Mosport International Raceway Gran Turismo 3 Grand Prix 19/08/2001   Andy Wallace Column Sears & Portland   We left Andy just about to experience the Bentley EXP Speed 8 at Goodwood….. The car was taken to Goodwood still with 24 hours of grime and muck all over it – it looked fantastic. I ran it up the hill twice on Friday and twice more on Sunday. As usual, the collection of machinery there was amazing, and the people never cease to amaze me either. A lot of them had clearly been at Le Mans, and they were telling me things about the race that I didn’t know. The fund of knowledge among these fans is just staggering. A Le Mans car isn’t really the ideal tool for driving up someone’s garden path! I had cold tyres, no downforce at those speeds and cold brakes – so the only thing I could do was spin the wheels a few times, put the lights on and give the fans a wave. It would have been so easy to put the car into the straw bales, and I didn’t fancy doing that, in this most valuable of Bentleys. The clutch was struggling after Le Mans, so I did stall it twice, but no one seemed to mind. Those fans (at Portland, left) – maybe we ought to ask ourselves why they go to events like Le Mans, Goodwood, Sebring and the Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta, and why 80 000 or more go to Spa. My view is that we should have a number of longer races; perhaps you can ask the readers on the site? Four hours, five hours, six hours, eight hours – whatever length it is, as long as there’s a good field. Why shouldn’t we race in five hour events? Or eight hours? Street races are fun too, with the crowd getting close to the action. With the Bentley “work” over for the time being, it was back to the Champion Racing Audi R8 for a pair of west coast ALMS races. Now, it doesn’t get much better than this! We all had high hopes for Sears Point. I had my new ALMS team-mate of course, Johnny Herbert. He’s a real professional, and great fun too. The ALMS has been a breath of fresh air for him. There’s a nice atmosphere at Champion, and apparently you don’t get much fun in F1! Johnny and I knew each other from F3 and F3000. We raced against each other when I won the British F3 Championship, then he won it the following year. We did F3000 together in ’88, although I didn’t do a full year. I was an observer - but I got involved too - in Johnny’s crash at Brands Hatch in ’88. I was a little way behind him, racing wheel to wheel with Cor Euser. We had touched wheels a few times, so I concentrated mostly on what Cor was doing, then suddenly he braked and I realised there was an accident going on ahead of us. I immediately braked and attempted to avoid the scattered wreckage ahead, but got hit by someone from behind and spun into it all. 13 years later, here we are racing together. The tracks are all new to Johnny, but he learns them very quickly, of course. I’ve only been to Sears Point once before, but the elevation changes and the mix of fast and slow corners make it a great track. We take it in turns to set the Qualifying time, and Sears was my turn. I set the third best time, a second away from one Factory Audi, half a second behind the other – but I was only a little bit quicker than the Panoz. I made a bit of a mess of the start, but there were reasons for that. Sears Point is used for drag racing, and the start-finish is on a slight left hand kink crossing over part of the drag strip, and very slippery. The Audi’s twin turbo V8 has a lot of torque, so spins its wheels with great ease. The FIA decides which side of the grid pole position is, and strangely it is on the left at Sears. I say strangely, because although the track curves to the left across start finish, the first real corner is a right-hander. Second and fourth place cars only have to make a reasonable start to be on the inside at the first real corner, and I was in third place the wrong side of the Panoz.... Oh well, I would just have to make a blinder of a start - right? The front row was controlling the speed of the field as we approached the green flag. In my haste to get away I got a bunch of wheelspin... and David (Brabham) got the jump on me in the Panoz. I was virtually alongside, but he had the line, and took third place away. At Sears, it’s very difficult to overtake. I was quicker than David through the fast corners, but he was quicker off the slower ones, and up ahead the two Audis were getting away. We were together almost throughout the first stint. We were having a great dice, and I had a grandstand view of what he was getting up to, to make his way through the traffic. We should have had a camera in the car. David was amazing. Every time in traffic he seemed to make a do or die attempt to pass – I was sitting there expecting him to make a mistake at any moment, but he got away with it every time. He took some incredible chances in the traffic, and I thought that sooner or later he would come unstuck – but he didn’t. Sometimes he had to take to the grass, but he still stayed ahead of me. Brilliant stuff to watch, and he was loving it. It’s always great to race with David; he is hard but fair. But I really wanted to get by him and chase the Audis. I got alongside a few times, but couldn’t find a way past. The race wasn’t three complete stints in length, so we decided to stop early. We should have known it wasn’t going to be our day when there was a yellow just after I’d stopped, giving everyone else the perfect opportunity to pit. I caught David up again, when we resumed racing. This time I was even more ‘all over him’ than before. This time I was going to find a way past. We both arrived upon one of the Corvettes. After another close shave, David got by. I followed him through, but we had both been held up. At this point, Emanuele Pirro came up to lap us. He squeezed past me first, but then the safety car came out again almost immediately, and so as it picked up the race leader, the Panoz inherited a full lap over us. When it isn’t your day.... We took that yellow and pitted for fuel, tyres and a driver change. It was going to be tight to make it to the end of the race without stopping for fuel again, but if there was another yellow, we would be OK. Johnny found a way past Jan Magnussen in the Panoz to unlap us, but couldn’t pull away. As it turned out, we had to stop for a splash (about three litres) of fuel! So fourth it would be. We had the third fastest car, but it was not our day. We were even more determined to get on the podium at Portland. This was time to roll the sleeves up and get stuck in. We realised straight away that this was a Panoz circuit. I had to have a little chuckle that it was Johnny’s turn to qualify. He did a stunning job to record a time just one second from pole, but still ended up fifth. Those red cars were fast at Portland. Overnight we made some extra set-up changes, to try to squeeze some more time out of the Audi. The car felt great in the warm up. On full tanks we both set times just six tenths off the fastest time, so we had made some progress. I enjoyed watching the opening part of the race, because of course it was a real thriller. Johnny got around Frank Biela in traffic, the two Panoz were very quick, but Johnny was all but matching them. We had a slight misunderstanding at the driver change. The right hand lap strap tends to jam, so Greg leaned in to assist, as Johnny was helping me too. You can only have a dedicated driver helper or the outgoing driver to help, under the rules. So we were given a 20 second penalty before leaving the pits. We would have been in third after the stops, but were fifth and then fourth, once all the others had stopped. I had Klaus Graf ahead of me, and was catching him at about a second a lap. I was pedalling as hard as I could go; got within seven seconds – and then the pace car came out and closed us up. That made it very exciting when it went green. Klaus was in the middle of the last turn when the green was waved. I got a better launch and was right on his tail. He stayed on the inside, as we carved through the traffic. There was a mass of cars everywhere. We both braked hard at the last moment. Klaus tapped a 675 car as we entered the chicane and spun into the gravel. I managed to lose enough speed to make the corner. I got tapped from behind in the middle of the chicane, but no damage was done. So up to third place with the leaders in sight - Jan Magnussen’s Panoz, closely followed by the Audi of Emanuele Pirro. Then we had another pace car to clear up the mess. When it went green again it was Panoz, Audi, two GT cars then me. I was past the two GTs straight away. I stayed with the first two for a couple of laps, but started sliding around with excess oversteer. I couldn’t stay with them and so third place it was. A great race and a podium position. We’ve now got Mosport, then a few days later, Mid Ohio. Both are really good tracks. They’ve got quick corners and elevation changes. The Panoz was fast at Mosport last year, but we’ll be up there. The things we learned at Portland should help us. The mission, of course, is to win. Andy Wallace link Copyright ©2000-©2023 TotalMotorSport