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Postcard From Barcelona The third Spanish adventure for the Le Mans Series saw the crumbling delights of Jarama (2006) and the too tight and twisty Valencia (2007) replaced by the Circuit de Catalunya, home of the Spanish Grand Prix. The dsc crew arrived fresh from their short hop from Gatwick on Friday morning with a ‘stupid o’clock’ alarm call enabling the team to arrive in good time for the first free practice session after tackling the usual unfeasible number of steps with the usual unfeasible number of bags required to bring you, dear readers, the usual unfeasibly large amount of material from a race meeting like this. Spirits were lifted though as we emerged from the spectator tunnel under the circuit by the blood curdling wail of a Matra V12, the Classic Endurance boys were out on circuit and an unutterably lovely MS670 was circulating along with the infamous solo motor racing trios of Sean, Mack and Ernie, and Michael, Mack and Ernie, the trios for this season putting the Chad Peninsula Panoz aside in the main event and opting to campaign a pair of gorgeous BMW M1s in the CER.
There would be no chance for the dep ed to re-acquaint himself with the delights of Barcelona proper this time around, the Sagrade Famillia would have to wait for another opportunity – Audi, and not Gaudi, was the order of the day. But before visiting the Audi pits, down at the bottom of the pitlane which, in F1 circles seems equivalent to the ‘naughty step’ there was a chance to soak in all the new sights and delights of the 2008 Le Mans Series. And there was plenty that was new to savour – LMP1 started with the Peugeot’s now sporting contrasting paint schemes, blue and red highlights for the LMS cars will be joined by a stunning and adventurous grey for the third car at Le Mans. At Pescarolo Central the Rollcentre car had gone all white with the Saulnier Racing LMP1 and LMP2 cars sporting a more traditionally Shorty-like sudden shade of green. Oreca’s garage was a riot of colour, their pair of not-very-identical-at-all LC70s would be very, very easy indeed to pick out with a 2008 colour scheme seemingly based on something that one of the crew’s young children produced with their Christmas Lego (actually I quite like it!)
The Lavaggi was there of course sporting its brand new AER twin turbo V8, a very different soundtrack for the Monagesque team, different in that you could actually hear an engine note rather than just admire it on jacks this time around! Last but not least were of course the pair of shiny new LMP1 Coupes, the Epsilon Euskadi looking sculpted and sepulchral in its all black, lets be kind and call it a livery, the second car sitting almost complete in the team’s truck with the programme delayed after the FIA crash test rig was broken – Someone should have told them not to put an Audi in it!
And then there was the force of nature that is the Charouz Systems Lola Aston Martin, resplendent in its brand new, and if truth be told not terrifically inspiring, blue and white livery. That though is the only thing about this beast that isn’t inspiring as it is well proportioned, very good looking, emits a gorgeous full blooded V12 wail and, lets not forget, is b****y quick into the bargain. LMP2 had a similarly ‘new intake’ feel to it with the trio of Porsche RS Spyders joined by the new Pescarolo, the reliveried and re-engined ex Fernandez Lola Acura now in the hands of Kruse Schiller and providing AER with a welcome European customer for their Mazdaspeed MZR-R engine, the Lucchini making its re-appearance to a chorus of “What’s that’s”, the brand spanking new WR Zytek eliciting a fierce debate on the subject of its looks some (me) liked it, others, (seemingly everyone else) thought it as attractive as, well, A WR Finally of course there was the grey topped handsomeness that is the Speedy Garages / Sebah Racing Lola Judd Coupe. Any suggestions by the way that the grey topped livery is a nod of respect to Team Manager Hugh Hayden would be entirely unfair (but mildly hilarious). In GT1 it was a case of reshuffling the deckchairs, a single ex Oreca Saleen having been snapped up by Larbre, a second C6.R joining the Luc Alphand ‘Aventure’ and another welcome addition to the field for lovers of V12 mechanical violence, the IPS Spartak something or other Lamborghini, Peter Kox playing the role of matador to the raging bull. GT2 meanwhile saw the debuts of two brand new players, the new look (mildly comedic sponsor name alert) Snoras Spyker squad bringing a pair of their new C8 Laviolettes out to play and JWA looking set to provide the world debut for the Aston Martin V8 Vantage GT2 racer (until a race morning oil leak ruined their plans.
Make no mistake here dear readers, the new Aston is quite, quite beautiful, even if the team have tried to hide that fact with quite the dullest GT colour scheme since somebody at Porsche said “I know, lets paint them white!” Down at Audi meanwhile there were three R10s in evidence, two bright shiny ones in the pit garages and a third, rather grubbier one on a plinth by the Audi hospitality area. I never got the chance to ask whether this was one of the race dirty Le Mans winning cars but sure as eggs is eggs if it wasn’t there’s someone who was responsible for the spit and polish who now has “Audi AG” as their most recent (but not current) employment on a cv! There was, throughout Friday a high pitched wailing around, not on track but up in the media centre as the world’s collected sportscar media glitterati assembled for the ‘reveal’ of how much an internet connection would cost. Happily that was the only reason that the Circuit de Catalunya would give us for a moan (though in truth we secretly enjoy that) as the rest of the weekend was filled with tales of helpful marshals distributing cold drinks to thirsty photographers (wimps!) and back in the media centre those of us slaving over a hot keyboard were also well catered for with quite the best media centre catering we’ve ever seen in the LMS – Thank you Catalunya One late arrival was the familiarly furry form of Janos Wimpffen and one of his first acts was to opine on the pointlessness of the can of Alcohol-Free beer he had plucked from the press room fridge “What’s the point of drinking that if you don’t get the real effect?” It was then pointed out to the illustrious Dr W that he had just flown 6000 miles, driven for an hour and intended to spend much of his long weekend sitting in an air-conditioned and soundproofed room staring at a timing screen whilst 48 top class sportscars screamed by less than 100 feet away! Americans and irony – Chalk and cheese (only kidding boys – we luv ya!) By Saturday lunchtime it was clear that a new and very unwelcome factor had been introduced into the LMS paddock. Suddenly things were taking longer to do than expected. Why, there were, and I don’t know quite how to break this gently so here goes – PEOPLE there!!!
Yes boys and girls, whether it was the attraction of Marc Gene, the homegrown Epsilon team, the promise of a titanic tussle between the factory diesels or even the promise that Christophe Bouchut might, just might, crack a smile there were people here in numbers impossible to count on both hands. By race day it had got to the ridiculous level that people in the stands could talk to those closest to them without the use of a loud hailer or walkie talkie. Where will it all end? Oh and by the way, the next person in motorsport that tells me how difficult/ impossible/ pointless it is to promote endurance racing to a paying public in Europe will be met with recent photographic evidence that they are a. wrong, b. probably bone idle and c. wrong again. For god’s sake people get a few bright sparks sitting around a table and get it sorted! I could drone on and on about the race itself but you know by now who won, who didn’t and what happened to ensure that all of that happened in the way that it did. Suffice to say though that some incidents do warrant a little further examination – Michael Vergers is lucky that he wasn’t disqualified after an incident that many observers described as a blatant attempted head-butt on the eventual winning car. Joking aside, John Brook’s quick-fire shot of the airborne #7 908 prompts the thoughts that: a. Vergers is a lucky
boy not to have been hurt, Nic Minassian, told after the race what had happened simply didn’t believe it. Amuse yourself for a moment by imagining the ever-expressive Minassian’s reaction when he eventually saw the pictures. With the race done, the podium ceremonies complete and with the numpty that chairs the LMS press conference having stumbled through another embarrassingly inept series of asinine and ill-considered questions it was time to climb aboard the dsc rental Renault and head for our late Sunday Sleazyjet flight back to glorious Gatwick. We’d already been told via the miracle of mobile telephony of the arctic terror that had gripped leafy Surrey so were expecting a delay. What we weren’t expecting was to be escorted by armed security guards away from a seating area along with dozens of others at the behest of a cleaning lady who was apparently anxious that the much delayed passengers shouldn’t undo her good works. Never mind love everyone was very impressed with your lovely clean chairs. We had a great view of them from our new perch sitting on the floor! Oh and one other gripe – When we finally got back to Gatwick (almost 4 hours late) we were directed quickly to the terminal whereupon a highly annoyed Captain came onto the intercom and explained that we had been sent to the North Terminal as the plane was required there for the start of business the following day – Two slight problems with that plan – firstly the terminal had closed for the night and there was nobody to extend the jetty to get us off the plane and secondly there were no buses to take us to the South terminal where our bags and our car were located – 30 minutes later and all was well – apart from the fact that I had to be up for work in around 90 minutes! So the scores on the doors Circuit de Catalunya –
9/10 |
