Truswell’s Insight Into The GT2 Race At Silverstone
How Virgo Sealed The Race And The Titles Paul Truswell completes his Silverstone assignment with his in-depth examination of the GT2 race. The warm up session saw most teams out to check setups. In the Felbermayr pit, Marc Lieb was going out, on a different set of Pirellis, to the same specification as the ones used in qualifying yesterday, and the team is hoping that they will work better for the race than they did in qualifying, when Lieb complained of heavy oversteer, and was well off the pace, disappointing the whole team. Co-driver Xavier Pompidou did not get to drive in the warm up, although most of the rest of the GT2 field did a driver change and allowed both drivers to drive the car during the twenty-minute session. The #88 Felbermayr car did not come out, Norbert Singer joking that it was “too cold and too early”. Possibly part of the reason was also that Horst Felbermayr junior was out in the Radical race, due to start straight after the warm up. So to the race itself. 1,000 kms, 195 racing laps for the race itself, but a question for all in GT2 as they try to work out how many laps they will be able to cover while the Peugeots are reeling off times in the 1m 40-somethings. Before the start, Chris Warne, Team Owner of the Virgo Motorsport Ferrari F430GT that sits on the class pole, says: “We are working on 170-something, and making our plans according to that. It should be about 5 hours 30 mins or 5 hours 40 mins. But we will be waiting to react to anything if we have to change the plan.” The team drivers, Rob Bell and Gianmaria Bruni, along with Chris Warne and engineer Steve Bunkhall, will be working out the various strategies as the race unfolds. But what can the team actually do, to improve its chances? I had a long discussion with Hugh Hayden, Team Manager on the Felbermayr-Proton Porsche squad that runs Marc Lieb and Xavier Pompidou, on the Friday before the race on this subject. In effect, due to the rule demanding that you select your tyres for the race beforehand, and you also have to start the race on the tyres on which you qualified, the options are limited. There will be an optimum set-up appropriate for those tyres, which you don’t want to change. Otherwise, your best chance to make up time on a rival is on pit stop and safety car strategy, especially if the weather is changeable. But weather and safety cars undoubtedly introduce an element of luck into the equation. You can’t predict, for example, if you will be just ahead of, or just behind the leader when a safety car appears. If you are just ahead, and the safety car comes out ahead of you, then it will (at least it should) wave you past, and allow you to catch up with the tail of the queue before the restart, thus gaining half a lap or more – at Silverstone, that’s 45 seconds. It’s a bit like playing a game of cards – you have to play the cards you get dealt, but there are certain strategies you can adopt to maximise the chances that those cards will work to your best advantage. Other than that, there’s the magic “Engine Map” button, which has a number of settings to control how much fuel the engine will use – more fuel delivers more power, but you can ‘lean off’ the mixture, for example when the safety car is out, and save more fuel. Just before the race, Chris Warne reveals Virgo’s strategy to me: “We’re going to go rich for the start and try and pull out a gap, then turn it down when the leaders come round to lap us, and start to try and save some fuel. We’re going to aim to do the race on four stops if we can”. The race was not very old, however, when it became clear that this was not going to be a race of strategy. At least not for the class lead. Here’s the class lead in the opening laps: Lap 1 1.952 secs between Bell (#96) and Lietz (#76) ( above)
Lap 2 3.050 secs
Lap 3 4.467 secs
Lap 4 5.785 secs
Lap 5 6.592 secs
Lap 6 7.594 secs
Lap 7 8.743 secs By lap 7, both the Virgo Ferrari and the IMSA Performance Porsche had been lapped, so let’s assume that Bell switched to a leaner engine mapping. Meanwhile, the Felbermayr Porsche (#77), in the hands of Marc Lieb, was a solid third, three and a half seconds behind Lietz. The rest of the class, led by the GPC Ferrari being driven by Johnny Mowlem, were dropping away, already ten seconds and more adrift. However, as the Peugeots began their 13th lap, 22 minutes into the race, the safety car was deployed to deal with the loose advertising hording on the gantry at Becketts. (See what I mean about the race being unpredictable?) Cue Chris Warne, standing on the pit wall for Virgo, to train his binoculars on the Felbermayr team. Virgo had previously decided that their strategy would be to copy their chief opponent; if #77 came in, so would they. Warne saw the Felbermayr crew assembling on the pit apron, and made the call to Bell, to come in to the pits the next time round. Unfortunately, it was not the #77 car that Felbermayr was bringing in, but another of the team cars. As luck would have it though, it still turned out to be a good call, since the Ferrari was able to take on fuel and a new set of Dunlops and return to the race (Bell still at the wheel) to catch up onto the tail of the safety car queue. When the safety car was brought in after 20 minutes, the Virgo Ferrari was back in third place, but the three leading GT2 cars crossed the line at the completion of their 18th lap nose to tail. (The Peugeots were already on their 19th lap.)  |
Two laps later, and Bell had the Ferrari back into the lead. (A lead it was not to lose for the remainder of the race.) The squabble between the Felbermayr and IMSA Performance Porsches was set to continue, though. Indeed Lieb had already passed Lietz while trying to prevent Bell from passing him, so it was the Felbermayr driver who was now leading the chase of the Ferrari. Watch Bell in the Ferrari pull away again though: Lap 20 1.666 secs between Bell (#96) and Lieb (#77)
Lap 21 3.278 secs
Lap 22 4.170 secs
Lap 23 4.832 secs
Lap 24 5.127 secs
Lap 25 6.755 secs
Lap 26 8.932 secs Compare this with the first table above. Startling, isn’t it? Seven laps, and in both cases, nearly nine seconds of an advantage. Although Bell was heavier, carrying more fuel in the Ferrari, fresher tyres (significantly, with little or no pick-up, from going off the racing line behind the safety car) enabled him to stretch his lead. A little aside here. I had struck up a good relationship with Gimmi Bruni, having first seen him race in British Formula 3 a few years ago, and I asked him about the strategy of bringing Bell in while the safety car was out. He told me: “Ah, it is something I learn in the States…” “So it was your idea then, Gimmi?” I asked him. “Well… yes…nooo… it was a team decision… they ask me, I agreed!” Funny how there are always people there to take the credit for a good call… Anyway, the next surprise of the race was the decision of the Felbermayr team to bring Marc Lieb (#77) in on his lap 29, by which time the lead Peugeot was on lap 32. The stop seemed a bit early to me, especially as I had asked Team Manager Hugh Hayden if they would perhaps run a short first stint as there were doubts about that particular set of tyres, and received a very firm “No, we can’t afford to,” as an answer. Xavier Pompidou took the car over, and such was the margin of the three leading GT2 cars, that he only dropped one place. By now, ‘best of the rest’ was the #85 Spyker (the ‘works’ car of Hezemans, yet to stop). The GPC Ferrari #83, which had been next up, had been “whacked off the track by the #79 Porsche at Becketts,” according to driver Johnny Mowlem. “He was an absolute idiot…” This after Mowlem had already been unlucky with the safety car. Having been between the safety car and the leader, he was waved through, but then the track went green before the Englishman had a chance to catch up onto the tail of the queue. “That lost us two-thirds of a lap,” he said. Spyker's Peter van Erp was equally fed up: “I was really disappointed in the decision the race directors made early in the race. Due to this safety car situation they isolated the top-3 in GT2 from the rest of the field by giving them immediately a one-lap advantage." More than an hour into the race now, and the pit-stops were coming thick and fast. Notable, however, was that the second-placed GT2 car, the IMSA Performance Porsche 997, was still out there. It finally came in after 38 laps, and Richard Lietz, who had started the car, must have felt comfortable, for he stayed at the wheel while it was refuelled and had new Michelins fitted. It was a quick stop, but not quick enough, and it lost second place to the Felbermayr car. So with 54 laps completed for the leading Peugeot, the GT2 positions were: 96 Bell (still) 48 Laps
77 Pompidou 48 - 1m 37.352s
76 Lietz (still) 48 - 1m 40.703s But Bell was nearly out of fuel, having had his stop under the safety car, and the two Porsches were relatively well fuelled-up. Notice that I keep mentioning how many laps the leading car has done when noting the number of laps completed by GT2 cars. Remember the race is over 195 laps, and the GT2 teams are calculating throughout the race how many laps they will have to complete. Or if the leading car will not complete the race distance within six hours, then the race will be a timed event, ending at 6pm, regardless of the number of laps completed. I have never been able to spend so much time in the garages during a long distance race, and it is fascinating to watch how these things are tackled. At Virgo, a member of the team is typing every lap time of the leading car into a computer, which then projects how long the race will be, allowing the team to adjust its strategy if necessary.  |
Bell brought the Ferrari in for fuel, tyres and a change of driver at the end of his 50th lap, and with a lead of 1m 40secs. The stop looked good to me, but Chris Warne vouchsafed to me afterwards that: “the left front wheel nut blocked – that cost us four or five seconds”. Despite the stop, the Ferrari kept the lead, but the gap had come right down to just 18 seconds to the IMSA Performance Porsche. Because of the out-of-sequence pit stops though, the Ferrari’s advantage was greater than the gap on the track. With not long to wait for the Porsches next round of pit-stops, there was no need for Bruni to push too hard. The pit stop situation, with the lap number on which each car stopped, was unfolding like this: #96 Lap 15 Lap 50 Lap 87 Lap 122
#76 Lap 38 Lap 74 Lap 110 Lap 146
#77 Lap 29 Lap 63 Lap 98 Lap 118 To save you the bother of the subtractions, the stint lengths were: #96 15 laps (Bell) 35 laps (Bell) 37 laps (Bruni) 35 laps (Bell)
#76 38 laps (Lietz) 36 laps (Lietz) 36 laps (Narac) 36 laps (Lietz)
#77 29 laps (Lieb) 34 laps (Pomp.) 35 laps (Lieb) 20 laps (Pomp.) But I’m getting ahead of myself here – there is more to tell. At three hours (when the leading Peugeot had covered 103 laps (5 laps more than half distance), the position was: #96 Bell (again) 92 laps 3 pit stops
#76 Lietz (again) 92 laps - 42.299s 2 pit stops
#77 Lieb (again) 92 laps - 1m 02.213s 2 pit stops Gianmaria Bruni described his stint as “easy, I set the engine mapping to ‘safety’, I was just cruising along”. In fact, he had got himself behind the #76 car, just under a lap ahead of it, and was happy to set his pace to that of the Porsche. After his stop, (the third for the car), the gap came back down, as shown above. On lap 132 (for the leading Peugeot), the #12 Courage LMP1 car slid off into the gravel. I was in the Felbermayr pit at the time, Hugh Hayden and Norbert Singer were deep in conversation, but circuit commentators Ian Titchmarsh, David Addison and Graham Tyler were on the ball, and were discussing the prospects for a safety car deployment. Eventually, it was sent out, and much shouting in the garage ensued. (By the way, although the safety car picked up the leader, Peugeot #7, which was on lap 133, the Virgo Ferrari was on lap 118.) It was decided to bring the Felbermayr car in for fuel and more Pirellis, but no driver change, even though it had been out only twenty laps on its previous set. The other two leading cars stayed out. Hugh Hayden was having a bad day, being unable to win any tricks with the cards he’d been dealt. “We’ve got the tyres we’ve got, and they’re not good enough,” he shrugged. Sadly, his day was about to get worse. The car broke a driveshaft, which broke the upright and let loose the left rear wheel, on lap 156, when Marc Lieb was back at the wheel. The non-finish would hand not only hand the race, but the championship too, to the Virgo Motorsport team.  |
At the end of the safety car period, more bad news for Porsche – the #76 IMSA performance car was handed a stop-and-go penalty for an alleged yellow flag infringement while the safety car was out. Richard Lietz was the driver, and he was still fuming when he brought the car into the pits for more fuel and new Michelins 22 laps later. “The stop-and-go penalty was stupid! I passed before the yellow… I could see a yellow flag up ahead, and I looked for it, where I was, there was no-one holding a yellow flag. For sure it’s a mistake from the organisation.” He wasn’t so happy about the pit stop either: “I don’t know why they called me in,” he complained, “I had enough fuel for three more laps.” For Virgo Motorsport, though, everything had gone to plan. Not to Plan A, perhaps, but with the fastest car, the best tyres and two very quick drivers, there was never really any doubt about the result, despite a final call for a top-up of fuel 17 laps from the end, for Bruni. This enabled the team to go back onto the richer mixture and put in some quicker times toward the end of the race. The winning margin at the end was 1 min 42.508 secs.  |
With the demise of the Lieb / Pompidou Porsche, the two Spykers came bounding up the leader board. Both the Speedy and the ‘works’ cars had been heavily changed between qualifying and the race in an effort to rid them of the oversteer that had affected their qualifying. The result, according to both Peter Dumbreck and Jonny Kane, was “too much understeer – the front tyres are wearing out”. Kane’s assertion that “Peter’s car seems to be a bit quicker than ours,” was borne out as the #85 Hezemans / Dumbreck car claimed the final podium position, leaving the #94 Speedy Racing C8 Spyder of Chiesa / Bellichi / Kane to take fourth. Both cars though, were very marginal on fuel at the end, although it was the third-placed car that had more fuel aboard at the flag. So that was it. An ‘easy’ win for Virgo, and the championship to boot. A disaster for Felbermayr, in almost every department. A well-deserved result for the IMSA Performance team with their new car, after a disappointing season. And as for Chris Warne’s plans at the start of the race? Well, it turned out to be a race of 5 hours 41 minutes, a bit longer than he had estimated. The Virgo Ferrari F430 GT completed 173 laps, which is close enough to his prediction. But in the end the car stopped five times, rather than the hoped-for four. The Spykers proved it could be done, as the IMSA Performance Porsche would have done, but for its stop-and-go. “It was a great performance for the team and I think we have done a decent job ourselves," said Peter Dumbreck. "As far as the car goes a lot is down to Dunlop’s new version of the tyres on the car. They are the same as been used by the Ferraris for a while and are a big advantage. It seems that the Spyker C8 Spyder suits this track more than other tracks so we have come away with third and fourth positions so that is a great result." For me, a fascinating insight into the art and science of endurance racing; I certainly learnt a lot – thanks to Chris Warne and his team (on their way to France in due course, by virtue of being champions), to Hugh Hayden and Norbert Singer and to Richard Lietz, Raymond Narac and everyone else for providing such great quotes. Oh yes, and thanks to you, for reading!
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