TotalMotorSport All the latest Motorsport news, race reports and photographs from around the world. Alms, Touring Cars, Formula One & Le Mans 24 Hours

Most ELMS

05/08/2001

Harlow Report

Most Unjust

Last weekend’s ELMS race at the Most Autodrom in the Czech Republic should have been an occasion for great celebration in the Harlow Motorsport camp, but being denied an almost certain class victory has left a sour taste that will take some time to fade. In its place may come an even greater determination to win next time round, but that opportunity won’t arise for a few weeks, when the series heads to Vallelunga.

For the time being, the Essex-based team is left contemplating a race that was their’s for the asking, save mechanical failure or freak accident. In the end it was an out-of-character mistake by one of the lapped tail-enders that sent a class-leading Terry Rymer into the gravel trap, and with him all chances of the win Harlow so richly deserved.

The arrival of Harlow Motorsport at the highest levels in international GT racing has not gone unnoticed. This is a young GT team in only its first season, yet it has rapidly established a reputation as a front-runner. Although always close to the best in testing and qualifying, the red, white and blue cars have tended to show most strongly under race conditions. Indeed, their strategy to date has been to concentrate on race set-up and preparation during free practice and qualifying, rather than aiming for fast times, and the policy has paid off. Fastest lap from Rymer and an early class lead could so easily have been rewarded with a win at Estoril, while the Harlow car was clearly the ‘best of the rest’ behind the full ALMS works squads at Jarama. The trip to the Czech Republic was a chance to redress the balance, and the new partnership of Terry Rymer and Geoff Lister very nearly achieved the desired result.

The decision to pair up the natural talent of former biker ace Terry Rymer (left) with the GT experience of Geoff Lister proved to be an inspired move, and one that Terry’s normal partner, Adam Simmons, took in good heart. “Geoff wanted to drive with us and it was a simple management decision for him to pair with Terry,” he said. This left Adam sharing the team’s second car with regular Harlow driver Gavin Pickering, who was delighted to have Lister in the squad. “It’s always good to work with Harlow, and it was great to have Geoff on board too,” he explained. “He’s very experienced and has excellent knowledge. He’s also a very good driver!”

It certainly created a strong line-up that was reflected in some promising times in Friday’s free practice and a class third from Rymer in qualifying.

As usual, these times were set with the car in full race trim, and it was a telling moment when Rymer went quicker in the race-day morning warm-up. “The team did a great job preparing the car,” said his co-driver, Geoff Lister. “Going quicker in warm-up than we had in qualifying just showed how well we’d got the car set up.” The second car had not shown so strongly on Friday, but moved up to a mid-field position in qualifying. Adam put this down to the team’s approach to a new circuit and their emphasis on preparation. “We spent the whole time making sure we had a good race set-up,” he conceded. “We weren’t worried about pole. It was more important to us to be consistent in the race with full tanks, so that’s what we did.” This also meant that the two cars were restricted to only five laps each in the official qualifying session. “You get an hour of unofficial practice in the morning to qualify the drivers,” explained Simmons. “It was wet, so we did just enough to make sure all the drivers were qualified. It had dried out by the afternoon, but we still wanted to do as few laps as possible to conserve the tyres.” ELMS regulations state that cars must start the race on the same set they use in the thirty-minute qualifying.

In the end, Adam Simmons’ best (left) was just shy of the #61 PK Sport entry. “I was quite happy with the time I put in,” he admitted, “I was half a second off the second PK car but I knew I could find that if I needed to. I think qualifying went very well really,” he concluded. Robin Liddell placed the #60 PK Porsche he shares with Mike Youles on class pole, split from Rymer & Lister by Wolfgang Kaufmann, guesting with Paco Orti in the #65 car. Simmons ended up fifth. The #73 Skea Racing entry, shared by Richard Dean and Giovanni Anapoli, ended up at the back of the grid after a broken driveshaft curtailed Dean’s qualifying run.

The skies were overcast by the time one o’clock came round and time for the race to start, but there was enough sunshine breaking through to maintain air and track temperatures to a tolerable 28-30 degrees. The field completed two formation laps before the pace car pulled aside and the race began.

While the four prototypes (a marginally better entry than Estoril) and lone Saleen sprinted off into the distance, Geoff Lister was clearly the quickest off the blocks in GT. “I had a really good start,” he admitted. “I overtook Mike and the Paco Orti car - with Kaufmann on board - to take the lead by the first corner. I just jumped them both!” The whole field streamed through Turn One without incident, with Lister leading GT from Youles. The PK driver may not have enjoyed the best of starts, but he was well clear of Kaufmann, who had dropped three places in the rush and was now driving hard to make up for it. He’d briefly fallen behind Richard Dean, who’d made a blistering start from the back row to be third in GT by the close of the first lap. The German wasn’t going to let things rest, however. A string of quick times, including a fastest lap that was going to stand unchallenged for the rest of the day, had him back on Lister’s tail within ten minutes, but not before the Harlow driver had pulled out a two second lead on Youles.

“I just settled down to a strategy,” explained Lister. “I was running lap times that we knew the car could do on the tyres and fuel with only one stop.” When Kaufmann caught up, Lister was wise enough not to make an issue of things so early in the race. “He was driving like a man possessed!” said an astonished Lister. “I gave him the lead, but he only held it for a lap or so, and then went off with a puncture.” Actually, ‘puncture’ was something of an understatement, bringing to mind the image of a slowly deflating tyre and a wobbly return to the pits. In reality Kaufmann’s tyre disintegrated in an explosion of shredded fragments that littered the track.

The puncture cost the #65 car the best part of a lap as Kaufmann limped back to the pits for a replacement, and was to be almost as expensive to Gavin Pickering in the second Harlow car. “I had a good start and a really smooth run through the first chicane,” explained Pickering. “That allowed me to get ahead of the second PK car, the number 61. After that I got some good laps in, including several low 1:35s, and that was pleasing. I felt I had a good rhythm.” Within half an hour he was running fourth in class, just behind the Konrad GT2 Porsche, and looking very strong. By then, however, he was also complaining of a strange sensation from the tyres and suspected that he too had a puncture. “I think what happened was that I’d picked up some of the junk when the Paco Orti car had its big blow out. I decided I’d better be safe than sorry, so came in.” The team was sympathetic. “After not coming in after flat spotting the tyres at Estoril, Gavin rather over compensated this time,” said Adam Simmons, his co-driver. “He had some build-up of loose rubber on the tyres, so we just sent him out again. His race pace was very good, though, and he was lapping as quickly as everyone else. It was just a little unfortunate, that’s all.”

Having seen the last of Kaufmann, Geoff Lister had established a generous lead of almost ten seconds by the time the half hour came up, but the equally determined Richard Dean was now starting to reel him in. It took almost an hour in all, but the Yorkshireman finally arrived on Lister’s tail, pressing the Harlow driver for a handful of laps before easing through into the lead. “I think Geoff decided that if Dean wanted to run quicker, then he’d let him go, and then he’d just follow along. That was Geoff’s idea,” acknowledged Simmons. “It makes more sense in endurance racing than defending hard and possibly making a mistake.” In the end it was of little consequence, since the Skea car headed for the pits three tours later, with Dean handing over to the much slower Anapoli for the middle stint. “After he got through Richard wasn’t pulling away at all,” said Simmons, “and we knew that their second driver would be slower than Terry, so it all fell into our lap really.”

This left Lister, who had been looking after the car and the fuel superbly, with a lead of almost a complete lap. This was also thanks to an early stop by Youles in the first of the PK Porsches, who’d been forced into an extra pitstop after flat-spotting a full set. His replacement, Robin Liddell, was on a charge, but with so much ground to recover he had little realistic hope of catching the Harlow car.

Finally, with an hour and twenty-six minutes gone, Lister headed for the pitlane and the change-over with Terry Rymer. Two laps later Pickering was in again to hand over to Simmons. “I was catching the Sebah Porsche, and closing up behind it towards the end of my stint,” said Pickering. “By then had the leaders had come round, including Geoff [Lister] and the #60 PK car. I ran with Geoff for seven or eight laps before coming in for the pitstop. That was quite interesting at times!”

Both swaps went smoothly and neither car lost much ground in the process. “I was out in front of Liddell by about three seconds on the track, and I managed to hold station there. Then I saw the number two PK car of Masarati up ahead – maybe six seconds or so to begin with.” It took less than two more laps for Rymer to catch up with the #61 car, but despite being a lap down Masarati was in no mood to be co-operative. Rymer himself takes up the story: “I caught him very easily, but once I got in behind him he started blocking me at every turn. My lap times fell off straight away, of course, and that allowed Liddell to catch up.” In fact, the two yellow cars were dancing a merry jig at either end of Rymer’s nine-eleven, and things were getting pretty fraught. “Masarati almost had me off once, forcing me wide into a corner,” admitted Rymer. On another occasion, as Rymer was pushed off line, Liddell saw the gap and dived through. “Liddell got past both of us,” said Rymer. “Masarati sent me wide and then indicated him through.”

It was a neat move, IF slightly less than sporting, but Terry wasn’t unduly perturbed. “I decided it wasn’t a drama,” he shrugged. “Liddell still had to make another pitstop, so I sat behind Piers and waited for him to make a mistake. I knew he would – he was all over the place and driving beyond his abilities. Then, coming out of the left-hander before the last turn he made a mistake and put a wheel up on the kerb. I got alongside...

....and then eased ahead as we came into the last turn. I braked and turned in. I’d given him plenty of room, but God knows what happened next. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and say he tried to outbrake me, but it’s more likely he just punted me off. It happened so quickly. One moment I was driving through the corner, next I was sitting in the gravel.” If Rymer was attempting to be even-handed in his interpretation, it was exceedingly charitable, as subsequent examination of the video footage revealed.

Whatever the motives behind Masarati’s move, the net result was that Terry was left stranded in the gravel while the #61 car recovered with little delay and pressed on. The Harlow car was beached for almost two minutes before the marshals could get it back onto the track, with Rymer heading straight for the pits for a check-up. This was more than enough to offer Liddell an unassailable lead, although Terry was not long in returning to the track. Now lying a lowly fifth, he wasn’t totally out of the running. “Everything seemed OK once I got out again, so I just got my head down and went for it. I was pounding round, doing some quick laps, and before long I caught Liddell and passed him, but by then I was a lap down.” The former motorcycle world endurance champion actually set some of the fastest laps of the race in his attempts to make up the lost ground. He appeared to pull away from Liddell quite easily, and even then a podium was certainly a possibility. Fate, however, had a final card to play. With just over two hours gone Rymer was back into the pitlane with a water pump problem. “It felt like something had broken in the steering, and that’s why I came in,” said Rymer, “but a stone had got into one of the belts.” Adam Simmons clarified: “When he’d gone into the gravel some of the stones had got wedged up inside the pulleys. Eventually they sheared through the belts and that was that.” The car was retired, having completed 76 laps.

While all this had been happening the second Harlow car had been progressing well. Simmons, having come out in sixth place, was pleased to discover that he’d risen to third. “I was amazed really. The pit board came out with P3 on it. I had the Paco Orti car pushing quite hard, and he was pulling me in by two or three tenths a lap, but I was doing consistent one minute thirty fives. With the time left to run I reckoned it was going to be down to one or two seconds by the end.” The calculations were close, but there was just enough for the team to be reasonably confident of a consolation prize.

A few minutes later, and with less than a quarter of an hour remaining, Adam himself was also in the pits. “I’d heard a few strange noises, the occasional bang or something. The car wasn’t handling abnormally, but I was sure I could hear something – you know how it is. At first I decided to ignore it, but every now and again there’d be another bang. At that time I thought it was probably just the tyres building up rubber and throwing lumps off. Then this mechanical knocking noise started. Even then I was still thinking it could be a bit of bodywork flapping - that’s what it sounded like. Only it got noisier. I radioed in and asked the team if they wanted me to come in, but they said to carry on, as there was less than twenty minutes to go. A lap and a half later there was an almighty knocking noise from the back of the car. I could actually feel it through the seat of the chair. I told myself this was not good! There was something seriously up, so I decided I’d better come in while I still could.” The consensus was that the diff. was about to give up the ghost. “We had one go in the other car at Donington, and now this one in the second. It’s not good. Unfortunate, but one of those things,” said an irritated Adam.

With both cars retired from the race, the team had to watch in frustration as the #60 PK Porsche, with Robin Liddell completing the final stint, took the flag to record the British team’s first international win of the year. It wasn’t easy for the Harlow squad, knowing that Liddell had also needed that extra pitlane visit for a splash and dash, making two stops to the Harlow squad’s one. Everyone was hugely disappointed. “I’m just gutted,” said Geoff Lister. “The race was our’s. We’d have won easily.” Rymer was even more forthright. “We really were robbed, honestly,” he said. “No less than that.” Even some while later he was still feeling aggrieved. “I can understand someone blocking me if they’re in the hunt, yes, I can go along with that. But for a backmarker to do that, no. I’ve never done it, and I’ve never seen it done so blatantly before in my career. Then to have the audacity to try to outbrake me when he’s a lap behind. It was ridiculous – absolute stupidity. There’s just no call for it. He was just lucky I didn’t see him out there on the race track again!” His co-driver was supportive, but as a former team-mate to Piers Masarati, Geoff Lister did attempt a different interpretation on the PK driver’s behaviour. “Team orders or whatever, it was just silly, but I also think it was very un-Piers. I don’t know why he did it. It’s all a bit suspicious. In fact, it’s probably the world’s most suspicious manoeuvre of the weekend. It was a Club racing move, and while that’s fine in its place, it’s not appropriate to international motorsport, and it’s not something I would normally expect of Piers.”

After the race the organisers spoke to both drivers and reviewed the video footage of the incident. It took them only moments to disqualify the #61 car from the result. “As soon as they saw the video evidence, they excluded him, no questions asked,” said Rymer. Perhaps the final comments on this particular incident should go to Terry Rymer and his co-driver, Geoff Lister. “Everything fell in PK’s favour,” said Rymer. “They got a win, so they’re very happy of course. We missed out on our first win in the championship and there’s no doubt the incident played a big part in it.”

Team owner Len Simmons was characteristically diplomatic. "It was very disappointing, given our strong position in the race. Our pace was consistently quicker than the winning car and being able to run a one-stop strategy put us in a very strong position. It would have been sensible if the lapped PK car had simply let us by, as he did his team mate, and allow us to get on with our own race."

The one positive note to come out of the weekend was the team’s universal approval for the Autodrom track. “It was a really nice circuit with plenty of fast corners and chicanes, plus some good quick stuff in between,” was Geoff Lister’s verdict “It’s a race track that you remember, like Spa, not the usual Brno-esque circuit that you tend to get in the FIA. It’s in the old style, I guess, and it makes a nice GT circuit. The people were lovely too, and that always helps.” “I loved the track,” agreed Gavin Pickering. “The surface is a bit patchy, but I think that’s down to the truck racing they stage there. But it’s a fabulous facility, and going through that first chicane is brilliant – really good. It’s a fun lap. There aren’t many places to relax, but it’s a great track – and the local beers are good too!”

The squad is back on track again in the next ELMS round at Vallelunga, with plans to include two more British GT races in their end-of-season schedule, Brands Hatch and Silverstone.