WEC Silverstone 6 hours - Jox Jottings

Was this the same Silverstone we were at yesterday?

What an extraordinary difference a day makes (With credit to Dinah Washington who sang one of the original versions). On Sunday Silverstone was totally unrecognisable, the sun was out , the sky was blue and there was no forecast of rain (or snow!). But after scraping an iceberg’s worth of ice off my windscreen I was not banking on anything!

A point left over from Saturday’s ELMS race regarded the #66 Ferrari, they got excluded from the results by the stewards due to a technical infringement. DSC tells us what it was all about “The decision relates to a non-homologated front splitter fitted to the car.” You might have thought somebody would have spotted that during pre-race scrutineering. Irritating at the very least for the team since it gave them no performance advantage at all and they had crossed the line in first place. After a quick chat with one of the technical Dunlop people it seemed that they admitted that were caught out by the weather and lack of any testing in such extreme conditions which accounted for the disappointing showing from Aston Martin in WEC but they did better in ELMS. 

By the way I lost the ‘Z’ key off my tablet keyboard but so far I have not missed it. Thankfully Sarrazin,  Dalzeil, Menezes, Gonzales, Lietz and Henzier had a quiet race !

So what kind of a race was that then? In a word ‘brilliant’! Going back to an earlier blog .. ‘To finish first .. first you have to finish’. Audi and Porsche both lost cars. Porsche lost their leading car after a clash with a slower LMGTE Porsche that was horrifying to watch but could have been a nasty accident. It eliminated the LMP1 Porsche on the spot. It also won Hartley a stern reprimand from the authorities to say nothing of the roasting he probably got from Porsche management. It was huge accident and the ‘innocent’ Michael Wainwright in the #86 Porsche might have put it better rather than saying ‘I never saw him’. Actually with the closing speeds between a LMP1 Hybrid and an LMGTE Am this could be a valid excuse. Hartley and the Porsche had been flying (literally) and looked good for a race win.

Next up were Audi who were also looking good, to most people’s surprise they were clearly quick enough to give Porsche something to consider. But their normally impeccable reliability record let them down when their #8 car simply stopped with a ‘hybrid malfunction’. When this happens to a hybrid machine a surreal sequence of events kicks into action. A circuit support car leaves the pits with an Audi engineer on-board and he sets about discharging the batteries and making the car safe. Had di Grass been in any sort of danger he would have been left sitting in the car way too long. As it was he sat there calmly while the engineer went about his work. It was a long safety car period while this was sorted out. Maybe this needs some thought for the future? Anyway the upshot was that both Audi and Porsche were down to one car and Toyota were looking at fortuitous podium spot!

This put the pressure on the remaining cars and it built up into a highly tactical fight. You could say Porsche first began to lose it when #2 car got tangled up with a slower car, spun and re-joined. Possibly the key point was that Audi and Porsche were reckoned to be running out of tyres so it all got a bit tense. Porsche came in roughly on schedule and replaced the two left tyres, the ones that suffer at Silverstone. They began to be looking good for a win, albeit a very close one. But then they were had to pit again when Jani got a front right puncture and came in  for a replacement tyre (there is some speculation quite where this tyre came from after Porsche just said ‘out the back’) and a splash of fuel. Their tacticians by now were tearing their hair out. 

Audi as they often do seemed to shrug off the continual changes in tactics and handled their sole remaining car well. Even the circuit commentary team were struggling to read events. Jani was in a position now to blitz it to end but he simply didn't have the pace or maybe the fuel to tackle the Audi.

However it was still very tight at the finish. Congratulations to Audi, commiserations to Porsche. BUT.. after we had left the circuit word filtered through that Audi had been excluded. It was all down to  article 3.5.6 a3 of the LMP1 rulebook, which concerns post-race measurement of the underfloor plank. Audi’s was out by 5mm so the car was rejected by the officials who deemed, according to a stewards' rather dry statement, that "it is the liability of the competitor to respect the technical regulations in any case in order [that] the car complies with this regulation". Even more extraordinary was that Audi were seemingly not planning on appealing the decision. This was duff information, they have appealed , but as things stand until the decision has been reviewed the podium had a strange look about it.

Porsche were on the top step.. beside them was a rather bewildered Toyota and beside them.. wait for it .. Rebellion! None of us would have predicted that! Toyota were still short on pace but high on reliability and clearly in good shape. But they did arrive on the podium which will give them plenty of hope for the rest of the season. They were unlucky when their #5 car got a puncture that went on to destroy the rear body work and floor plan. But they will be pleased overall with their day’s work which meant that up until the last few minutes they had a car on the same lap as the race winners. .. A much better start than last year.

While spotlight always tended to shine on the LMP1 dramas it was LMP2 that saw, as is often the case, some terrific racing. LMP2 may lack the star drivers and manufacturer's weight and kudos but they were ‘at it’ all the way. Their performances always get mixed and blurred with close encounters by the rapid LMP1 cars and constantly getting immersed in finding a way through the GT battles. The #43 RGR Sport by Morand entry won the LMP2 class by half-a-minute ahead of #31 Extreme Speed Motorsport Ligier. Filipe Albuquerque took the Mexican entry home following a steady but rapid run alongside Bruno Senna and the much-improved Ricardo Gonzalez.

GT saw the very promising début of the new Ford GT. We imagine that despite hoping publicly for a clear win, after all they had spent a fortune testing, we think they will pleased with this outing. Raj Nair, executive vice president and chief technical officer, Global Ford Product Development and head honcho  was upbeat when reflecting on the team’s challenge at Silverstone. “Considering it was the first race with a new car and a new team we had a clean run. We’re very happy that the car ran well mechanically. We had a couple of issues; we were caught out on safety car timing and we lost radio with Olivier Pla towards the end of the race, which had an impact on strategy. This is a great start, though, and a good stepping stone to the Le Mans 24 Hours. We know how long it takes to develop a successful programme. We have the right car, the right team, the right drivers, and we just need time to develop all of that.”  OK so you can’t go out and buy one yet but it is one sexy bit of kit ! 

Nobody even got close to the AF Corse #71 Ferrari 488 GTE  (Sam Bird / Davide Rigon). They dominated the GTE-Pro category from start-to-finish, with leading almost every lap for the six hours. The only times they lost the lead was during the pit stops. In a way the other AF Corse Ferrari #51 was more impressive.  It started at the back of the grid after problems in qualifying and were also handed a three minute  stop-and-go penalty for changing an engine overnight. Third was the #95 Aston Martin V8 Vantage which spent a fraught race fending off the two Ford GT’s.  Aston Martin had been off the pace during qualifying while they tried to get to grips with the sub-arctic weather and their new relationship with Dunlop. But come the race it all paid off.

AF Corse completed a brilliant weekend by winning the GTE-Am class. The #83 car  piloted by Emmanuel Collard, François Perrodo and Rui Aguas, beat the #98 Aston Martin Vantage (Paul Dalla Lana/Pedri Lamy/Mathias Lauda) to the flag by one lap, with the #50 Larbre Competition C7 Corvette (Yutaka Yamagishi/Pierre Ragues/Paolo Ruberti) completing the GTE-Am podium. 

So as we said at the beginning ‘To finish first .. etc.’ maybe Porsche will be pondering what happened in the Hartley brain fade incident.. Audi will be wondering how their impeccable mechanical  record got damaged so publicly by a dead car sitting out there in the middle of the track for an embarrassingly long time.

Finally bearing in mind what the weather gods threw at us on Saturday it is very encouraging to hear that 52,000 spectators came to watch. Do you imagine that Bernie Ecclestone was a bit nervous of the ever increasing popularity of WEC when he ensured that the Grand Prix of Europe (in the brand new Formula One hot spot of Baku ?!)  clashed with Le Mans 24hrs thus making it 100% certain none of his drivers got a whiff of what ‘Endurance Racing’ has to offer. A very meagre 28,000 tickets have been made available for the European Grand Prix at Baku City Circuit. If Formula One carries along their suicidal, lemming led path to oblivion we may see more senior teams heading to LMP1. Now there is thought to keep us dribbling !

Jock Simpson

Postscript: Audi has chosen NOT to lodge an appeal following the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) in the United Kingdom. 

From Audi Press Release:

"The thickness of the skid block of the number “7” Audi R18 represented a breach of Article 3.5.6 a3 of the regulations, according to the assessment of the Technical Delegate. “We accept the exclusion from the classification and, in the interest of the sport, jointly look ahead,” said Head of Audi Motorsport Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich, justifying the decision. The skid block suffered above-average wear during the season opener. An analysis revealed that its wear was attributable to unexpectedly heavy “bouncing,” in other words an up- and downward movement of the race car. “It it is our job to avoid increased wear – we accept this responsibility,” Dr. Ullrich said. “We made our decision in the interest of the sport and hope that the eight remaining world championship rounds will be similarly thrilling as the season opener.” In just two weeks’ time, on May 7, round two of the season will be coming up at Spa (Belgium)."

ELMS in perspective - Jox Jottings

Kristof Vermeulen, our rather special Club Arnage ‘blogger’ has not only produced any number of impressive blogs for the site but has taken all the stunning photos as well. For the nuts and bolts of ELMS , the cars, teams and serious details go and browse his Club Arnage blogs. He also travels all over the place so he is serious asset! Clearly his input is vastly more erudite than those found historically in ‘Jox Jottings’. Even so whenever possible we will maybe fill in a few bits and bobs. 

This time let’s point the spotlight at LMP3. When it was announced there was a fear that the world of GTs was already pretty well served and Prototypes were doing OK. But there were no stepping stones upto the less cost effective ( OK expensive !!) LMP2 cars. The ACO saw an opportunity to rapidly build a new class and at the same time boost the ‘slimmish’ ELMS grids. The ACO love their prototypes and they got this dead right. The costs are manageable, the cars look serious and to date the racing has been excellent.  

We do wonder if ELMS will gradually become exclusively  aimed at Prototypes to the exclusion of GTs. This may not be such a bad thing since GT cars have any number of opportunities to race all over the world.. prototypes don’t. There were nineteen LMP3 cars here at Silverstone with a further fifteen LMP2 machines and ‘modest’ nine LMGTE examples not forgetting the CDNT SR41. (Just in case you missed it CDNT stands for ‘Cars Displaying New Technology’.

In this case the new technology surrounds the set up to enable Eric Sausset who is disabled to drive the car. This might be short-lived New Technology because the regulations state that next year all the cars will have roofs). All this lot added up to a grid of forty four cars which must be close to the maximum allowed on the GP circuit for GT and Prototype cars!

The future looks very rosy as not only Ligier are building cars.. so are Ginetta, Norma, Adess, Dome and Riley. Already various National Championships are planning on running events for these cars in the future.

The cars weigh in at 930 kgs with an 85 litre fuel tank. The engines are all Nissan V8 and all the cars have to have a six speed gearbox. So the chassis suppliers are limited as is the engine supplier and the sale price of the new car, complete, must not exceed €206,000.  Good value when you reckon a road going Ferrari 488 could cost you around €215,387.35. So they look good, they are ‘sensibly’ priced, there are plenty of places to race one and on Saturday here at Silverstone out of the 44 cars that started 34 finished after four hours and 432 miles.

Silverstone Six Hours and Four Hours - Jox Jottings

“To finish first.. first you have to finish”  Your friendly scribing team has another version of that “ To finish first .. first you have to get to the media centre by fighting your way through floods, snow, sleet and media parking that had run out of car passes”. So the day did not start well. The only bonus was there were no queues to get in, spectators are a hardy bunch but even they held back. 

April showers are a recognised meteorological phenomenon but they generally refer to rain showers not snow showers! Up until about lunchtime this was a hostile environment to say the least. Free practice for the Porsche Carrera Cup never happened due to the weather and those cheery red flags all-round the circuit and the WEC free practice was cut short.

However free practice on Friday had a familiar ring to it. Porsches were quickest in all three sessions and Toyota were in the hunt. Maybe it was because Audis were debuting a brand new car they were

off the pace and Toyota were now back on the pace and looking competitive again after their apparent misjudgements of 2015. LMP2 was packed with eleven cars and looking stronger than ever and in GT it looked as if Ferrari and Porsche were going well as were the eagerly awaited Ford GTs. Aston Martin looked to have taken a step backwards maybe while they settled onto Dunlop tyres. Whether the Fords are strictly legal having never sold any road going versions of the GT doesn’t matter.. they look amazing! Even a whiff of LMP2 about them maybe? The rear diffuser looks daft but it will probably shovel gravel by the ton if they go off.

Finally the weather eased off and sanity returned as the sledges and huskies were put away again hopefully until next winter. It was still wet and bl**dy cold as the brave band of spectators will agree with.

After qualifying the three Astons were languishing 28th/29th and 30th . It would have looked even worse if the two Rebellion LMP1 cars #12 & #13 hadn’t had a catastrophic qualifying session and were occupying 31st and 33rd on the grid! It was the AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE that took pole ahead of the #77 Dempsey –Proton Racing Porsche and #77 Ford Chip Ganassi Ford GT. 

The #26  G-Drive Oreca 05 Nissan ( catchy title !) was on LMP2 ahead of #31 Extreme Speed Motorsports Ligier JS P2 Nissan and  similar #43 Ligier Nissan. It really would help if the teams chose easier to remember names!

In LMP1 we think that Porsche’s noses were put badly out of joint judging by the TV shots from their pits. Both Audis proved to be very quick and they nicked pole and 2nd on the grid! Not part of the plan at all. This broke Porsche’s amazing 11 consecutive WEC pole positions. The Toyotas came next but some way off the pace. With the Rebellion cars struggling at the back of the grid the ‘non hybrid’ car the #4  Bykolles  Racing CLM P1/01-AER  ( see what we mean about these names !) was comfortably ahead. 

As is now traditional your scribes totally misjudged the final grid.. but that is quite normal. The good news is that LMP1 might turn out to be a good scrap!

The start procedure for ELMS is a bit quaint to say the least. They are working out of the ‘old’ pits and made their way down to the ‘new’ F1 grid and lined up there prior to their warm up lap which took them back for a rolling start at the ‘old’ start finish line! So they did 1.5 laps before the green light.. Confused?  

Jock Simpson.

Full timing details can be found on the FIAWEC and ELMS web sites.