Le Mans Weekend Part 1 - First Race Stints
At ten to four and with the grid clear of everything save the cars themselves the Corvette pace vehicle set off up the hill towards the Dunlop Curves, leading the front-row Bentleys and the rest of the field onto the formation lap. It would need to be a slow pace if the race was to start exactly on four o'clock, with drivers weaving from side to side as they tried to get race heat into their tyres.
Having air temperatures hitting thirty degrees simply added further to the tension as the expectant spectators craned their necks towards the Ford Chicanes, eager to be among the first to catch a glimpse of the pace car. Waving green flags from the trackside marshals and a flash of amber light suddenly heralded the imminent approach of the burgundy-coloured Corvette. The familiar notes of the Star Wars theme boomed triumphantly from the public address - now an annual fanfare marking the arrival on the leaders in the stadium section. It seemed impossible to think that they could make the final 250 yards last nearly two minutes, but they very nearly did!
The Corvette rounded the final segment of the Ford chicane and snatched aside. The marvellous sound of a brace of Bentleys and three Audi R8s erupted from the front rows, joined a heartbeat later by the descant howl of the Judds and the baritone bellow of the Riley and Scott's V8. It's the kind of sound that reaches right down to your bootstraps - and then straight back up again.
In a perfect start, row upon row of paired cars streamed through the narrow chicane and onto the pit straight. Robin Liddell, taking the roll for PK, was perfectly positioned to hold his station alongside the Racers Group Porsche, and they headed off up the rise to Dunlop in full cry. It was a splendid sight.
In familiar fashion Jan Lammers tried to make the best of the opening lap, and did indeed make up a few places, but the pace of the Bentleys and Audis is simply too good for his Dome this year, and after a brief moment of glory he was soon shouldered back into place.At the end of the first lap Robin Liddell was holding fourth in class, but the gap to fifth was already extending. Clearly, the competition for those first four places was going to be especially keen! In fact, for the next hour this foursome ran almost nose-to-tail, with the only significant gap - of just six seconds, developing between the class-leading Alex Job car, #93, and the second-placed Orbit Porsche #87. From Orbit, through Racers Group, to PK and Robin Liddell was just five more seconds.
Initially, however, these four Porsches found themselves held up by the ailing Pagani Zonda. Although sounding glorious and looking equally spectacular, the #61 car's hours were numbered. To the relief of the GT leaders it headed for the pits at the end of the third lap, although it did appear again from time to time before finally retiring.
Such is the extraordinary pace of the leading Bentleys that they were in among the tail-enders after just four laps, and lapped Robin for the first time on the fifth. On their tenth tour they lapped the GT-leading Prodrive Ferraris. Extraordinary.
1 Hour
Sadly, Robin's fantastic pursuit was about to be scuppered by a piece of rubber. Within minutes of beginning his second consecutive stint, and just as he prepared to exit the second Mulsanne chicane, the belt that drives the alternator, water pump and power steering shredded behind him. He recognised the signs immediately. "The problem is, that belt drives the water pump, and the engine started to overheat straight away," he explained. He then had more than half the circuit to complete with no engine cooling - and every chance of doing permanent damage to the unit. All credit to Robin and his experience, but he managed to return the car to the pitlane safely and in one piece. He used a very "politically incorrect" phrase to describe how he did this, but the essence was that he kept switching the engine off and freewheeling whenever the track allowed. It cost him a host of minutes, but saved the car.
Robin was in the garage for a mere 18 minutes while the PK engineers delved up to their elbows into the back of the car. It was an impressive example of disciplined pitwork, and credit once again to the diligence and experience of this PK squad. The cost, however, was to see the #78 car plummet down the order to forty-second overall, 12th in GT. At face value this looks like a drastic knock for the PK team, but so early in the race losing 18 minutes can become less and less significant with every hour that passes.
3 Hours
With the Porsche back in fine fettle once again Robin was straight back into action. His lap times were consistently impressive throughout his opening double stint, with a succession of tours in the four fifteens or even quicker. By the end of the third hour he'd recovered some of the lost ground, and the PK Porsche had made up three places.
By then, however, Robin had handed over to David Warnock and we were able to catch up with him. The Scotsman had been in the car for almost three hours, albeit that included nearly twenty minutes broiling in the pit garage. Overheating had not only been a problem for the car, but also its driver. Early into his first stint Robin's coolsuit had stopped working. This would have been bad enough, since an inoperable coolsuit is ten times worse than no coolsuit at all, but then his water bottle became dislodged and he couldn't suck up anything to drink either. To top it all, the falling bottle dislodged the radio jack, so for his entire first stint he had no radio contact either! That much could be sorted during his first pitstop, but the coolsuit never did work.
The reason for that might not have rested with the suit itself, since David Warnock was to suffer almost as much. He completed a single trouble-free and largely uneventful stint - exactly what every driver hopes for at Le Mans. "My stint was all very good," he said, clearly feeling quite satisfied with his efforts. "That was despite the effects of my non-functioning coolsuit," he added, explaining that his discomfort increased with every lap he completed. "In the end it curtailed my stint somewhat," he continued, "because I came in early when the safety car came out." In fact, three safety cars were deployed at just after half-past seven when a car, as yet unidentified, left a serious trail of oil all along the run through Indianapolis. It took the marshals more than ten minutes to treat, and proved to be the perfect opportunity for David to hand over driving duties to Piers.
"I think my times were all within a second of each other," said David afterwards. Indeed, he'd been lapping consistently in the low four-twenties, which was as fast as he's ever run here at Le Mans, and he was showing every sign of going quicker still. "I overtook some of the guys in our class, and I know I wasn't overtaken myself, but the coolsuit made it almost unbearable." Not being overtaken applied to his own class of course, but he had no problems with the fast-moving prototypes either. "Most of the guys give you a flash to let you know they're coming, and it's easy then to make room where you can. I did have one Dome that came up behind me into the Porsche Curves and stayed behind me all the way through!"
4 Hours
Like everyone else in the team, David was regretting the earlier belt problem. "It's such a shame," he said. "If that hadn't happened we'd still be well up there with the rest." Indeed, with four hours gone the PK Porsche was holding place at 39th overall, 11th in class, while the Racers Group entry, with which Robin had been vying for position, was leading GT in 21st place overall.
Meanwhile Piers was doing sterling work in the cockpit. "I was going fairly quickly," he conceded modestly later. "That was the main thing. I managed a few low nineteens, but all my laps were around four-twenty," he said. "I was especially pleased with that, as I went out on old tyres. The advantage of that is that they don't need warming up, but I thought they'd go off. They didn't, and I did my best time on my fifteenth lap. Those Pirellis are really great!"
Piers was also having problems with his coolsuit (and, for those unfamiliar with what these things look like, here's Piers modelling one!), but with evening drawing on and the air temperature dipping it was slightly less stressful for the youngster. What was more annoying was that the pipe from his water bottle became dislodged, and his first task when he got out of the car was to get his mother to help him sort things out.
If Piers wasn't too bothered by the coolsuit, he did have another concern. "My foot kept sticking to the floor!" he said. It didn't seem to slow him down too much.
At half past eight there was a significant moment for the GT competition when the Racers Group Porsche #81 drove down the pitlane and veered straight into its garage. The team subsequently admitted to a slipping clutch that caused the engine to buzz every time the driver tried to throttle out of a corner. Not good for the engine and no help to their chances. From the class lead the Racers Group slumped steadily as those still on track ate into their advantage until, just before nine o'clock, Piers overtook.
5 Hours
Proof of just how well Piers had been going came with the clocks showing nine. The race entered the sixth hour with the yellow and black car standing in an impressive 36th overall, tenth in GT. Soon afterwards Robin Liddell returned to driving duties.
With the benefit of hindsight, as this is written, Robin's performance over the ensuing laps is even more remarkable. Time and again his lap times were down in the low four-fourteens, some ten to fifteen seconds quicker that the two rival Porsche ahead of him. Steadily and inexorably the gap narrowed, but he had a lot of ground to make up before he could convert this pace into fresh places on the leader board.
6 Hours
Ten o'clock at night and darkness was complete. Robin's pace, however, showed little sign of diminishing with the light. The slight fall from fourteens to eighteens could easily have been accounted for by the harder driving conditions, but we were to discover later that they weren't. Passing the hour the #78 Porsche stood in 35th place overall, 8th in class. Twenty minutes later and he'd not only caught up with the #84 T2M Porsche but overtaken it as well. He was truly flying, and within the next twenty minutes had come up on the tail of the #75 Perrier car. Just ahead of the hour he took that place, and for the first time the PK Sport Porsche moved back onto the second timing screen. Progress like that always seems like a milestone to the crew watching in the pits.
7 Hours
At ten past eleven Robin was back into the pitlane for a scheduled stop, and only then did the truth and magnitude of his driving achievement come to light. Looking extraordinarily frazzled he clambered out of the car and helped Piers Masarati buckle up his belts. While that was happening the car was up on the jacks and the wheels were being changed, but then attention turned to the front of the car. The front wheels were not refitted, and mechanics were seen to be peering into the arches. Signs of concern became more apparent at the right-front, and then Mike Pickup came up with the explanation. "Robin has just done a fantastic stint of fifteen laps with no power steering," he explained, clearly both amazed and proud of his driver's efforts. "He's going to want a lot of spinach as he's looking a lot like Popeye at the moment!" added Mike with characteristic good humour. Moments later the car was wheeled back into the garage. This was not going to be a straightforward repair.
A breathless Robin Liddell was asked about the situation. "Both my stints have been quite hard in this race," he said, referring to the belt problem earlier. "I double stinted on the same tyres - the Pirellis have been excellent - but on my second stint out-lap the power steering failed. I lost about four seconds on that first lap, but then got used to it. After that I was only two seconds a lap down." This confirmed our earlier observations. "The engine and gearbox have been excellent," he added, "and the Pirelli tyres have been standing up really well." A full stint without power steering had, however, taken a lot out of the experienced racer's reserves and he was clearly looking forward to a break. "I was due to go back out for another single stint after Piers, but I think I'll sit that one out as well, so David will have to do the stint after Piers." Acknowledging his need for a dose of spinach, he retired to the motorhome.
