Interviews From The Paul Ricard Paddock #3

Greg Murphy, Murphy Prototypes

There are several unfamiliar names in the paddock at the start of this new season, and one of those belongs to Murphy Prototypes. The team is running an Oreca 03 Nissan with Jody Firth, Warren Hughes and Luca Moro, and that alone suggests a strong determination, but the presence of the RLR M-Sport logo on the car and pit boards betrays another. The stalwart crew that, against all odds, raced the venerable MG Lola EX265 in last year’s Le Mans Series is back again, this time with the Greg Murphy at the helm.

Despite being powered by the new-spec BMW-derived Judd V8, the MG soldiered on under the grandfathered rules in 2011, but never enjoyed all the performance breaks that were let out in tantalising dribbles to other teams. Even so, RLR showed valiant grit and determination, and was rewarded with great reliability and some passably good results. Not enough to satisfy the team or the drivers, but sufficient to attract the attention of Murphy, and persuade the Irishman to support the team into a new season, and with a new car.

Going for the Nissan-powered Oreca gives Murphy the edge that RLR lacked, and bringing together Firth’s familiarity with the chassis – he won P2 at Estoril with TDS Racing, third overall – and Warren Hughes’ experience (P2 winner at Le Mans with RML in 2005) makes for a strong package overall. The final piece in the jigsaw was signing talented Italian Luca Moro, who demonstrated consistent pace with Hope Vision Racing and JMB last season in Formula Le Mans – crossing the line first at Spa, second at Imola, and then third at Silverstone.

Greg Murphy himself is an outright motor racing enthusiast, but with the right pedigree. His father was a racer, and Greg himself campaigned on the track, earning some success in the 1990s and through to late 2005. After a brief sabbatical, he came back last year, joining RLR in the Speed Euroseries, and found that his hunger was as insatiable as ever.

“I raced with RLR in the Speed Euroseries last year at Imola,” explains Murphy, his Irish accent adding a musical lilt to the conversation. “I found that I really liked the guys, I liked what they were doing, and I liked the way they went racing. Nick (Reynolds) was a great guy to deal with, and I watched the way they ran the MG Lola. It was old, but they made it reliable. When Barry (Gates) pulled out I was very happy to step into the breach. I’d always wanted to be involved in racing at this level, specifically in LMP2, and between the gigs and the reels, I ended up buying the car, so here we are.”

“My fascination in sportscar racing stems from my own business interests in biofuels and third generation solar. I’m also fascinated by the application of hybrid technologies, and whilst there is absolutely no hybrid content whatsoever in this programme, it is an aspect of motor racing that appeals to me. However, we need to walk before we can run, so I’ll bide my time and see if there’s a possibility of moving in that direction some time in the future.”

Greg’s passion for motor racing began when he was a toddler. “My father was a racing driver down at Mondello Park. He competed in classic saloons, and as a family, we went along to support him. That got me involved in motor racing from a very early age. I was seven or eight, I suppose, when my father was racing at Mondello, and said he needed to go for a nap. He never woke up. When he died, my immediate involvement with motor racing died with him, and I moved on to other things. I ended up playing rugby – quite well, if I say so myself – and pursued other interests, but when I reached nineteen I decided to go back into motor racing. I had no money, of course, so had to start right at the bottom. I began with Irish Formula V, at a time when it cost about 200 Irish pounds per race, but I did well enough to progress through the single-seat formulas, ending up in Formula Opel-Lotus, or Vauxhall-Lotus as it was known in the UK”

“I was doing fairly well, but I was still very surprised when I got a call, out of the blue, from Minardi Team Asia, inviting me to Manilla to do a driver shoot-out. They called it the “Thriller in Manilla”, and I got the drive. From that, I finished runner-up in the 2005 Asian Formula 3 Championship.”

“Then I met someone who had other ideas about the way my career needed to go. This was the settling down and having children kind of move, and I did that for a few years, but my passion for motorsport never truly went away. I just love it too much, and last season the opportunity arose to get back into racing again, so I came back with that single Speed Series outing at Imola. I was bitten once again.”

Being a team owner, rather than actually in the driving seat, is one step removed from where Greg might really like to be, but he recognises his limitations, for the time being anyway. “Oh, I’d love to get into the car and drive it,” he admits, “but I’m too old now, aren’t I? Well, sometimes I look at what Michael Schumacher’s doing now, and I do wonder, but I have to be realistic. Maybe at the end of the year I may get to have a little run, but for now we have to concentrate on the Series, and not take unnecessary risks with the car!”

Being so closely involved with a team that certainly has the potential to fight for race wins and podiums clearly excites Murphy, and he’s thrilled to be at Paul Ricard. “It’s just such a fabulous track,” he enthuses. “All circuits should be like this. What we need next is a crowd, of course.”

Sadly, that seems an unlikely prospect this weekend, but those who do brave the drive up to the top of the mountain can’t fail to be impressed by the Murphy Prototype when they see it heading out on track. The crisp scheme of green and white, with thin red pinstripe, is both distinctive and eye-catching. “It’s not quite British Racing Green,” grins Murphy, looking at the metallic sheen to the car’s green vinyl. “Perhaps we could call it Irish Racing Green instead?” He then proceeds to regale us with the tale of how British Racing Green came into being, at the race for the Gordon Bennett Cup staged around Phoenix Park in Dublin in 1903. The French had taken blue for themselves, and the Italians were racing in red, while the German cars wore white. That left the British teams looking for an alternative for their Napiers, and they chose a dark Shamrock green in deference to their Irish hosts. Ireland was still part of the UK in those days, and so BRG was born.

So the Murphy Prototype Oreca bears not only a fairly accurate shade of metallic Shamrock green, but also the Irish tricolour. When the team was first announced, it represented the first Irish team to compete at this level for many years, but now we have two, with Status GP also electing to claim Irish affiliations, through Mark Gallagher and David Kennedy.

While the car is still an Oreca 03, it’s not the same car that we watched race in 2011. This year the cars all have to comply fully with the cost-capped regulations, so the Oreca now boasts the distinctive 2012 dorsal fin. “The whole aero package is much changed this season,” insists Jody Firth, who raced the 03 last year with TDS. “Oreca have come up with some clever design refinements to address the rule changes, but the dorsal fin doesn’t seem to have made any difference to the handling. It’s principally a safety issue and should have no effect on performance, although I imagine you might feel the effects of a strong cross-wind along the Mistral here.”

“When the team was here for the test we concentrated on getting in the laps, not setting fast times. We added a lot of miles to the car, and that’s set us up well for this weekend. What’s good here is the strength of the LMP2 field, not just in terms of numbers, but quality too. There are several very strong driver line-ups, so I think we’re in for some close racing, especially now that we don’t have the huge disparity in performance within P2 that we saw last season. The HPD isn’t here, but Oak has evidently stepped up the pace over the winter, and qualifying is going to be very close.”

Warren Hughes is new to the Oreca, but already impressed. “We didn’t do enough here in the test to get a complete picture, but the first impressions were very good. We approached the test as if it was an extended shakedown, and ran on hard tyres throughout, so it wasn’t until practice this weekend that I got to experience the car in race mode. It’s a beautiful car, and so well designed.”

“On paper it’s always looked very competitive, and that is what you want coming into a race weekend. You have to approach the race feeling that you have a real chance of winning, and I believe we have that chance. There’s no single team this season that stands out above the rest, and we’ve ended up in what’s probably the strongest P2 grid we’ve yet seen. Being able to go for an outright win is an added bonus, of course, and being the focus of attention for the TV cameras will ensure, for once, that P2 isn’t the bridesmaid in these races.”

In then end, qualifying was every bit as tight as Warren had predicted, with less than a second covering the top six. That sixth slot was taken by the Murphy Prototypes Oreca #18, with Hughes himself setting the best of 1:49.122, just .95 away from pole.