AMERICAN LE MANS SERIES NEWS - LONG BEACH 19 APRIL 2008 |
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Hot on the heels of making the first ever E85 Bio-Ethanol-fuelled GT start in an ALMS race at Sebring, Drayson-Barwell carved out another notch in the history books at Long Beach on Saturday. The team competed in round three of the ALMS with its brand new Aston Martin Vantage GT2 (chassis 001), and drivers Paul Drayson and Jon ny Cocker scored the first ever race finish in the world for the new GT2 car from Aston Martin Racing (AMR). This was also very much a triumph over adversity for the Drayson-Barwell squad, as the car only arrived in California on the Tuesday night before the race, and had not yet turned a wheel in its life. The Vantage GT2 was always on a very tight schedule to be fully built and delivered in time for Long Beach , but Aston Martin Racing and Drayson-Barwell made the joint decision to ship the car to the US on time. We then worked together once it had landed in California , to make sure that everything necessary was done so that the car made the grid at Long Beach . We arranged to take it to a local Aston Martin dealer, Bauer Aston Martin, on the Wednesday, so at least we could do a ‘shake down' systems check run in their car park before launching it onto the unforgiving curves of the Long Beach street track. We were also able to take advantage of Bauer's workshop facilities and used their ‘rolling road' to run the car up through the gears. Big thanks to Bauer for their help! The team's mechanics then had to work long into the very early hours of Thursday morning to overcome some teething problems with its new baby. This work continued on after only a few hours sleep, and the car was presented for IMSA technical scrutineering on Thursday morning. The fabulous looking V8 machine caused a major stir in the ALMS paddock, and then made its track debut in the Thursday test sessions. Qualifying With the Thursday test being little more than an extended shakedown for the new car, Friday's practice and qualifying sessions would be the team's first chance to start working on the handling and performance of the Vantage GT2. The Drayson-Barwell engineers and drivers focused their attentions on improving the handling balance of the car. The other issue that the team faced with the car's handling was that it not had any opportunity to do any proper testing with the new tyre that Dunlop has produced for the car. Similarly, Dunlop has not had the chance yet to further develop its tyre in conjunction with the team. The ALMS is undoubtedly the world's premier sportscar/GT racing championship, and the GT2 category (which makes up 50% of the total grid) is by far the toughest and most varied GT2 class of any series in the world. There are factory-supported and privateer teams from Ferrari, Porsche and Panoz, and further competition from teams fielding Corvette, Ford GT and Dodge chassis. The drivers in GT2 are predominantly paid professionals with vast experience, headed up by former Ferrari F1 Grand Prix star, Mika Salo. So, in summary, it's a pretty tough nut to crack! Drayson-Barwell and AMR will be working hard during the next few months to optimize the performance of the combined chassis, tyre, and engine package of the Vantage GT2, so that we can start moving up the field over the forthcoming ALMS race events. We continued to try some set-up changes during Friday's 25-minute official qualifying session, and moved up from being the ‘tail-end Charlies' of GT2 to 11 th out of 14 class runners. Jon ny set his fastest time near the end of the session when the car was better but the new Dunlop s had gone past their best, so we also knew that our improved set-up on a fresh set of tyres would have been quicker still. Unfortunately in the ALMS you are only allowed one set of new rubber for qualifying (with three of the qualy tyres having to be used to start the race), so we were unable to show that we could possibly have moved further up the order. As we were treating this event as an extended test , we chose to put maximum mileage on these tyres rather than the minimum as per normal tactics. Race – 100 minutes So, after all of the team's incredible hard work over the week, the car had run without any mechanical problems throughout the practice, qualifying and warm-up sessions. The objective now was simple – get to see the chequered flag for our first ALMS finish! Although, given the previous success that both drivers and team have been used to, this is not exactly a lofty ambition, a finish would still be a great achievement considering the circumstances of the build up to this race, and the fact that the Vantage GT2 is at the very beginning of its competitive life as a GT2 racing car. Jon ny thus made a good start and stayed out of trouble, with the whole field being remarkably well behaved between the claustrophobic confines of the Long Beach walls. He then gave us our first proper ‘scrap' of 2008 to watch, as he raced hard in a gaggle of four cars fighting over 9 th place. He initially held 10 th spot and was impressively ahead of one of the Porsche 911 RSRs of leading ALMS team, Flying Lizards Motorsport. Unfortunately our power disadvantage made life extremely difficult for Jon ny to defend his position, as he was a sitting duck along the long front straight. This allowed the Lizards Porsche, the Robertson Ford GT and the Riley Corvette to all get past, and left Jon ny extremely frustrated as he could clearly go quicker then his rivals in the corners, with the chassis showing some very promising early signs. He was then held up for many laps behind the Corvette, as he was always too far back at the end of the straights to be in a position to outbrake the Chevy into the bends. However Jon ny then cleverly used the traffic to box the ‘Vette in, and once past he was able to pull away by up to three seconds a lap, but had lost a lot of time to the rest of the pack. At this stage our Dunlop tyres had already done 45 laps but were still working well, while the others on different rubber were starting to fade away. Jon ny was able to run a similar pace to the midfield Ferraris, Porsches and Panoz, and was pulling away from the Corvette and Ford GT. Like the GT leaders, we had not come in to the pits during the first ‘Full-caution' safety car period, but had waited until we were further into our one-stop fuel window to contemplate making the one pit stop for this 100-minute race. When a second safety car period occurred at just the right moment for our stop, we were confident of being in a position to capitalise and move up three or four places on those early stoppers (including the Lizards Porsche we had battled). The safety car came out and picked up the overall (Prototype Class) race leaders, with the rest of the field waiting behind them to see what the overall leaders did. When the Prototype leaders ahead of our car on the track came into the pits as soon as the pit lane was opened, we made the right call on the radio to Jon ny to stay out and then get a ‘wave by' from the safety car as it was then dropping back through the field to find the first overall leader that hadn't pitted. At this stage we were looking really good to gain a lap on many of our rivals and jump up as high as seventh or eighth in the GT2 order. Having got the ‘wave by' , Jon ny and many of the GT2 leaders then pushed on hard to maximise the distance between them and the safety car so they could make their pit stop and still come out ahead of the safety car. They all then came up behind the Robertson Ford GT which, extraordinarily, was just cruising along at 50% race speed. Unfortunately under ‘Full caution' period rules you are not allowed to overtake, and thus Jon ny had to sit behind it. Despite his best efforts to try and wake the Ford GT's driver up, he seemed to be on a different planet, and Jon ny lost a chunk of time before he could get round to the pits. We still had just enough time to complete our stop and get back out ahead of the safety car, and this would have worked out had the track not gone back to full ‘green' racing just as we exited the pits (with Paul now at the wheel). This early switch to ‘green' was against the usual run of things, and also caught out the majority of the GT2 leaders. Unfortunately then, stopping under this caution period had actually hurt us more than helped us, with the combined time lost behind both the safety car and the ‘mobile chicane' of a Ford GT, which we had not been able to get back. Paul thus came out of the pits in 12 th place, but with the extremely tardily-driven Ford GT and the Corvette not that far up the road ahead of him. There was therefore a realistic chance that his pace would be good enough to pass both of these cars and get to 10 th place. Finishing the race was still the absolute No.1 priority however, and during a radio discussion between Paul and team principal, Mark Lemmer , a ‘no risk' policy was confirmed. He comfortably reeled in the Ford over one lap, and then passed it as he cunningly followed a Prototype car through that was lapping them. The Corvette was a different proposition, however, as to catch it Paul would have to consistently lap quicker than the fastest pace he had been going so far. Although his ultimate fastest race lap suggested this might have been possible, the no risk policy meant that we settled for 11 th position. This was a very good drive from Paul, in his first street race and under immense pressure to not make a mistake and clip one of the extremely unforgiving walls. The whole Long Beach event was a big test session for the new car, and the only target we had was to get the car to the finish and learn more very valuable data along the way. After a great performance from both drivers, and the team, we achieved our goal on one of the toughest street circuit races in the world. Although we all know that the 11 th place finish is not the sort of result that we want or are used to, this race wasn't about performance and we were delighted to see our beautiful new E85 Bio-Ethanol ‘green machine' take the chequered flag. Results – GT2 Class 1 . D.Farnbacher (D) / D.Mueller (D) Tafel Racing Ferrari F430GT NEXT RACE |
