Toyo Tires 24H Series, Hungaroring 12 Hours
Final Nine Hours

A Magyar 12-orás verseny, második részlet

The No. 14 Porsche and No. 52 BMW have had a bit of to and fro recently. The Jetalliance team had a difficult changeover and next had Vitus Eckert at the wheel. They thus lost the lead to the BMW of Claudia Hürtgen. Then the lead swapped again when the No. 52 car had a slow puncture and the Schubert team decided to make an extra wheel change.

The Didi Motorsport area looks like your typical Seat repair garage. No. 85 had work being done on the brakes while much of the mane of the No. 86 Leon was shorn off in its incident. The Creventic folks follow the Grand-Am principal, allowing a car such as this one to be towed back in and then continue after work.

The strange No. 70 Suzuki (which by the way has a Hayabusa chain-drive powered 1.3-liter motor) is in with cooling problems. Some of Zsolt Csüllög’s friends stopped by and in their honor he took the little Honda Civic back out for a slow troubled lap. Work continues in the Audi pits. The display R8 has been turned into a donor vehicle for the racer. Its engine is being readied for removal.

The Hürtgen vs. Eckert contest is really no contest as the No. 52 BMW has moved to a full lap ahead at the 5-hour mark. Indeed, she set the race’s fast lap at 1:52.216. In the classes there really is no contest in SP2. The 4th place overall Brokernet is well clear of the relatively slow Ferrari while the Mustang has been largely in the pits.

The D1 class is by far the closest contest. The No. 88 Seat leads with BMWs 99, 93, and 94 next, all within a 1 lap plus 1/2 margin. The only two A2 cars left, the bizzaro No. 70 Suzuki and the Ford Fiesta and slugging it out as garage dwellers.

There was the very lightest rain spatter for a few seconds, but as we crawl agonizingly towards the halfway mark it is cool gray conditions that predominate. This does allow the likely last bit of fast lappery. Walter Csaba guides the No. 99 BMW 120d to the best time in the D1 class at 2:01.440, while a little later Lászlo Keskeny twists the grip on the Suzuki and records a 2:08.55 for best in the forlorn A2 category. The other car in that group, the Ford Fiesta, was once again brought in on a flat tow. The No. 85 is having a new wheel bearing seated, or is that Seat-ed?

Just past 6 hours came one of the more “exciting” moments of the race when good old Claudia nearly punted off the Austrian Porsche when the No. 14 996 tried to take back a lost lap. Further back, the No. 88 Seat had a longish stop and the Schubert BMW is in the D1 class lead. I noticed three spectators in the vast grandstands across from the press room. However, by the time that I trained my camera that way they were gone.

Forgetting the sarcasm, it really has been remarkably close between the top two. Neither can afford to blink. Indeed, near the end of the hour the BMW makes a routine stop for fuel, tires, and a driver change while the Porsche continues around. Ryan Sharp completes a full lap and just slips past the pit exit as Viebahn reenters the fray (having relieved Sorlie). It was a phenomenal lap by Sharp, resetting the fast time of the race, now at 1:51.721.  Next time around, Sharp opens up an eight second gap.

The wheel bearing problem on the No. 85 Seat has proved terminal, while the Ferrari has a problem with a different bearing, the clutch release type. Better news for the other Didi Seat entry as the damaged No. 86 has nearly been repaired. Meanwhile the Suzuki was towed in with work being done in the chain-drive area.

We’re at the twilight of the eight-hour mark (18:00 local time) and the sad news of the passing of Paul Newman has just filtered through. Those of us in racing have long wanted to claim part of him too.

Here’s an annotated eight-hour rundown at Budapest:

1) 14, Jetalliance, Porsche, 238 laps
2) 52, Schubert, BW Z4,-25 seconds
3) 103, Bovi, Brokernet, 328 laps [running well now—note, the Porsche now in the car is a Cup engine. They had previously used an RS-type but had problems with it during the summer.]
4) 58, Levin, Porsche, -33 seconds [running well now and indeed caught and passed the Silver Sting a short time later]
5) 99, Schubert, BMW, 212 laps, now the clear leader in D1
6) 88, Procar, Seat, 207 laps
7) 93, Marcos, BMW, 205 laps, the local rent-a-drivers doing better than the foreign ones within the two-car Euser led team]
8) 94, Marcos, BMW, 200 laps
9) 35, Proex, Ferrari, 179 laps [running again after long stop]
10) 76, Endurance Club, Ford Fiesta, 177 laps [barely hanging on]
11) 70, Bovi, Suzuki, 168 laps [fast when it is running]
12) 116, VDS, Ford Mustang, 159 [highly delayed]
13) 85, Didi, Seat, retired at 117 laps
14) 86, Didi, Seat, running again at 98 laps but long way to go to get to its stationary teammate
15) retired Slovak Porsche, 16 laps
16) retired and sometimes unretired but now packed up Honda at 12 laps
17) garage ensconced Audi at 0 laps that eternally seems to be about an hour away from starting the race.

We have a bit of drama during the 9th hour as the Jetalliance Porsche comes in for a routine brake pad change. The next time around the complete brake rotor comes detached from the wheel and the car has been pushed into the garage. Thus the BMW Z4 regains the lead, but a few laps later it too encounters brake problems, a more minor bias issue in their case. The Porsche had at first lost four laps, but regained one of them when they reentered the race and the BMW stopped. Four laps behind the Jetalliance comes two more similarly powered cars, with the Levin Porsche some 50 seconds clear of the Brokernet.

At 9-1/2 hours comes a sporting moment as the doors open in front of the No. 888 Audi R8, the long engine swap completed. Ivo Breukers heads out in a very clean car, quite in contrast to all the other runners. Let’s see a couple quick turns by Jaap van Lagen, some deft pit work, a bobble or two by the leaders and the Audi will be back in it in no time. For the record, their first lap was completed in 9:34:00.960 for a speed of 0.458 km/h. Fine effort there fellows!

There is another reminder a short time later of the sparseness of the event. Suddenly the circuit went very quiet. We looked about expecting a “Code 60” only to determine that by complete coincidence about half the remaining cars were in the pits simultaneously while the other six or seven runners happened to be on the far side of the circuit just then.

However, right at the ten-hour mark there is indeed a real, albeit quite brief, interruption. It was for none other than the Jetalliance Porsche, which had slid to a stop at the chicane. It was restarted and returned to the pits, where the crew is crawling around underneath.

With the No. 14 Porsche stationary, the No. 103 Brokernet was in position to grab second place, but fate worked against them as well. It was brought in with gearshift assembly quite deranged. It was a super long stop for the supercar, while the bona fide Porsche “only” lost about 15 laps. This was certainly enough to allow the Levin Racing 996 into a distant second place behind the now sanguine BMW up front.

The problems at Bovi Motorsport allowed the D1 class leading little 120D of Schubert Motorsport to move up to fourth overall. Further down the Audi is now lapping almost as fast as the Brokernet’s best laps, which had been set in the daylight. However, the R8 has had its own version of brake problems—in this case the pedal banging back upwards, and team is obviously taking a leisurely approach to fixing it.

There is a late change for second place in D1 as the Procar Seat made a long stop and the No. 93 Marcos entered BMW has taken the spot. The Brokernet never got going again and took a stationary class win and seventh overall. Even the second and third place D1 cars slipped ahead. Those were, respectively, the No. 88 Procar Seat and the No. 93 Marcos BMW [still sounds weird to say that, Marcos BMW].

The Proex Ferrari was officially second in SP2, but was the moral victor as they were still running. All in all the SP2 crowd was a troubled lot. The No. 76 Endurance Club of Hungary Ford Fiesta endured to win the poorly supported A2 class.

The term “poorly supported” aptly describes the overall entry and other facets of the event. However, these were made up for by the excellent hospitality and efforts of the Creventic organization, as well as some spirited (if sporadic) on track activity. And then, most of all, it was in Hungary.

Results:

  1 52 Schubert BMW Z4 A6 class 349 laps
  2 58 Levin Porsche A6 340
  3 14 Jetalliance Porsche A6 331
  4 99 Schubert BMW 120D D1 318
  5 88 Procar Seat D1 309
  6 93 Marcos BMW 120D D1 308
  7 103 Bovi Brokernet SP2 304, not running, gearbox
  8 94 Marcos BMW 120D D1 299
  9 35 Proex Ferrari SP2 275
10 76 Endurance Club Ford Fiesta A2 274
11 70 Bovi Suzuki A2 263
12 116 VDS Ford Mustang SP2 259
13 86 Didi Seat D1 176
14 85 Didi Seat D1 117, DNF, wheel bearing
15 888 Audi CR-8 Audi SP2 46
16 22 Absolute Honda A2 18 (back at finish)
17 5 ARC Bratislava Porsche A6 16, DNF, engine

Janos Wimpffen