Spa – four play!

The summer is here (or at least it was for while in the UK) and so it was back to the Spa 24hrs for the fourth year in a row.  And for the third race in a row I was with Jet Alliance in their Porsche 997 Cup car alongside Lukas Lichtner-Hoyer, Vitus Eckert and Marco Seefried.  Last year we managed 17^th overall and 2^nd in the G2 class .. could we go one better against a pair of factory BMW M3 GT2 cars (yes, GT2…) in our class?

The event had a brighter overall feeling than last year, although the general economic constraints were still clearly having an input – such as no screens around the circuit for the modestly sized crowds to watch.  The parade into the town of Spa itself was well attended though, despite a sudden downpour that would set the tone of the weather for the next few days.  I had a great time signing numerous posters and photos.  Hopefully some people actually wanted them signing…  Here I am sat next to the BMW team:

(Really .. that’s my head on the right hand side of the picture….)

Thursday’s test and qualification sessions are best described as annoying.  The first two sessions were run in variably damp or wet conditions making it difficult to achieve any meaningful set-up work for the race or even generate comparable lap data.  Even when qualifying started in the dry, there was a brief shower just as I was about to jump in the car meaning the slicks went back in the garage and I was out on wets again...  Grrr….   Happily though the car proved to be very drivable in the wet and greasy conditions and we all got through the day without any dramas.  And whilst it was nigh on impossible to compare lap times from one moment to the next, my pace seemed very much in line with where it should be.

Thanks to a rather heroic lap by Marco, we lined up in 30^th place on the grid of 40 cars – right alongside a pair of far newer and quicker 997 GT3 R.  More importantly however, was the clear performance division within our renamed GTN class.  At the back were a couple of older Porsches like us and a Ford Mustang.  There had also been a Ferrari 430, but a mistake in qualifying had resulted in a three feet shorter version being shoveled into its truck and taken home.  At the other end of the class was a Mosler (5-7secs per lap quicker) and the two aforementioned BMWs (10secs a lap quicker) which were going for the overall win.  A class podium was going to be a little tricky this year, for sure.

Here we all are shortly before the start:

Lukas started the race and, as usual, settled into a good pace as the initial flurry calmed down.  However, after less than an hour the car was in the garage for 20 minutes or so having a gearbox sensor being replaced.  Not good so early in the race, but not catastrophic.  More intriguingly though, Lukas looked as if he had been sat in a sauna and was complaining that the car was unusually hot – almost too much for a full stint, let alone a double.  Vitus took over once the car was fixed and again ran fine for a while before having to pit again due to an oil pressure sensor having failed.  He was also complaining about the temperature within the car…

It was soon time for my first stint and as I set off I began to realise just why the others had been complaining about the temperature – it was ridiculously hot.  However, the car was at least handling well and our pace seemed good for moving us back up the field.  Pleasingly, this was also my first time out on slicks for the weekend so far – albeit Vitus’s used set so that the team could assess tyre wear over two stints.  Initially all seemed well, but as the stint wore on I began to get an intermittent warning light for hot gearbox oil.  This would soon prove telling.

Sure enough, the dry sunny conditions didn’t last and it started to rain after half an hour or so.  Several slippery and amusing laps had the guys in the garage running in and out with tyres… “Heavy rain, pitting now .. oh, hang on, it’s easing .. staying out .. no, coming in .. no, staying out…”  I’m sure they were laughing inside.  In the end I stayed out which proved to be the right call and helped make up some time whilst others pitted or fell off the track.

Shortly before I was due to pit for fuel the rain returned again, this time quite heavily and so I made the call to dive into the pits and hand back over to Vitus.  Initially it looked like I might have been overly cautious, but not for long as the rain got harder.  Yet despite the weather we were continuing our steady climb up the leader board when, once again, the car was back in the garage with the whole electronic system having frozen.  Some quick detective work now strung all of the issues together and it was clear that the gearbox was overheating, frying various bits of the electronics and also causing the excess cabin temperatures.  There was no way we could continue pitting every hour or two with problems and so the decision was made to remove the Quaife ‘box we had been using and replace with a standard Porsche one.  This was a real shame as the former version was wonderfully light and smooth to use, but clearly it was no good if the heat was damaging everything else in sight.  Amazingly, the team had the new ‘box installed in just 35 minutes!  Quite incredible, not least due to the temperature of the outgoing one.  (There were several German words shouted at various points that I didn’t ask to be translated….)

We were now a good six hours into the race and had fallen right down the order to 36^th place and last of the runners.  Yet, the gearbox would last the rest of the race and it was clear that the other issues had also been solved – not least the internal temperature meaning that the nighttime double stints for Marco and I were back on the schedule.  Given this, I took the opportunity to go and get some rest for a couple of hours!

By the early hours of Sunday my teammates had hauled us back up a few places and the car was running well.  I climbed back in at around 2.15am for my favourite annual past time of a double-stint Spa night run.  

I swear I will never tire of this!  The track was now more-or-less dry (a little damp off line in places) and I was able to settle into a nice quick rhythm with lap times very comparable to those of the day.  It was as glorious as ever .. until a little over half way through the first stint I started to get an occasional, but unmistakable, misfire.  Surely not another problem?!  After trying a couple of things in the car with no success, the team called me back into the pits and quickly diagnosed a broken alternator.  Thankfully this was a relatively quick job and I was back on my way for, at last, a completely uninterrupted stint which finished with an empty fuel tank shortly after enjoying a rather lovely sun-rise.  Joyous!

As daylight returned, we had hauled ourselves back into the low-20s overall and into a three-way fight for third in class with the Mosler (comfortably ahead of us and quick, but not without its problems) and the Mustang (a fair way behind, but not if we had any more problems).  As it transpired, that was how it would stay to the flag.  We continued on without any more issues, climbing steadily up to 17^th overall as late problems befell a number of runners.  Unfortunately for us, however, whilst the Mosler seemed to lose more body panels with every passing lap, it somehow kept running to cross the finish line a mere five laps ahead of us.

So, a second finish at Spa, but sadly just off the class podium.  However, given our early problems, this was a great achievement and the whole team deserves medals for their efforts during the race.  All in all, that brings my record to seven 24hr races, three dnfs and four finishes in 4^th (twice), 3^rd and 2^nd.  Not too shabby, although there’s clearly one important step on the podium missing from that list!

I’m still sorting plans for my next race, but working hard towards something very exciting for next year…