Le
Mans Series 2006
Round 3. Nürburgring 1000 Kilometers. July 15th-16th
2006
Practice
and Qualifying
A
Great Day for RML - Fastest all the way!
Round three of the 2006 Le Mans Series,
staged at the Nürburgring amid the Eifel Mountains
of Germany, is one of this season’s two-day meetings,
with everything packed tightly into the Saturday and Sunday.
That meant a busy opening day for Mike, Tommy and the RML
crew, with two one-and-a-half hour practice sessions, followed
later in the afternoon by the all-important twenty-minutes
of qualifying.
Nürburgring
Free Practice
The
day didn’t exactly start auspiciously, with Tommy
spending a fair proportion of the first hour of session
one sitting in the cockpit, gently shaking his head from
side to side. With only half a dozen laps completed, it
was a frustrating time for the whole team. “We’re
experiencing a few problems with the turbo,” admitted
a forthright Phil Barker, keen to get the difficulty fixed
as quickly as possible. “It was very frustrating for
everyone,” said Tommy later. “I was just doing
a succession of outs and ins, really, and getting nowhere
fast.” He then went on to explain a little more about
the issue. “The turbo was over-boosting, producing
huge spikes and dumping down far too much power. We reset
it, and I went out again, and it went fine for a short while,
but then just over-boosted again. Whenever that happens
the engine goes into “safe” mode, to protect
itself, and we can only go back into the pits again. That
kept happening for about the first hour, and prevented us
from doing any work on the balance and set-up.”
With
an hour of the session completed, the MG had yet to set
a representative time, but there was no sign of panic in
the RML garage. It was early days, and with a crew as experienced
as this one, it was only a matter of time before the AER
was singing sweetly again. That moment came with about half
an hour remaining of the morning period. “We got it
working much better,” said a happier-sounding Erdos
later. “It was still not perfect, but it was enough
for me to be able to lay down two or three semi-decent laps,
and then hand over to Mike. At this stage it’s more
important to give him time in the car and ensure he works
on his knowledge of the track.” Those “semi-decent”
times were quick enough to throw the MG straight to the
top of the screens in LMP2, and with just one genuine flyer,
Erdos had reset the status quo, his best of 1:50.093 was
good enough for eighth quickest overall, and one-point-seven
seconds faster than the Barazi Epsilon Courage, second in
LMP2.
Mike
Newton then headed out on track (below) to complete the
session. “Those delays at the start of the session
will have squeezed the whole day’s programme for us,
and I only had five or six laps, but I was encouraged by
the way my times have stepped forward since last year.”
Indeed, as individual driver times would later reveal, Mike’s
best would place him 28th overall out of 112 drivers here
this weekend, and tenth in LMP2. In the context of 23 LMP1
drivers being present, and 24 LMP2, that’s no mean
achievement.
With
the session over, the RML garage became a hive of activity
as the team worked to address the turbo issue and prepare
for the day’s second free-practice session, just two-and-a-half
hours later. “The overall pace was not good this morning,”
suggested Erdos. “Times are really pretty irrelevant
anyway, but I don’t think anyone went particularly
well. It was important that Mike got in a few laps, just
to get his eye in, but I’m sure it will go better
this afternoon.” Indeed they did, and in no small
measure!
Soon
after lunch the cars were heading back out onto the track.
Conditions were significantly hotter than they had been
in the morning, but with several hours of track time consumed
by the Le Mans Series cars, some historic Formula Fords,
and then the local Yaris Cup championship, the track itself
was starting to come to the drivers. Nic Minassian in the
LMP1 Creation Judd certainly found the track to his liking,
and posted 1:46.344 to top the times overall, but the biggest
surprise for everyone else – except perhaps its driver
- was the sight of the red, white and blue MG in second,
a mere tenth adrift. A remarkable 1:46.469 from Thomas Erdos
had eyebrows dancing up and down the pitlane, and nowhere
higher than in Race Control. In an unprecedented move, the
#25 car was hauled into scrutineering as soon as the session
was over, and the officials began prodding and poking about
to find out how and why an LMP2 car was going quite so quickly.
The answer had, perhaps, just stepped out of the cockpit,
but it did the team no harm.
“The
officials checked everything very thoroughly,” said
Mike Newton. “They examined the restrictors, weight,
fuel, the lot, and found nothing irregular, of course. It’s
pleasing really. It settles any arguments or winges about
legality before they arise, and before we get into qualifying.”
Ray Mallock merely shrugged. “It’s not exactly
usual to take a car into scrutineering after a practice
session,” he said, “but we’re quite happy
about it. We came here with a chassis that was already very
well sorted, but we’ve also made some fresh changes
to the suspension, and they’ve clearly worked.”
The team has been working hard all season to improve the
overall performance of the EX264. “We do that with
any project,” added Ray. “We’re moving
forwards all the time, constantly developing and improving
the package. Some of the work has been in conjunction with
Lola, but we’re also heading off on our own too, and
trying some non-standard parts that clearly suit the way
we’re heading and reinforce the identity of the car
as an MG EX264, not just another Lola.”
After
the morning’s frustration, the afternoon performances
raised spirits in the RML garage, and Thomas Erdos was certainly
very satisfied. “On that particular lap, I had a very
clear run. I’m sure everyone has been struggling to
find space around here today, but I was just fortunate to
have a completely traffic-free run. The car is also working
really well now, just perfect. We’ve been making a
lot of small changes race-by-race, across a wide range of
areas, not just one, and improving the car steadily. We’ve
just been doing our own thing, and it’s paying off.
Now, with Le Mans behind us, we’ve put our “sprint
heads” back on again, and also taken on board the
fresh challenge that’s now coming from the other teams.
The championship is getting very close now, but we’re
managing to keep just ahead of the rest, and that’s
all credit to the team.” Should people be surpirised
to see the MG right up there, at the sharp end of the field?
“No, not at all. The way the Porsche Spyder has been
running in the States shows that a well-sorted LMP2 car
can compete with LMP1, so it shouldn’t be a huge surprise
when it happens over here either,” he insisted. “Remember,
though, that this was only a practice session. The real
test will come in qualifying.”
Back
to Top
Nürburgring
Qualifying
Four-thirty, and the first opportunity
for the prototype drivers to get to grips with the Nurburgring
without the hindrance of twenty or so GT cars. Tommy was
third out onto the circuit, Barbosa in the Radical just
ahead of him and Gounon’s Courage leading the pack,
but a significant number of others had elected not to venture
out with the green light.
First
to cross the line was Gounon, but Erdos was not far behind
him, setting an opening flyer of 1:47.180. By the time the
rest of the qualifiers had completed their first laps, these
were the two names at the top of the screens, Tommy’s
final sector had been the quickest overall. Next time around
Gounon went a little quicker, but Tommy was held up through
the final few corners by a later-starting car, and clocked
a 1:49.017, followed by a slower 1:51.041 as he searched
for space. Notably, the Pescarolo had still not appeared
on track, and neither had the Creation, nor the Zytek.
Other LMP1 cars were out and circulating,
however, and some quite quickly. Shinji Nakano in the #13
Courage was one of them, going second quickest overall with
five minutes gone, his 1:46.481 demoting the MG to third,
with Bob Berridge fourth in the LMP1 Chamberlain Lola.
As Gounon headed for the pitlane,
his #12 Courage having offered of its best, Emmanuel Collard
was just emerging in the Pescarolo, followed swiftly by
Minassian in the Creation. Both could be expected to go
quicker than the MG, but with only twelve minutes to go
Tommy hadn’t finished yet. His next lap ended with
a red arrow on the timing screens, denoting the fastest
third sector by any car so far, and concluded with a new
improvement of 1:46.672 to re-claim third overall, several
seconds clear in LMP2.
Perhaps the track was cleaning up.
Following close on the heels of a twenty-five minute Toyota
Yaris Cup race – one that had included a huge number
of offs and excursions – it’s certainly likely
that the surface wasn’t as clean as it had been, but
some of the late-starting cars looked to be enjoying better
conditions. Minassian’s first flyer when it came,
was a 1:45.122, and moved the Creation LMP1 straight to
the top of the chart, the domino effect knocking Tommy down
to fourth at just the moment he was heading down the pitlane.
Seconds later Collard posted a 1:45.744 to go second.
For the last seven or eight minutes
of the session, Thomas sat patiently in the cockpit, waiting
for the call, should it come, to go out and attempt a quicker
time. In the end, it was never necessary. With about five
minutes remaining the Zytek Engineering popped in a good
final sector to go third overall, and when Fassler set 1:46.133
in the Swiss Spirit Courage, the MG would end the day seventh,
but it didn’t matter unduly. What did matter was that
LMP2 pole had fallen once again to the Brazilian, his fourth
consecutive front-row start of the season, and 1.6 seconds
stood between him and Joao Barbosa, second in the Rollcentre
Radical.
Tommy’s pole time was two-tenths
slower than he’d managed earlier. “The car had
a bit of oversteer this afternoon, when compared to the
last practice session,” admitted Erdos, “but
I think that could have been down to the track. It was much
more greasy than it had been in the test, but I’m
sure that was because of the Yaris race. We did make a few
changes after I came in, but then decided not to go back
out again and save the tyres for the race instead. We set
that 46.4 during the test with new tyres and a light fuel
load, so it was close to our qualifying trim. We got near
to that time again this afternoon, and perhaps we could
have found a bit more time, but looking after the tyres
was probably more important.” The cars must start
the race on the same tyres they use in qualifying, so having
a good set with optimum grip for the opening laps of the
race can be critical. “Perhaps the track did come
a little better at the end, but we did what we needed to
do; pole in LMP2, and it’s great to achieve that here
at the Nurburgring. It will be a tough race, though. There
are so many cars here on very similar times, but we’re
only a second or so behind the Pescarolo, and nobody should
be disappointed with that.”
Ray
Mallock certainly wasn’t. “We’re very
pleased with that result,” he said smiling broadly.
“We’ve been able to make some significant steps
forward in the car’s performance this weekend, largely
as a result of the suspension changes we’ve made.
They’ve allowed us to gain more grip from the tyres,
and enabled us to maintain our record of claiming pole in
each round of the championship. I’m delighted!”
He too was conscious of how difficult Sunday’s race
could be. “Tomorrow’s race will be very hard
on the brakes, and average speeds here are relatively slow
compared to some other circuits. That means we could well
end up with a full six-hour race, and under the hot, dry
conditions were expecting, that could be tough on the cars
as well as the drivers.”
Mike
Newton was jubilant. “Tommy always does such an excellent
job,” he said. “He dominated the class once
again. Excellent!” For a moment, more pensive, he
added. “Looking after the car will be critical tomorrow.
It’s going to be a long, hot, dry race.”
View
high-resolution Gallery
for images from Saturday.