Sebring Exxon Superflo 17/03/2001   Andy Wallace Stunning Stuff At Sebring   Perhaps it was something of a relief for everyone to put the Champion Audi debut (at Texas) behind them. Here Andy reflects on race two of the project – the 49th running of the 12 Hours at Sebring. As usual, he provides a level of insight that is hard to match, anywhere. Seven and three quarter days after the checkered flag fell at the Texas ALMS race, we were at it again. This time pounding around Sebring. What a great job this is! Unlike the limited running time we had at the first race, we could enjoy a full five days of testing and qualifying before the start of the 12 hours. Plenty of time then, to get fully used to the amazing Audi R8. For this race Dorsey and I had a new team-mate, Ralf Kelleners. Sebring is a tough event, and an extra pair of well qualified hands is always welcome. I took the start of the race followed by Dorsey and then Ralf in rotation. I ended up driving for five and three quarter hours out of the twelve, as things worked out. Unusually, (first time ever?) the whole race was run under green; normally we get a break or two. But the Audi made a big difference. When we go to Daytona, we always comment on how bad the traffic is, even though it is never any worse than the previous year. When we go to Sebring, we always remark on the bumps, which always seem worse than last time. In the Audi, they didn’t seem as bad. That’s how good the car is. The Champion team are impressing me more and more too. There’s never any panic, and the presentation of the car is fantastic. They practised a whole rear end change during the test days, but even though Sebring is much harder on the gearbox and drive train than, say, Le Mans, we didn’t need to change anything at the back in the race. All we did change was the front brakes on one corner…..but I’m jumping ahead. Ralf had used a paddle shift before, but I never did find out in which car that was. He settled into the R8 straight away, and obviously Dorsey and I were quick to get down to good times in testing. In every session, we were right there. On Friday morning, I did a 1:50.7 on a used set of the hardest tyres Michelin had available for Sebring. It really is impressive how good the Michelins are, even the harder ones. For most of that session, no one was near us. Right at the end, one of the factory Audis beat that, but with a new set of medium compound Michelins. That settled it for us. We’d start the race on the hard compound tyres. What we didn’t know was that the factory cars would comfortably run a double stint on the medium compound. As we are finding out, the R8 is very kind to its tyres. What finally convinced us to stay with harder tyres for the race was that we had experienced some understeer on the medium tyres. The car just felt more balanced on the harder rubber. With the benefit of hindsight, we should have persevered with the set-up and dialled out the understeer. We qualified third, within a second of the factory entries, and about a second ahead of Stefan Johansson’s car. Bearing in mind our harder tyres, we thought we were in good shape for the race. One feature of the Audi is the noise level in the car. It’s a very quiet car from the outside, but when you’re in it, there’s a lot of gearbox noise – it’s just very loud. Sound energy is a very odd thing to measure though. I followed James in the new Riley & Scott, and sticking behind him, the noise from his exhausts was deafening…..but the noise from the Ford V8 comes out of the back, it doesn’t get to the driver. Our car is seemingly quieter, but actually noisy from within. Otherwise, the cockpit is very comfortable and very safe with the cockpit protection we have, especially round the helmet area. The Audi rides the bumps very well. I watched a tape of the race and on the in-car, you can see the driver’s head being moved about – even in the Audi – but the effects on us were less marked than on everyone else. And we were going more quickly. I was fully recovered from a very arduous race (in some respects) by the Tuesday after the race. Of course the hot and cold running massages and general pampering didn’t hurt my speedy recovery! With the paddle shift, you don’t get any problems with your hands; it’s really just the shoulders and neck. I was due to start again, and – mindful of what James might say if I passed the car behind again - I got it just right out of the last corner and got a really good start. It was the four of us from the start, and for 20 minutes, the car was great – just about perfect. I was thinking that the factory cars couldn’t do a double stint and we could. Wrong! 20 minutes gone, and I was suffering with a lot of rubber pick up. This was our downfall really. A harder tyre tends to pick up rubber more than a softer one. A soft tyre gets hotter and tends to rub off the pick-up at the next corner. Harder tyres don’t do that. Then the radio went down, and more and more the car didn’t want to stop, it didn’t want to turn, it wanted to swap ends. I was talking to the crew explaining that I wanted medium tyres; they couldn’t hear me… I wondered if they were just ignoring me. I started shouting louder on the radio, but to no avail. The radio was officially dead! I was shouting at myself. I soon realised that I would just have to let the team know the situation when I stopped. It all turned out OK, and I got a set of medium compound Michelins for my second stint. The car was better then, but of course we had the understeer back; the imbalance, if you like, that we’d had in testing. It wasn’t as well balanced as on the harder rubber, but at least we could race with it. As the race went on, the track surface afforded more grip, and our car’s handling improved. We still had a bit too much understeer, but we were getting quicker each hour. With the radio down, it was left to our signaller Tom on the pit board, to give us instructions – just like in the old days…. The pattern then was that Dorsey and Ralf did double stints, then the whole sequence happened all over again, which left me to do the last double at the end – hence the five and three quarter hours. As I took the car from Ralf for the last two stints, the team checked the brake wear again and decided to change just the left front. I gather John Hindhaugh was confused about uneven brake wear, so let’s see if we can explain that. With carbon brakes, the wear rate is directly related to the temperature. If one brake gets hotter – for example if one brake duct is partially blocked by rubber build up – that one will wear faster. We obviously checked both sides during the race, and it was the left front that was marginal. Of course on a clockwise track, the left front will wear more anyway, because the outside tyre takes the brunt of the forces – we don’t always brake in a straight line! With the minor problems Stefan had, we were very safe in third place, so it was an easy decision to change the left front brake pads and disc. And that was third place, one better than Texas. We’re going the right way, but I hope we miss out P2 on the way to our first victory! The team were thrilled with third. I felt that that was the best we were going to manage on only our second outing, but maybe we could have been closer to the factory cars. We receive a lot of help from Audi, the car is impressing me more and more – and next time we’ll know more about the tyres. Now we head towards the next level, right on the tail of the silver cars. They’re going to be very hard to beat, but we can be right there. As the race ran green all the way, it made it physically harder for the drivers. For me, as the shortest driver in the team, I also had a problem with the pedals. They were just a little bit to far away. Ideally, we’d saw off a bit of Dorsey’s legs, but he didn’t seem too keen on that idea! At full throttle, I’m at full stretch, with my heel off the floor. With the flat shift, we’re at full throttle a lot of the time – I’d estimate at least 75% of the lap. The pressure needed on the pedal is also quite high. I’m not left foot braking yet, so whenever my right foot wasn’t flat on the throttle, it was flat on the brake. With ABS, I left foot brake all the time on the road, but without ABS, modulating the pressure isn’t second nature to me. Add all that together, and it was a pretty tiring race, but the Audi swallows up the miles like nothing else. The race was of course marred by what happened to Bob Wollek on Friday. We carried our own tribute to a great driver, a man who drove for the Champion team as recently as Daytona in February. My next race will be with Dyson Racing at Watkins Glen. But before that there is a lot of testing work to do in my role as one of the New Bentley Boys. I will be behind the wheel of a top line Prototype Sports Car a lot in the next couple of months. See, I told you I have the best job in the world! Andy Wallace link Copyright ©2000-©2023 TotalMotorSport