to a strong opening performance from Björn Wirdheim, who put the car into third place before the second pit cycle began. Wirdheim is not contesting the full ELMS season as Olivier Pla will take the seat for the rest of the season, which is unfortunate given that Wirdheim won the championship last year with Greaves Motorsport
Elsewhere in the field, the #41 Greaves Ligier placed eighth after a paddle shift issue cost them a sure podium. Kuba Giermaziak is perhaps the lesser known driver of the team, but he proved very quick until the issues began to plague his stint. The Ligier is an unfamiliar car for Giermaziak; except for a few occasional appearances in various GT cars, he has run Porsche cup cars since exiting mid-level single-seaters after 2011. He was second quickest of the Ligier drivers behind Paul Loup Chatin (using Trusser's Trusty Twenty-percent method, or taking the mean time of a driver's fastest twenty percent of laps not borked by pitstops or yellow), keeping in mind that Wirdheim's stint started in mixed conditions. Kuba may not be receiving the attention of Pipo Derani and he has room for improvement, but once he's run a few races in the Ligier, expect him to find that time.
Greaves also has two FIA driver rating mysteries in their lineup: Julien Canal and Memo Rojas. Canal won the WEC LMP2 title with G-Drive last year as their silver driver. He routinely ran just a few tenths quicker than gold rated Roman Rusinov and held station with the other gold rated drivers in the field in the race. Somebody in the FIA saw that Canal was quicker than Rusinov and saw the problem, but instead of moving Canal to gold, Rusinov is now the fastest silver driver in WEC. Canal is now the silver driver for Greaves. During the second stint of the race, he was the fastest driver on the track, running 0.3 seconds per lap quicker than Chatin and 0.6 quicker than Tincknell (both of whom were on their tyres' second stint, mind, but the point stands). Like most drivers, Canal suffered somewhat in his tyres' second stint. Greaves' second full professional is Memo Rojas of Grand-Am fame as the driver who kept the Ganassi DP on the track so Scott Pruett could pass everybody and win. Rojas's single stint in the car was only 0.3 seconds/lap up on Canal's second stint and well off both Canal's first stint and most of his immediate competitors. Perhaps in the end, it matters little which driver in the car is the silver so long as the team has one, but perhaps the grading is just a little daft.
Chatin's team, Panis Barthez Competition, placed ninth overall. The car led briefly after the second stops, but Simon Dolan was able to run down and pass Fabien Barthez in short order. This was another likely podium car that ran into reliability problems, pulling into the wrong pitlane with Timothé Buret at the wheel after slowing on track. Had it not broken down, it probably would have placed third or fourth, but only then because of quicker teams falling out. Buret is a fairly run-of-the-mill silver at this point in his career (he is only twenty and he will improve, probably) but Barthez is still learning the trade. He was far from the slowest out of the LMP2 runners, but he was not close enough to the front, especially with only one gold driver on the team. It is a struggle to consider the car much of a factor for the year.
LMP3 features a lot more unknown in terms of drivers and car performance. The Ligier JS P3 made its debut last year, but most of the LMP3 entries last year were Ginettas. Unfortunately, a dispute between Ginetta and Oreca (who supply much of the spec equipment) has led to LMP3 turning very nearly into a one-make class until Riley, Dome and Adess begin challenging Onroak's Ligiers. Nineteen LMP3 cars were entered and eighteen of them were JS P3s. One Ginetta was entered by Murphy Prototypes and lasted twenty-nine laps before retiring. There are fewer variables to talk about when every car runs the same tyres and the same chassis with the spec Nissan engine, but it does provide for a decent comparison of driver talent.
Platinum graded drivers are not allowed in LMP3, but Alex Brundle is. He started the #2 United Autosports entry from fourth in class and eighteenth overall. As cars spun and ran off in front of him, he moved to tenth overall and took the lead of his class on the first lap. His fastest lap of the race was over a second quicker than anybody else's in the class. His two teammates also had pace and bronze Christian England was bettered only by Wayne Boyd and Sean Rayhall in the final stints. They easily won with a lap in hand.
The #3 United Autosports entry placed second, led off by a strong stint from Matt Bell (the 26-year-old Englishman, not the 30-year-old American by the same name) and finished by an even stronger stint from Wayne Boyd. Both drivers are examples of the benefit of finding the quick silver. Bell is something of a professional amateur, comprising the silver element of a number of successful pro-am combinations in GT racing (primarily British GT) alongside his driver coaching duties. Boyd was a Formula Ford champion in 2008, but ran out of funding before he could get much further, ruining his chances at top level single-seater running. Neither had any reason to be classed as gold drivers before the season, but they both showed very strong pace in an unfamiliar car.
Graff's #9 entry took third. This car only stopped three times compared to most teams' four and made up about a minute on their immediate competition. That, the retirement of the #7 Villorba Corse in the early stages, and the issues that forced the #10 Graff to make a twenty minute pit stop made the podium possible for the #9. None of its three drivers put in superb stints, but there were no weak links and the car held together.
The aforementioned #7 and #10 cars were quicker. Giorgio Sernagiotto in the #7 lost a rear wheel while running fourth and gaining on third. Nicollo Schiro was quick in practice, but unfortunately never got a chance to run in the race. The #10 started its experienced bronze Enzo Potolicchio and held its gold driver Sean Rayhall for the end. Two reasonable and economic stints from Potolicchio and John Falb saw the car run as high as third behind the sister car before the car was forced to make a long stop with a gearbox issue, wrecking Rayhall's chance to chase down the leaders.
The #11 Eurointernational entry also suffered with gearbox problems, retiring with around twenty minutes remaining. It had already spent nearly seven minutes in the pits and was well out of the running, but it wasted Giorgio Mondini's excellent opening stint during which he brought the car into fourth from a thirteenth starting position on pace. Likewise, Jakub Smiechowski put in the quickest second stint in the #13 Inter Europol Competition entry and the car ran as high as third before retiring with what was described as a "technical issue".
Duqueine Engineering brought two cars to the track. The #20 struggled, but the #19 placed fourth in class after an excellent closing run by Dino Lunardi, who ran 54 laps on two tanks, saving the team from making a splash at the end. His pace all the while was quickest of all in the third stint of the race and only a tenth behind Christian England while running longer.
Going by class seems easiest, so that is what I will do in order of pace.
The LMP2 categorically suffered greatly from early attrition. Lap twelve saw the two front-running Oreca 05s retire, the polesitting Thiriet By TDS with a stuck throttle and the Eurasia Motorsport entry after debris struck the marshal's emergency ignition switch. The third Oreca 05, run by DragonSpeed retired on lap 66 after struggling throughout the race with braking issues. Given the 05's success since it was introduced, its lack of reliability this weekend is quite surprising. The only other retirement in the class was the Pegasus Racing Morgan, which spun into the pit wall on its opening lap and then shed a wheel on track after ninety laps.
Of the remaining runners, there is no question the G-Drive/JOTA team with its Gibson 015S was the class of the field. Harry Tincknell and Giedo van der Garde were the two fastest drivers on track with only Paul Loup Chatin close to their ultimate pace. During his first stint (comparing third stints from the teams), silver driver Simon Dolan was the second quickest on track, losing out only to Ben Hanley in the DragonSpeed Oreca 05 on a shorter stint. The only struggles the G-Drive faced were the second stints of Tincknell and Dolan. This was a common theme all weekend; few teams were able to save time by double-stinting their tyres.
This was particularly the case for the SMP Racing BR01s. Both cars suffered greatly at the ends of their first stints, dropping upwards of four seconds a lap from the start of a stint to the end of it. Stefano Coletti put in one of the finest drives of the afternoon at the wheel on the second place #32 BR01, keeping the tyres relatively intact over the course of his double-stint at the end of the race. Three of his final four laps were in the 1:54s compared to Mitch Evans finishing in the high 1:55s to mid 1:56s, although other circumstances could have played a part.
If BR Engineering do not have a quick solution for their tyre troubles, the BR01 is essentially a one-track car. Le Mans is the easiest track on tyres that either the ELMS or the WEC visit, which ought to mitigate the effects of poor tyre management. It still may not be enough, and if that is the case, SMP face a small disaster's worth of time lost in the pits should they have to change tyres more frequently than their opponents. That all gets thrown out the window if it turns out that their high tyre wear had more to do with a poor or unlucky choice of tyre compound during the race. It is worth noting that for all of their struggles, the #32 SMP Racing entry placed second overall, but they were a minute-and-a-half behind the winning G-Drive after four hours.
Third overall was the #22 So24! by Lombard Racing Ligier. Notably, this team did not have a single driver rated gold or higher. Olivier Lombard ran quickest of the three as the team's anchor, running a double-stint comprising a twenty-four lap and an eighteen lap run. His final stint saw him catching Stefano Coletti ahead of him at the rate of 1.2 seconds per lap. Much of this pace difference is down to the JS P2 being easier on the tyres, but Lombard demonstrated something better than pro-am pace. Were there two gold drivers in the car with him, this team would be unstoppable. Instead, it has Vincent Capillaire (a quick silver) and Jonathan Coleman (the fastest bronze in the class). All three are perfect for the role of the non-gold driver LMP2 team require, but they are going to continue to rely on reliability problems to score further podiums.
The #40 Krohn Racing entry placed fourth overall, owing primarily to a strong opening performance from Björn Wirdheim, who put the car into third place before the second pit cycle began. Wirdheim is not contesting the full ELMS season as Olivier Pla will take the seat for the rest of the season, which is unfortunate given that Wirdheim won the championship last year with Greaves Motorsport
Elsewhere in the field, the #41 Greaves Ligier placed eighth after a paddle shift issue cost them a sure podium. Kuba Giermaziak is perhaps the lesser known driver of the team, but he proved very quick until the issues began to plague his stint. The Ligier is an unfamiliar car for Giermaziak; except for a few occasional appearances in various GT cars, he has run Porsche cup cars since exiting mid-level single-seaters after 2011. He was second quickest of the Ligier drivers behind Paul Loup Chatin (using Trusser's Trusty Twenty-percent method, or taking the mean time of a driver's fastest twenty percent of laps not borked by pitstops or yellow), keeping in mind that Wirdheim's stint started in mixed conditions. Kuba may not be receiving the attention of Pipo Derani and he has room for improvement, but once he's run a few races in the Ligier, expect him to find that time.
Greaves also has two FIA driver rating mysteries in their lineup: Julien Canal and Memo Rojas. Canal won the WEC LMP2 title with G-Drive last year as their silver driver. He routinely ran just a few tenths quicker than gold rated Roman Rusinov and held station with the other gold rated drivers in the field in the race. Somebody in the FIA saw that Canal was quicker than Rusinov and saw the problem, but instead of moving Canal to gold, Rusinov is now the fastest silver driver in WEC. Canal is now the silver driver for Greaves. During the second stint of the race, he was the fastest driver on the track, running 0.3 seconds per lap quicker than Chatin and 0.6 quicker than Tincknell (both of whom were on their tyres' second stint, mind, but the point stands). Like most drivers, Canal suffered somewhat in his tyres' second stint. Greaves' second full professional is Memo Rojas of Grand-Am fame as the driver who kept the Ganassi DP on the track so Scott Pruett could pass everybody and win. Rojas's single stint in the car was only 0.3 seconds/lap up on Canal's second stint and well off both Canal's first stint and most of his immediate competitors. Perhaps in the end, it matters little which driver in the car is the silver so long as the team has one, but perhaps the grading is just a little daft.
Chatin's team, Panis Barthez Competition, placed ninth overall. The car led briefly after the second stops, but Simon Dolan was able to run down and pass Fabien Barthez in short order. This was another likely podium car that ran into reliability problems, pulling into the wrong pitlane with Timothé Buret at the wheel after slowing on track. Had it not broken down, it probably would have placed third or fourth, but only then because of quicker teams falling out. Buret is a fairly run-of-the-mill silver at this point in his career (he is only twenty and he will improve, probably) but Barthez is still learning the trade. He was far from the slowest out of the LMP2 runners, but he was not close enough to the front, especially with only one gold driver on the team. It is a struggle to consider the car much of a factor for the year.
LMP3 features a lot more unknown in terms of drivers and car performance. The Ligier JS P3 made its debut last year, but most of the LMP3 entries last year were Ginettas. Unfortunately, a dispute between Ginetta and Oreca (who supply much of the spec equipment) has led to LMP3 turning very nearly into a one-make class until Riley, Dome and Adess begin challenging Onroak's Ligiers. Nineteen LMP3 cars were entered and eighteen of them were JS P3s. One Ginetta was entered by Murphy Prototypes and lasted twenty-nine laps before retiring. There are fewer variables to talk about when every car runs the same tyres and the same chassis with the spec Nissan engine, but it does provide for a decent comparison of driver talent.
Platinum graded drivers are not allowed in LMP3, but Alex Brundle is. He started the #2 United Autosports entry from fourth in class and eighteenth overall. As cars spun and ran off in front of him, he moved to tenth overall and took the lead of his class on the first lap. His fastest lap of the race was over a second quicker than anybody else's in the class. His two teammates also had pace and bronze Christian England was bettered only by Wayne Boyd and Sean Rayhall in the final stints. They easily won with a lap in hand.
The #3 United Autosports entry placed second, led off by a strong stint from Matt Bell (the 26-year-old Englishman, not the 30-year-old American by the same name) and finished by an even stronger stint from Wayne Boyd. Both drivers are examples of the benefit of finding the quick silver. Bell is something of a professional amateur, comprising the silver element of a number of successful pro-am combinations in GT racing (primarily British GT) alongside his driver coaching duties. Boyd was a Formula Ford champion in 2008, but ran out of funding before he could get much further, ruining his chances at top level single-seater running. Neither had any reason to be classed as gold drivers before the season, but they both showed very strong pace in an unfamiliar car.
Graff's #9 entry took third. This car only stopped three times compared to most teams' four and made up about a minute on their immediate competition. That, the retirement of the #7 Villorba Corse in the early stages, and the issues that forced the #10 Graff to make a twenty minute pit stop made the podium possible for the #9. None of its three drivers put in superb stints, but there were no weak links and the car held together.
The aforementioned #7 and #10 cars were quicker. Giorgio Sernagiotto in the #7 lost a rear wheel while running fourth and gaining on third. Nicollo Schiro was quick in practice, but unfortunately never got a chance to run in the race. The #10 started its experienced bronze Enzo Potolicchio and held its gold driver Sean Rayhall for the end. Two reasonable and economic stints from Potolicchio and John Falb saw the car run as high as third behind the sister car before the car was forced to make a long stop with a gearbox issue, wrecking Rayhall's chance to chase down the leaders.
The #11 Eurointernational entry also suffered with gearbox problems, retiring with around twenty minutes remaining. It had already spent nearly seven minutes in the pits and was well out of the running, but it wasted Giorgio Mondini's excellent opening stint during which he brought the car into fourth from a thirteenth starting position on pace. Likewise, Jakub Smiechowski put in the quickest second stint in the #13 Inter Europol Competition entry and the car ran as high as third before retiring with what was described as a "technical issue".
Duqueine Engineering brought two cars to the track. The #20 struggled, but the #19 placed fourth in class after an excellent closing run by Dino Lunardi, who ran 54 laps on two tanks, saving the team from making a splash at the end. His pace all the while was quickest of all in the third stint of the race and only a tenth behind Christian England while running longer.
360 Racing ran fifth after sitting on pole thanks to Ross Kaiser's time in the wet. It is listed here because it was a mild disappointment from pole. Terrance Woodward started the car and struggled mightily in the mixed conditions, being awarded a stop-go penalty in the meantime. James Swift put in a couple of decent stints and Ross Kaiser ran quickly, but they could not close in on the podium. It is a team learning the new car with three drivers that are less than experienced with endurance racing, so perhaps Kaiser's lap in qualifying is not quite representative of the team's present pace. Whether they find that time will be something to watch for.
LMGTE saw very little reliability problems influence the race, which is excellent for everybody neck deep in times and comparisons. The only car not classified within two laps of the leader was the winning car, the #66 JMW Ferrari, because they left two undertray inserts off the car and were excluded from the results. Supposedly, the bits left off would have made the car go even faster then it was when it won by a lap.
This class is essentially the same class as the WEC LMGTE Am. Each car must have at a bronze driver and one bronze or silver driver with the option for a third driver of any grade, meaning the winning teams will have one platinum or gold, one silver and one bronze. You will often hear broadcasters talking about the pro-am races being won by the quickest amateur drivers, because of how little difference in pace there is between the professional drivers. Keep this in mind.
This time, I will go by teams' stints, primarily for the purpose of comparing drivers over similar times, although this isn't perfect at all given that a number of teams were off sequence. Also note that no teams double-stinted their tyres, although a majority of the teams double stinted their silver driver. Tables would probably be nice, but that would require me to spend five minutes learning how to do it - unacceptable.
For the first stint, none of the teams started their gold/platinum. Alex MacDowell (S) in the #99 AMR went quickest on average laptime, which was 2:04.814. Robert Smith (B) followed with a 2:05.175 in the JMW Ferrari and Stuart Hall (S) with a 2:05.476 close behind him. Except for Alexander Talkinitsa Jr., who pitted after eleven laps to change a broken wheel after contact with an LMP3 car, nobody else was within a second of these three. Every team without broken wheels pitted for the first time between laps 26 and 29. Robert Smith went the longest, completing 28 laps.
The second stint was interrupted by a code 80 (or full course yellow). JMW pitted during the code 80 and everybody else did not, meaning Rory Butcher's (S) stint only lasted 16 laps. It was the quickest at an average of 2:03.398. Not running the second half of the stint on tyres probably helped. Second was Alex MacDowell on his second stint, averaging a 2:03.510. followed by Stuart at a 2:03.571. Aaron Scott (S) was a second and a half down at a 2:05.026 in the #55 AF Corse Ferrari. Fifth quickest is a little more interesting, and that is Wolf Henzler, the platinum graded driver for the #77 Proton Porsche, who could manage only a 2:05.501 average over his thirty laps. Performances like his demonstrates the danger of drawing complete conclusions on the basis of one race; Henzler earned his factory Porsche drive and he is a very rapid driver and even did considerably better in the following day's WEC race in essentially the same car. Proton reported no problems with the car, so this stint is something of a mystery. For the purpose of comparisons with the next stint, Christina Nielsen (S) ran a 2:06.866 average time for the #60 Formula Racing.
Three teams put in their star driver for the third stint. AMR put Darren Turner (P) into the #99 and he went quickest in his stint, running a 2:04.201 average. Richard Lietz (P) ran second quickest in the #88 Proton Competition Porsche at a 2:04.870 (seems he ran the tyres off of it - he set the fastest lap of the race on his second hot lap). Then come some silvers, Marco Seefried in a shorter 19 lap stint in the #77 Proton (2:04.951), Rui Águas in the #56 AT Racing Ferrari (2:04.952), Scott in the #55 (2:05.290), and Nielsen in the #60 (2:05.753). Lots of numbers to take in.
This stint starts to show something interesting. Turner's average was 0.7 seconds/lap down on Alex MacDowell's the previous stint. There are any number of reasons that could be. It was not track conditions, presumably, because the drivers who ran stints at the same time did not suffer hits to their own averages. Scott lost a quarter of a second and Nielsen picked up over a second.
Andrea Bertolini was the other platinum to get into the car during this stint for JMW, off-sequence as it was. His fastest lap of the stint was second only to Lietz, but issues with the tyre pressures meant that his run was rather off balance. His first six laps were super quick, his next six were good and then the left front tyre turned into a basketball. He averaged a 2:05.788.
For the fourth stint, the #66 put Rory Butcher back in the car to take it to the flag, although their stop during the code 80 meant that they would have to take an extra fuel stop. Butcher immediately set to work seeing that this would not become any sort of problem and ran a 2:03.288 average for his first 25 lap run, the fastest stint of the race. JMW did not switch tyres and his final 11 laps were run at a pace of 2:04.389, on par or faster than several of the best full stints. Richie Stanaway (G) was second quickest running a 2:03.576 average. Talkinitsa Jr. was put back in the car for a short 18 lap stint by AT Racing before being pulled for Alessandro Pier Guidi to run the final 27 laps. Pier Guidi averaged a 2:04.661. Mikkel Mac in the #60 (G, 2:05.295), Marco Seefried (2:05.514), Matt Griffin in the #55 (G, 2:05.583) and Marco Cioci in the #51 (G, 2:06.284) followed. Griffin and Cioci in particular were farther off than they ought to have been, although the two cars had come together earlier in the race and the #55 had gotten thumped by an LMP3 during Duncan Cameron's stint. Seefried in the Proton was virtually identical to Henzler in pace.
If you hate bad formatting and poorly constructed numbers as much as I do, you probably drew very little from that. The key takeaway is that silver drivers put together the four fastest stints of the race, the fastest two being done by Rory Butcher (although you may justifiably discount his 16 lap stint for being too short). Alex MacDowell and Stuart Hall were only a couple of tenths down. MacDowell last year competed in the GTE Pro class for Aston Martin in the WEC and won the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, demonstrating that being a race winner in a Pro category does not make you a professional driver. Hall was a gold graded driver last year and competed as the professional in the #96 Am lineup for AMR. Unfortunately, he was out of a job when AMR downsized for this year, so he appealed his grade just to see what would happen. The FIA either took pity on him or decided he was no longer quick enough to be a gold and downgraded him. Hall immediately found this ELMS ride with AMR and an IES drive with Ram Racing. Butcher's grade is perhaps more understandable as he has been far less active in high profile motorsport over the past few years, although he did win twice last year with Liam Griffin in the British GT championship.
Rui Águas is another fascinating case. In 2014, he was promoted to gold after his 2013 performance in the 8 Star Ferrari GTE-Am entry in the WEC. He lost his job in 2014 as 8 Star brought in Gianluca Roda as its bronze driver, who came with contract driver Paulo Ruberti. None of the six AF Corse entries wanted him, so he spent the year rather under the radar in V de V and GT Asia. He was returned to his silver grade in 2015 and became the silver element of the #83 AF Corse entry. The car finished off the podium once, when Matteo Cressoni subbed for Águas. Emmanuel Collard was the platinum in the car. Collard has competed at Le Mans every year since 1995, finishing twice on the overall podium with Pescarolo Sport and winning his class once in GT and once in LMP2. He and Águas have been nearly identical in pace since teaming up in the #83.
Marco Cioci was Águas's gold co-driver for the Silverstone 4 Hours this year. Águas's fastest lap was a tenth of a second quicker. Águas's first stint was quite sub par. Twice he presumably had an off in the third sector and lost nearly a dozen seconds a pop and made smaller mistakes in other portions of the stint. If there was a problem, it resolved itself and he was putting in 2:03s right before his stop. His second stint, as noted, was excellent, barely off the back of Lietz. Cioci was not even close. It is possible he had a similar problem to Bertolini previously, but if he did, it was not reported at the time. His first seven laps were good, but he could not hold the pace and his nine laps after the final code 80 were abysmal and inconsistent. Whatever the issue, it cost the #51 sixth place. It also meant that Águas once again proved himself quicker than his more highly graded co-driver over a full stint and virtually identical on ultimate pace.
Another example is Marco Seefried, who outpaced teammate Wolf Henzler quite substantially. Seefried has been racing since 1993, although he did not race particularly regularly until 2011. He gained quite a lot of renown during the 2014 Blancpain Endurance Series, serving as a gun driver for the Rinaldi Racing Pro-Am entry, where his silver status meant that Rinaldi was able to bring in another silver (according to Blancpain rules, Rinaldi would have been required to field two bronze drivers had Seefried been rated gold). Last year, he competed as the silver Patrick Dempsey's campaign in WEC and was no more than a couple of tenths off of factory driver Patrick Long's pace for much of the year. He also competed in the Blancpain Sprint Series and won multiple races in the pro category with Norbert Siedler,
Driver categorization has a lot in common with allergy medication. It tastes bad and gives side effects that are not compatible with driving cars (given how many good drivers have lost their rides after being upgraded). Nobody wants to deal with it, but there are no other solutions are that are any good (we could take everything that releases pollen and vaska). I don't make these comparisons on the premise of having solutions, but there is a point when the number drivers gaming the system gets just a little daft.
Something else the race demonstrated was just how unfortunate the decision by the ACO to not grant JMW an entry into the 24 Hours of Le Mans turned out. JMW is first on the reserve list as of this post and there is a good chance they will make it in anyway, but they might not. They have competed every year since 2009 as one of the few independent GT runners left. Exactly who they should replace is another discussion, and whether important that would lead the ACO to believe JMW would not be a worthy team for the entry list (like potential impending bankruptcy) is something I don't know.
If JMW do not get their invitation to Le Mans, Rory Butcher and Andrea Bertolini are as of now free for the race. AF Corse have a habit of not announcing their driver lineups for Le Mans as quickly as any of the other major players. They are running three cars this year as Risi Competizione earned the automatic GTLM entry from IMSA and are running two of last years' #51 AF Corse drivers. There are three GTE Pro drives currently unaccounted for and far more than in AF Corse factory ranks. Bertolini is a good candidate for one of them, having won the GTE Am championship last year. Meanwhile, there is still a question of who scores the silver seat in Duncan Cameron's entry. Alex Mortimer and Aaron Scott both served as Cameron's silvers in GTE last year. Both were good, but neither were nearly as impressive as Butcher is. AF Corse have shuffled their drivers about like so before. None of that matters if JMW get their entry.
I may post a short splurge on the WEC race, but it won't be nearly this long. There are only a couple of days until Spa-Francorchamps and there is always tons of analysis everywhere on the WEC. If anything, my purpose is to look at performances flying under the radar, and if Pipo Derani has proved nothing else this year, it is that WEC performances do not fly under the radar so quickly.
LMGTE saw very little reliability problems influence the race, which is excellent for everybody neck deep in times and comparisons. The only car not classified within two laps of the leader was the winning car, the #66 JMW Ferrari, because they left two undertray inserts off the car and were excluded from the results. Supposedly, the bits left off would have made the car go even faster then it was when it won by a lap.
This class is essentially the same class as the WEC LMGTE Am. Each car must have at a bronze driver and one bronze or silver driver with the option for a third driver of any grade, meaning the winning teams will have one platinum or gold, one silver and one bronze. You will often hear broadcasters talking about the pro-am races being won by the quickest amateur drivers, because of how little difference in pace there is between the professional drivers. Keep this in mind.
This time, I will go by teams' stints, primarily for the purpose of comparing drivers over similar times, although this isn't perfect at all given that a number of teams were off sequence. Also note that no teams double-stinted their tyres, although a majority of the teams double stinted their silver driver. Tables would probably be nice, but that would require me to spend five minutes learning how to do it - unacceptable.
For the first stint, none of the teams started their gold/platinum. Alex MacDowell (S) in the #99 AMR went quickest on average laptime, which was 2:04.814. Robert Smith (B) followed with a 2:05.175 in the JMW Ferrari and Stuart Hall (S) with a 2:05.476 close behind him. Except for Alexander Talkinitsa Jr., who pitted after eleven laps to change a broken wheel after contact with an LMP3 car, nobody else was within a second of these three. Every team without broken wheels pitted for the first time between laps 26 and 29. Robert Smith went the longest, completing 28 laps.
The second stint was interrupted by a code 80 (or full course yellow). JMW pitted during the code 80 and everybody else did not, meaning Rory Butcher's (S) stint only lasted 16 laps. It was the quickest at an average of 2:03.398. Not running the second half of the stint on tyres probably helped. Second was Alex MacDowell on his second stint, averaging a 2:03.510. followed by Stuart at a 2:03.571. Aaron Scott (S) was a second and a half down at a 2:05.026 in the #55 AF Corse Ferrari. Fifth quickest is a little more interesting, and that is Wolf Henzler, the platinum graded driver for the #77 Proton Porsche, who could manage only a 2:05.501 average over his thirty laps. Performances like his demonstrates the danger of drawing complete conclusions on the basis of one race; Henzler earned his factory Porsche drive and he is a very rapid driver and even did considerably better in the following day's WEC race in essentially the same car. Proton reported no problems with the car, so this stint is something of a mystery. For the purpose of comparisons with the next stint, Christina Nielsen (S) ran a 2:06.866 average time for the #60 Formula Racing.
Three teams put in their star driver for the third stint. AMR put Darren Turner (P) into the #99 and he went quickest in his stint, running a 2:04.201 average. Richard Lietz (P) ran second quickest in the #88 Proton Competition Porsche at a 2:04.870 (seems he ran the tyres off of it - he set the fastest lap of the race on his second hot lap). Then come some silvers, Marco Seefried in a shorter 19 lap stint in the #77 Proton (2:04.951), Rui Águas in the #56 AT Racing Ferrari (2:04.952), Scott in the #55 (2:05.290), and Nielsen in the #60 (2:05.753). Lots of numbers to take in.
This stint starts to show something interesting. Turner's average was 0.7 seconds/lap down on Alex MacDowell's the previous stint. There are any number of reasons that could be. It was not track conditions, presumably, because the drivers who ran stints at the same time did not suffer hits to their own averages. Scott lost a quarter of a second and Nielsen picked up over a second.
Andrea Bertolini was the other platinum to get into the car during this stint for JMW, off-sequence as it was. His fastest lap of the stint was second only to Lietz, but issues with the tyre pressures meant that his run was rather off balance. His first six laps were super quick, his next six were good and then the left front tyre turned into a basketball. He averaged a 2:05.788.
For the fourth stint, the #66 put Rory Butcher back in the car to take it to the flag, although their stop during the code 80 meant that they would have to take an extra fuel stop. Butcher immediately set to work seeing that this would not become any sort of problem and ran a 2:03.288 average for his first 25 lap run, the fastest stint of the race. JMW did not switch tyres and his final 11 laps were run at a pace of 2:04.389, on par or faster than several of the best full stints. Richie Stanaway (G) was second quickest running a 2:03.576 average. Talkinitsa Jr. was put back in the car for a short 18 lap stint by AT Racing before being pulled for Alessandro Pier Guidi to run the final 27 laps. Pier Guidi averaged a 2:04.661. Mikkel Mac in the #60 (G, 2:05.295), Marco Seefried (2:05.514), Matt Griffin in the #55 (G, 2:05.583) and Marco Cioci in the #51 (G, 2:06.284) followed. Griffin and Cioci in particular were farther off than they ought to have been, although the two cars had come together earlier in the race and the #55 had gotten thumped by an LMP3 during Duncan Cameron's stint. Seefried in the Proton was virtually identical to Henzler in pace.
If you hate bad formatting and poorly constructed numbers as much as I do, you probably drew very little from that. The key takeaway is that silver drivers put together the four fastest stints of the race, the fastest two being done by Rory Butcher (although you may justifiably discount his 16 lap stint for being too short). Alex MacDowell and Stuart Hall were only a couple of tenths down. MacDowell last year competed in the GTE Pro class for Aston Martin in the WEC and won the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, demonstrating that being a race winner in a Pro category does not make you a professional driver. Hall was a gold graded driver last year and competed as the professional in the #96 Am lineup for AMR. Unfortunately, he was out of a job when AMR downsized for this year, so he appealed his grade just to see what would happen. The FIA either took pity on him or decided he was no longer quick enough to be a gold and downgraded him. Hall immediately found this ELMS ride with AMR and an IES drive with Ram Racing. Butcher's grade is perhaps more understandable as he has been far less active in high profile motorsport over the past few years, although he did win twice last year with Liam Griffin in the British GT championship.
Rui Águas is another fascinating case. In 2014, he was promoted to gold after his 2013 performance in the 8 Star Ferrari GTE-Am entry in the WEC. He lost his job in 2014 as 8 Star brought in Gianluca Roda as its bronze driver, who came with contract driver Paulo Ruberti. None of the six AF Corse entries wanted him, so he spent the year rather under the radar in V de V and GT Asia. He was returned to his silver grade in 2015 and became the silver element of the #83 AF Corse entry. The car finished off the podium once, when Matteo Cressoni subbed for Águas. Emmanuel Collard was the platinum in the car. Collard has competed at Le Mans every year since 1995, finishing twice on the overall podium with Pescarolo Sport and winning his class once in GT and once in LMP2. He and Águas have been nearly identical in pace since teaming up in the #83.
Marco Cioci was Águas's gold co-driver for the Silverstone 4 Hours this year. Águas's fastest lap was a tenth of a second quicker. Águas's first stint was quite sub par. Twice he presumably had an off in the third sector and lost nearly a dozen seconds a pop and made smaller mistakes in other portions of the stint. If there was a problem, it resolved itself and he was putting in 2:03s right before his stop. His second stint, as noted, was excellent, barely off the back of Lietz. Cioci was not even close. It is possible he had a similar problem to Bertolini previously, but if he did, it was not reported at the time. His first seven laps were good, but he could not hold the pace and his nine laps after the final code 80 were abysmal and inconsistent. Whatever the issue, it cost the #51 sixth place. It also meant that Águas once again proved himself quicker than his more highly graded co-driver over a full stint and virtually identical on ultimate pace.
Another example is Marco Seefried, who outpaced teammate Wolf Henzler quite substantially. Seefried has been racing since 1993, although he did not race particularly regularly until 2011. He gained quite a lot of renown during the 2014 Blancpain Endurance Series, serving as a gun driver for the Rinaldi Racing Pro-Am entry, where his silver status meant that Rinaldi was able to bring in another silver (according to Blancpain rules, Rinaldi would have been required to field two bronze drivers had Seefried been rated gold). Last year, he competed as the silver Patrick Dempsey's campaign in WEC and was no more than a couple of tenths off of factory driver Patrick Long's pace for much of the year. He also competed in the Blancpain Sprint Series and won multiple races in the pro category with Norbert Siedler,
Driver categorization has a lot in common with allergy medication. It tastes bad and gives side effects that are not compatible with driving cars (given how many good drivers have lost their rides after being upgraded). Nobody wants to deal with it, but there are no other solutions are that are any good (we could take everything that releases pollen and vaska). I don't make these comparisons on the premise of having solutions, but there is a point when the number drivers gaming the system gets just a little daft.
Something else the race demonstrated was just how unfortunate the decision by the ACO to not grant JMW an entry into the 24 Hours of Le Mans turned out. JMW is first on the reserve list as of this post and there is a good chance they will make it in anyway, but they might not. They have competed every year since 2009 as one of the few independent GT runners left. Exactly who they should replace is another discussion, and whether important that would lead the ACO to believe JMW would not be a worthy team for the entry list (like potential impending bankruptcy) is something I don't know.
If JMW do not get their invitation to Le Mans, Rory Butcher and Andrea Bertolini are as of now free for the race. AF Corse have a habit of not announcing their driver lineups for Le Mans as quickly as any of the other major players. They are running three cars this year as Risi Competizione earned the automatic GTLM entry from IMSA and are running two of last years' #51 AF Corse drivers. There are three GTE Pro drives currently unaccounted for and far more than in AF Corse factory ranks. Bertolini is a good candidate for one of them, having won the GTE Am championship last year. Meanwhile, there is still a question of who scores the silver seat in Duncan Cameron's entry. Alex Mortimer and Aaron Scott both served as Cameron's silvers in GTE last year. Both were good, but neither were nearly as impressive as Butcher is. AF Corse have shuffled their drivers about like so before. None of that matters if JMW get their entry.
I may post a short splurge on the WEC race, but it won't be nearly this long. There are only a couple of days until Spa-Francorchamps and there is always tons of analysis everywhere on the WEC. If anything, my purpose is to look at performances flying under the radar, and if Pipo Derani has proved nothing else this year, it is that WEC performances do not fly under the radar so quickly.
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