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Donington Park ELMS

14/04/2001

Race

Report

It was an interesting event, but not a great race. As anticipated, it became an Audi benefit, the cars finishing in the order Joest – Joest – Gulf, with the Courage even making it almost a copy of last year’s Le Mans result with a good fourth place.

Saleen took GTS – that was never in doubt, but the fact that it was the RML car was a pleasant surprise – Rowan Racing beat the Barbour Reynard to take the 675 class, and Alex Job were 1 – 2 in GT. All fairly straightforward then, but there were moments that made the afternoon. Top of the list was Guy Smith passing Emanuele Pirro at the Melbourne Hairpin to take second, JJ Lehto ripping through the GT field in moments at the start of the race and.....just the sheer pleasure of seeing the Le Mans machines in the UK. A 13 000 crowd saw the event, which was good bearing in mind the weather, not so good as many people had free tickets.

Rain after the warm up and before the start wasn’t sufficient to persuade anyone to try anything but slicks. After the usual procedure of removing the flags from the cars, we were ready for what was officially called a wet race, but never became that. A few drops on screens was the most we saw.

The start was another highlight, all 25 pouring into Redgate safely, the Audis side by side but Kristensen easing ahead into the Craners, Johansson then getting the jump on Biela and taking second place. He meant to stay there, the three Audis moving away from the rest, led by Beretta in the Chrysler. He stayed ahead of Brabham in the quicker Panoz and Bouillon in the Courage, these three well matched, but six seconds behind the German machines after only three laps. Werner Lupberger hung onto them for much of the opening stint, but the Ascari stopped out on the track with gearbox trouble just after the first driver change. JJ Lehto was already right with Randy Pobst, the top four GTs already in their proper places, led by the #43 Ekblom BMW.

The Westward and Gualter Salles Panozes were the tardy ones in LMP900, the two 675s getting between them when Salles had a slow lap early on. The Pilbeam was ahead of the Barbour Reynard. Oliver Gavin was quicker on Goodyears than the RML Saleen on Dunlops.

Lehto wasn’t about to stay in P4 in GT for long, and went around the outside of Randy Pobst in the third placed Job Porsche, but he was penalised with a stop and go for passing under a yellow somewhere else. He was in and out so quickly that he was soon chasing Pobst again, but by then it was for third, with Lucas Luhr leading the class. The Ekblom BMW was pit-bound, and spent much of the rest of the race in and out before retiring with a severe misfire and then a differential problem. Lehto could gradually draw in on Pobst for third, but it was largely tenths per lap. He brought it down from 12 seconds to half that before contact with Biela’s Audi (JJ: “He hit me off. It cost a lot of time”) left him with damaged wheelarches front and back. That was it in GT, the Job cars running through untroubled and very impressively. BMW have a slight speed advantage, but it’s clear why they aren’t taking on 24 hours at Le Mans.

If the top four GTs were appreciably quicker than the rest, there was some very good racing for fifth – which would become a podium later on. Mike Youles changed places several times with Marc Sourd in the del Bello Porsche (“I gave him the Sussex side-swipe a couple of times at the Hairpin”), these two unable to keep in touch with Johhny Mowlem in the faster Seikel 911. This picture would change after the first stops.

Lap 12 saw a significant change at the front, Johansson held up briefly by the Gavin Saleen, Biela diving up the inside of McLeans to take second place. Kristensen was seven seconds up the road by then, and as this gap grew, so did the one to the pretty Gulf Audi. Brabham in the Panoz was over half a minute behind after 15 laps. De Radigues was picking up the Reynard and getting into the 1:27s as he moved past the Pilbeam and ahead of the spinning Cochran Panoz – but a stop on lap 14 signalled a troubled afternoon, eventually halted by chronic clutch trouble. O’Connell and Carway motored on to an almost perfect race and result for Pilbeam, the only problem coming when the race leader came from a long way back at McLeans and nerfed the Pilbeam into a spin.

That meant a stop and go for Kristensen, three laps before his scheduled stop. He was visibly twitchy when he pitted on lap 35, staying in the #1 Audi and intent on making up the deficit to Biela. What deficit? The two Audis were right together after both had refuelled, at which point Biela pulled the move that upset Lehto, but the Audi had a right rear puncture as a result. "I did not try to brake into the corner on the very last moment, but passed him more or less on the straight then he turned in," was Biela's view of the incident. Four of five laps into his second stint, Biela was in for a fresh tyre and to hand over to Pirro. The first three were then separated by gaps of 45 seconds, and Kristensen was pulling away.

We’d lost the Chrysler by now (as a contender for honours), Beretta unable to show his real pace from almost the start with a throttle problem, the team fixing this at the first stop and losing four laps. Dalmas had contact with Salles (already finding neutrals not gears), then more throttle problems. “It’s easier to make a fast car reliable….” explained Hugues de Chaunac.

Brabham and Bouillion were still almost together, and on the same lap as Pirro, but the rest were laps adrift. The Saleen battle for GTS saw the RML entry ahead of Konrad himself in the middle part of the race, but a Gavin charge at the end was thwarted by a broken alternator belt. Four or five laps were lost, and Ian McKellar and Bruno Lambert were class winners first time out. “A Saleen win is fine,” said Franz Konrad. “Ray Mallock has built a beautiful car,” said a very happy Lambert.

So by now all four classes were looking fairly clear cut. Joest-Audi, Alex Job, RML Saleen and the Pilbeam were going to take the honours. Third in GT was less obvious. Lehto and Jorg Muller might have deserved it, but flashes of flame from the right exhaust at the last pit stop signalled “a leaking injector,” according to Charly Lamm. It certainly was spectacular, but it was an oil leak that put them out.

So who would take third? PK Sport / Ricardo had come up with a novel fuel strategy. Mike Youles pitted after an hour, for new rears and Robin Liddell. He took on 70 litres, and resumed in seventh, behind the sister car of Mark Humphrey. This became better and better as the rest made a more conventional stop after 75 – 80 minutes. Luhr (to Massen) made it from there to the flag, just, while Pobst / Menzel didn’t quite make it and had to take on a splash. That ruined a formation finish for the Alex Job RSs, but they were four laps clear of…..Youles / Liddell. Their only hold up was a stop and go for pit lane speeding, and they were a lap ahead of Tony Burgess and Johnny Mowlem. Burgess had got the better of the #61 PK / Ricardo 911, but only after Piers Masarati began to struggle with power steering that began to fail. It finally stopped, cutting electrical power too. But for that, it could have been a PK 3 – 4.

The fourth GT to fail to make the finish was the Sebah car, whch broke a driveshaft.

So all that need explaining now is any late changes at the front. Kristensen charged on, pulling away from Johansson, who pitted for his driver change before the Dane. After all three had stopped, it was Capello by a lap from Pirro and a very close Guy Smith. That led to the smooth Smith pass at the Melbourne Hairpin, but Pirro had enough fuel to make the flag – the other two didn’t. Smith could never have pulled out enough to make up for even a quick splash, so it was quite a leisurely stop with 13 minutes left. Capello stopped with five minutes to go, but the result was already a foregone conclusion.

"The car was perfect," said fastest lap man Tom Kristensen. Eleven consecutive victories? Who looks like toppling them (see below for the best hope)?

Pescarolo’s team did their best, fourth a great result – after a stop and go for having no one on the fuel lever in the pits. “We are a small team, so I did it,” said ‘Pesca’.

The two LMP07s both found the gravel towards the end, but neither was driver error. Jan Magnussen had a soft brake pedal caused by a loose wheel: Klaus Graf was struggling with the paddle shift and missed a downshift, which locked the brakes. “At least we finished, and that’s good for all of us on the team,” said Graf. The LMP07s were sixth and eighth, split by that super little Pilbeam.

At least it didn’t snow here – as it did at Brno this morning. Now come on Chrysler, you’ve got to take on those Audis and Bentleys at Le Mans. Henri can’t do it on his own, he’s on the fuel lever.