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Vallelunga ELMS

02/09/2001

Harlow Report

First International GT Win for Harlow

The Harlow Motorsport pairing of Terry Rymer and Magnus Wallinder recorded the squad’s first-ever GT win at international level last weekend at Vallelunga. Harlow, who had a successful run with Renault Spiders a few years back, only returned to motorsport at the beginning of this year. With a handful of races in the British GT Championship this year, they moved on to the ELMS with a debut at Jarama in May. They were on the pace straight away, emerging among the “best-of-the-rest” behind the works Porsches.

They were seriously unlucky not to win at Most last month, so victory in the final round of this year’s ELMS is richly deserved. “It’s a good finish to the European season,” said Len Simmons, team principal at Harlow. “We haven’t achieved all we’d hoped for, but we have shown that we have the ability to win at international level. It bodes well for the future and gives us a good platform to build upon. In our own minds we know the potential is there for continual improvement. What we need to do next is prove that we can achieve this level of result on a regular basis.”

The Harlow guys, and Magnus Wallinder in particular, had been on top form all weekend. Friday practice had merely hinted at the pace they were likely to set, with a best of 1:16.043 only netting them fifth quickest behind the Paco Orti car (1:15.480), the Liddell/Youles PK #60, Freisinger and the quicker of the two Cirtek entries. It was all pretty tight, however, and by Saturday Harlow had got things together quite neatly. Mind you, they’d had to. The car had been in pieces first thing that morning!

“Magnus went off in the untimed warm-up on Saturday,” explained Adam. “That was before qualifying, of course. He damaged the rear left of the car quite badly, but we were able to patch it up and have it fixed in time for Terry to take the car out again.” Although Rymer went out first it was Magnus Wallinder, making his debut for the team, who got pole.

“We’d been chatting with Magnus for a long time,” added Adam. “He ran with Harlow back in ‘97 with the Renault Spiders, and we’ve kept the relationship going ever since. We just wanted to put together the strongest pairing we could for the final ELMS meeting and Magnus was the perfect choice.” It certainly appeared to be, with the Swede clocking a best of 1:14.820 to place the #66 car a gnat’s whisker clear of the Dumas/Chateau Freisinger Porsche. The gap was just three one-hundredths, but then again, the first four nine-elevens were all separated by less than a tenth. It was very tight.

The pre-race trials and tribulations were not yet over for car #66, however. Was Lady Luck trying to give the team a warning? Bearing in mind that these things usually come in threes, the sight of the car returning to the pitlane in pieces again after Sunday morning warm-up must have given the squad plenty to think about. “Terry did the raceday warm-up,” explained Adam Simmons. “He’d come over the final chicane into the first of the hairpins and spun off into the barrier – and hit the front left! He destroyed the whole of the front PU (valence) and most of the suspension - just about everything in fact.” It transpired that Terry had been caught out by fluid on the track. “Someone had spilt fuel on the chicane,” he explained. “I came over the blind crest, touched the fuel, and spun out across the gravel and into the wall. I was only on my first full lap as well! I didn’t have a chance really.”

By this time the guys were getting pretty slick at rebuilding corners on their 911 GT3s, but it was still a hectic few hours while they repaired the damage.

So the team prepared for the one o’clock start with car #66 on GT pole, fifth overall, and the Simmons / Pickering car (above) seventh. Neither of the #67 drivers had been to Vallelunga before. “It was a new circuit for both myself and Adam,” conceded Gavin Pickering. “Even so, I felt we both settled into it pretty quickly. We found good balance and downforce - not too much of a compromise. From that point of view qualifying went OK, although we were not as high up as we’d hoped to be. I still felt we had a good set-up and the car looked like it was going to be consistently quick in race trim.”

With the Konrad Saleen S7 banished to the back of the modest fourteen-car grid, Terry Rymer found himself starting from fourth overall, behind the Dean / Formato Panoz LMP1 Roadster, the works Saleen S7R of McKellar & Goodwin, and the lone LMP675 Debora. At four minutes past the hour the final round of the 2001 ELMS got the green light, and so did Terry Rymer. He made an excellent start, pulling away from the chasing trio of Dumas (Paco Orti #77), Kaufmann (Freisinger #65) and Liddell (PK #60) to be a healthy one-second clear at the end of the first lap.

For the first couple of laps Rymer was able to create a small advantage over the three behind him, but it was clear that Dumas was holding back a very determined Kaufmann. On the next lap the German got ahead, and then set off after the Harlow car with scant regard for his tyres. Over the next two laps the gap narrowed from 2.2 seconds to less than one, and the former endurance bike champion knew he had a fight on his hands. Magnus Wallinder, watching his team-mate from the pit wall, wasn’t unduly concerned. “Terry did a very good job to hold Kaufmann at bay for such a long time,” he said. “However, I knew that Kaufmann would have problems with his tyres because of his aggressive driving style. This meant that Terry could keep the gap to a minimum before he handed over the car to me.”

It takes two to tango, as they say, and Terry wasn’t in the mood for dancing. There was more at stake here than mere position on the track, and with the race less than ten minutes old there seemed to be little point in fending off someone who was clearly determined beyond reason. Terry took the wise decision to allow Kaufmann through into the lead. “He was starting to get really close, so I let him through in the end,” conceded Terry. “I knew he had to make an extra stop, so it was silly to try and keep ahead of him.

Shadowing Kaufmann proved a simpler task than defending anyway, but it wasn’t long before the Harlow driver was coming under increasing pressure from Dumas in the Freisinger car. This turned out to be a much more balanced argument, with the two protagonists evenly matched and the duel genuinely entertaining. For the best part of twenty minutes Dumas ducked and dived in his attempts to create an opportunity, while Robin Liddell in the fourth-placed PK Porsche appeared to hang back in reserve, waiting for an opening. It would be a long time coming.

Gavin Pickering had been having a good run in the second of the Harlow cars, #67. “I pushed hard right from the start and got past two or three quite early on,” he said. “That brought me up behind the Cirtek GT3 Porsche, and that took a while to get past. Tony Littlejohn was in the car in that first stint and he wasn’t going to let me get through with a straightforward pass. In the end he made a small mistake and I was able to get ahead.” With half an hour completed Pickering was running fifth in class, not far behind Liddell.

With thirty minutes completed the singleton LMP900 Panoz had lapped every other car except the two Saleens. Rymer still held second in GT from Dumas, but had the Frenchman right on his tail as they came weaving through the back-markers. The Harlow driver was forced to defend quite hard, locking up into the hairpin on one occasion as he fought to keep his position. Three times Dumas attempted the same move at the hairpin, and three times Rymer shut the door. “We came together a couple of times – just nudging rather than hitting,” acknowledged Rymer. “We were side by side, leaning a bit, a few tyre marks across the side of the car, but it was all fair stuff. Close racing, just close hard racing. I’m sure he enjoyed it as much as I did!”

It was a tense time for the English team, watching from the pit wall, but Rymer was keeping to the brief – safeguarding fuel and tyres as best he could knowing that the Paco Orti car ahead of him probably had two stops to make, against his one.

Sure enough, with only an hour completed, Kaufmann dived into the pitlane. By this time Rymer had managed to create some breathing space from somewhere, and took back the lead with an advantage over Dumas of almost two seconds. “To begin with Kaufmann had pulled a couple of seconds away,” explained Terry, “but I gave a really hard push towards the end of the stint. I was catching right up again. When he went in to pit I shot back into the lead.”

It was now give and take between Rymer and Dumas as they made their way through the traffic, with the gap fluctuating as if the two cars were joined by elastic. “The tyres had started to drop away by then,” said Rymer. “I just had to sit there and do the best I could to finish the stint. The Freisinger car was catching up a bit, but I knew Magnus was quicker than their next driver so didn’t give it much thought.” Just on an hour and fifteen, Dumas made his move. They were back at the hairpin once again, but this time the Freisinger car had just enough speed to hold the line as they came through side-by-side. Holding the inner kerb Dumas emerged on the other side with his nose ahead, but it was all of little consequence to Rymer, who promptly headed for the pitlane to hand over to Magnus Wallinder. “Dumas passed me on the lap I came in, so we were second as I handed over to Magnus but right behind the leader. I knew their second driver wasn’t as quick as Magnus, or me for that matter, so knew we just had to get out cleanly and let Magnus drive as he normally does.”

While the team refuelled and fitted fresh rubber, Rymer and Wallinder swapped places. “The driver change went fine,” was Rymer’s verdict. “Actually, it’s easy for us drivers. While the rest of the team is busy doing all the hard work you’ve got plenty of time to swap over. As long as you don’t panic or get flustered it’s OK. Magnus is a pretty cool guy; we got him buckled in and everything went fine.” As the Harlow car swept back out onto the track Dumas was heading in at the other end to make his driver change with Chateau. The Freisinger squad made a disastrously slow pitstop, because Wallinder came by before they’d finished and slapped a lap over them.

Greater disaster, however, was soon to befall Paco Orti himself in his eponymous racecar. After swapping with Kaufmann he’d had a good enough run. He’d lost a lap in the first pitstop, but got that back by passing both Dumas and Liddell early in his stint. Although still sixth in the class, he was at least on the same lap now, and able to anticipate the other cars’ first pit stops with some optimism. Unfortunately, when he came in for his car’s second stop one of the two airguns wouldn’t work, and the mechanics had to complete the tyre change with only one gun. That alone cost them time, but when Kaufmann stepped on the throttle to blast out the pits, he inadvertently drove over the trailing airline. This is almost like a hanging offence in motorsport and incurred a mandatory stop-go penalty. On a track like Vallelunga, that’s a lap or more wasted, and with it any hope they had of catching the one-stop teams.

Gavin Pickering arrived outside the garage with an hour and a half almost completed to hand over to Adam Simmons. He’d run a steady race and picked up another position when the #60 PK Porsche pulled over with clutch problems. “The brakes and balance were excellent throughout,” said Pickering. “The team certainly did a good job on set-up.” Simmons was out again pretty promptly and he was making good time. Under the circumstances, that was some credit to him. “Sitting trackside during Adam’s stint I was a little concerned for him,” admitted Pickering. “He’d not been feeling well, and I just hoped he was OK. Given the extreme temperature conditions it was hard work out there.” This was certainly true, and Rymer was another to feel the heat. “It was hot and humid and the conditions were very tough,” he said. “You just had to keep your head down and keep pushing away.”

With two hours gone Wallinder was now leading GT by a full lap over Chateau in the Freisinger Porsche. “My stint was very easy in the beginning,” he admitted. “After thirty minutes I had a comfortable 50 second lead. I was told on the radio to slow down so we didn't have to come in for a short fuel stop.” Adding to the pleasure this almost certainly gave the Harlow team was the sight of their second car now running third, albeit a further lap behind. Half an hour into his stint Simmons had moved ahead of the Paco Orti car on the pitstops and he was setting a good pace. The race leader remained the unstoppable Panoz, now a full lap clear of the second-placed RML Saleen, and seven ahead of Wallinder. The Harlow cars were in a very strong position and their prospects looked excellent.

Moments later it all seemed very different. Walter Brun (visible in the background, above) came blatting through in the #26 Saleen GTS to add a lap on Wallinder but miscalculated totally. “I was about to be lapped by the Konrad Saleen,” explains Wallinder. “I indicated and moved nicely over to the outside line so he could pass me in a safe way. I was really caught by surprise when he hit me hard and sent me out into the gravel trap. Instinctively I shifted down to second gear and floored the pedal. All I had in my mind was to get the car out of the gravel trap as quick as possible. Going out from it I hit the tyre wall very gently sideways, but I kept the car moving forward.” He regained the track just ahead of Adam Simmons. “I saw Magnus in the gravel. He managed to drag it out just ahead of me and was struggling back onto the circuit as I approached. I backed off to allow him on.”

This was more than a simple “incident” and the race officials spent little time in their deliberations. Brun was called into the pitlane to have his knuckles rapped and endure a stop-go penalty. Wallinder’s reaction was understandable. “I was furious!” he said. “He’d nearly ruined our podium chance.”

Although Wallinder had recovered from the enforced spin pretty quickly, the impact had nearly ripped the whole of the rear panel off the back of the Harlow Porsche. The bumper section was hanging on gamely but flapping in the breeze at every opportunity. It was a worrying time for the team, knowing that the car could be forced into an extra pitstop at any moment to have the loose panel secured or removed. Running third overall felt like modest compensation at the time, but Wallinder had another problem. “One lap later I picked up very bad vibrations from the chassis. Since I only could listen to the team on the radio and not speak to them it was hard to judge what condition the car was in. I could not report the vibrations back to the team and they could not tell me what was wrong with the car.” Undeterred, he pressed on.

Fortunately a combination of good luck, the sympathetic concerns of the officials, and some heartfelt pleas from team manager Len Simmons, ensured that the car stayed out. “I managed to convince them it was just superficial,” said Len. “I didn’t want this to be another one of those occasions when another car robbed us of a win!” Anyway, for the next few laps the valence looked reasonably secure. At least it was still attached . . . for the time being, anyhow.

With two and a half hours completed Wallinder lead the class by a lap from Chateau second in the Freisinger Porsche #77 and Simmons third in the #67 Harlow Porsche. His father, Len Simmons, was not finding it easy. “I sat in the garage. I didn’t want to watch!” he admitted. “It wasn’t until we came to the last three or four minutes that I felt I could relax a little.” Adam, however, was doing well. After Wallinder’s mishap with the Saleen, Adam had been able to tag along behind his team-mate for a while. “We were running quite a similar pace to begin with, in the high seventeens,” he said. “Then Kaufmann came out after his pitstop and was about 12 seconds behind me in fourth. He was lapping a second or so quicker than I was but, to be honest, I couldn’t do anything about him. He got by me with thirty minutes to go.” With a long gap back to fifth, Simmons settled down to finish the race. “I was comfortable in fourth,” he said. “There wasn’t much going on. In fact, it was all pretty quiet. I was just concentrating on trying to maintain my advantage over the guy behind, racing against the clock.”

Meanwhile Wallinder was growing increasingly concerned about the car. “With only five minutes left of the race I really had to slow down because otherwise I thought we would have a puncture.” He eased off significantly. “I think my last lap was 15 seconds slower than the pace,” he said. “I was not in any position to defend the lead if I had to.” Fortunately, there was no need.

The five-hundredth kilometre came up after two hours and forty-six minutes, with Wallinder taking the flag to record Harlow’s first-ever international victory in GT racing. Overall race win, unsurprisingly, went to Richard Dean and Gary Formato in the Lanesra Racing Panoz LMP1 Roadster, with GTS falling to Ian McKellar Jnr and Chris Goodwin in the RML Saleen. Wallinder’s advantage over Chateau at the finish was more than a lap, with the Paco Orti Racing 911 just holding on to that class third from Adam Simmons.

The Harlow team was overjoyed. “I was absolutely relieved that we actually got the result,” said Len Simmons. “Terry was totally elated. I’ve never seen him so happy. It was so good to see him on the podium with that smile on his face.”

The win seems to have been a long time coming, but that’s hardly the case. This is Harlow’s first season at this level and only their fourth international race, but they’ve come so close before that frustration, as much as anything else, has added to the suspense. “The team deserved some success, and they finally got it here,” said Rymer. “It’s also my first international car win, but missing out at Most just makes this feel a lot sweeter! I think everyone put in so much effort over the weekend. It was so gratifying when it came right. Everyone at Harlow wanted this very badly, but it shows that when a team pulls together like we did there’s not many others can live with it.”

They’ve certainly come close before this and should have had the win at Most, but they were also class leaders at Estoril in July. “We’ve shown the right kind of form all year,” said Len, “but this time we were able to come through to a win. It was touch and go at one point, and through no fault of our own we could have ended up with no result at all. After being the quickest car on the track in race trim all weekend we had the potential to loose everything. When that chequered flag went down the emotion nearly killed me! I’ve only just recovered. At last, the team has realised the potential they’ve shown all year.”

The Harlow season is not over yet. There’s a strong possibility that the team will run at Sepang in Malaysia for the November round of the ALMS. “We will definitely have one car in Malaysia, possibly two, but the driver line-up is yet to be decided,” said Len. In the meantime, they also plan to attend the last two rounds of the British GT Championship. “We will definitely have one car out at Brands,” continued Len, “but whether we run the second will depend on drivers. Gavin [Pickering] can’t do that race, so we will be considering a replacement. It’s important for us that every time one of our cars goes out we have drivers who offer us the best chance to perform. I’d rather the second car didn’t go out at all rather than run below its potential.”

Gavin Pickering could be back with the team for the last British race at Silverstone on September 29th. “I may do the Silverstone night race, but I’d also like to do Petit Le Mans. Although Harlow won’t be there, I’m seriously looking for an opportunity to do that race. Although I want to focus on European events in the future, my main aim is to build up an international reputation.” A drive at Petit Le Mans would certainly help.
There’s that phrase again; Le Mans. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it.