Monday
– Scrutineering
It has been “all change”
at the start of the Le Mans week this year.
Not only have the two days of scrutineering
moved “forwards” to Sunday and Monday,
but the location has moved as well.
A
few years back the ACO tried relocating scrutineering
to the circuit, but it lacked the atmosphere
that has been a customary warm-up act for the
Vingt Quatre Heures. Recognising their
error, they moved the circus back to the centre
of town the following year, and the Place
des Jacobins was reinstated as the characteristic
venue for this very traditional occasion. However,
the town council has grand plans for the site,
and anyone who remembers the old theatre and
its leafy car park will be amazed to see what’s
happening there now. The theatre has gone completely,
to be replaced by a vast hole in the ground,
and the car park is only partly accessible via
narrow back streets and unpaved tracks.
Instead,
scrutineering was staged this year in the main
car park right in the heart of the town and
in the shadow of historic Le Mans cathedral.
The area available is smaller than the old Place
des Jacobins, and less manageable perhaps.
The resulting scrum made manhandling the car
a challenge for the team, as they moved it from
the transporter to the start of the scrutineering
sequence, and it also made negotiating their
way to the central signing-on cabins a challenge
for the drivers. However, it ensured that the
public were guaranteed the closest possible
look at the cars, and the chance to gather autographs
and souvenirs. With the building of the new
cultural and arts centre expected to take anything
up to three years, we can expect several more
days like today in the years ahead.
The scheduled slot for RML to
begin the scrutineering process was 10:50, but
it was almost another hour before the car could
move through to the start of the technical examination.
The drivers, meanwhile, signed on, had their
helmets and race suits checked for compliance,
and spoke (at length) to the assembled journalists
and photographers.
In
an interview on Sunday, the team principal at
Highcroft had suggested that RML was one of
his team’s main rivals for the LMP2 title
here this year. The Highcroft HPD ARX-01c has
been a dominant force in the American Le Mans
Series this season, and arrives at La Sarthe
relatively fresh from an emphatic win in the
recent Laguna Seca round. How did Tommy react
to this suggestion? “It’s certainly
nice to be recognised, as a team,” he
said. “We have a good track record here,
and the crew is very experienced in endurance
racing, especially over 24 hours, and experience
counts for a lot here at Le Mans. There’s
so much more to winning here than just going
out there and driving fast. Strategy plays a
huge part in every successful run at Le Mans,
and we’re very fortunate that we have
excellent tacticians in the team, and I don’t
think there’s anyone better than Phil
[Barker].”
“I don’t think there’s
much debate about the fact that the HPD is probably
the best LMP2 package in the world at the moment,”
he continued. They’ve proven that the
car is very, very quick, and it’s also
reliable. Highcroft is evidently very well funded
and well run and has one of the strongest driver
line-ups in the race, so naturally they’re
going to be among the favourites to win the
class. But this is their first time here at
Le Mans, and they haven’t got the same
depth of experience that RML has in this race.
Yes, they have some members of the team who’ve
been to Le Mans before and they’ll help
to steer the rest along the way, so there’s
absolutely no doubt that they’ll be extremely
competitive, but the real test will come when
things don’t go exactly to plan. How they
cope with crises, large or small, will be the
real test.
In
the realms of “experience”, few
rank higher than Andy Wallace. Winner of the
24 Hours on his debut in 1988, and subsequently
the only driver (so far) to have won all the
endurance classics, Andy knows how to improve
the odds for any car at Le Mans. “It’s
so nice to be back here with RML again, and
have another chance to add to my tally of 20
Le Mans starts,” said Andy. “The
ACO used to credit me with 21, but that included
two entries for 1991, when I tested for the
24 Hours with Jaguar and the XJR-14, but ended
up racing the XJR-12 when the 14 failed to qualify.”
It was a complicated year, when the ACO was
trying to bring in new regulations to a revised
3.5 litre formula. Only ten cars were entered
to these new standards, so the previous generation
of Group C cars were invited back again. They
proved to be faster and more reliable, and knowing
that the XJR-14 would be unlikely to complete
the race, Jaguar placed its eggs (and drivers
like Andy) into the older Group C XJR-12s. Mazda
won with the screaming Mazda 787B, but Jaguar
finished second, third and, in Andy’s
case, fourth. Since then Andy has missed just
two years at Le Mans; 1994 and 2009.
In
the list of the great and the good, Andy still
has a few more to go before he ranks amongst
those who’ve raced at Le Mans more than
any other. Henri Pescarolo stands head and shoulders
above the rest, with 33 participations, with
the late, great Bob Wollek on 30, and Yojiro
Terada on 27. Andy’s race with RML this
year clocks 21 for the Englishman and places
him on a par with his great friend and erstwhile
team-mate Jan Lammers.
Andy
doesn’t seem to rate his chances too highly
of every matching the likes of Derek Bell, who
has raced 26 times at Le Mans. The last time
was in 1996, when Bell finished 6th overall,
co-driving a McLaren F1 with Andy. Derek Bell
was then aged 55. “In the past many of
the cars had an issue with just completing the
distance, and drivers really had to look after
the cars to make them last,” suggests
Andy. “The gearbox was always the weakest
link, but these days the gearboxes are so much
stronger and it’s almost impossible for
the drivers to select the wrong gear. For a
gearbox to fail now, it has to be a catastrophic
malfunction of both electronics and mechanicals.
That means that there’s a lot more pressure
on the driver today to race flat-out all the
time, which makes racing a much more physical
and demanding exercise. Fitness is paramount,
and it’s a young man’s game.”
With
the paperwork complete, the drivers rejoined
the team and the RML Lola HPD as they neared
the end of the scrutineering sequence. With
all the boxes ticked, a clean sheet and no issues,
the car was pushed out in front of the assembled
photographers and spectators for the official
team photographs.
By
now it was ten to two, and time for Mike, Tommy
and Andy to make their way to the stage where
Bruno Venderstick, the “Voice of Le Mans”,
was carrying out interviews with the help of
David Waldron, the ACO’s official translator.
Anne Morel, RML’s own French Liaison Officer,
joined them all on stage, and introduced herself,
and the drivers to the crowd.
Bruno, aided by David Waldron,
then questioned Mike about the team’s
preparedness for Le Mans. “By our calculations,
the three of us must have about 120 years of
racing experience between us!” joked Mike.
Actually, although Andy seems to have age on
his mind a fair bit at the moment, the total
isn’t quite that much, but it’s
still an impressive 83 years. Andy started racing
in 1976, while both Mike and Tommy both made
their track debuts in 1985.
Mike
declared himself to be “delighted with
the reliability and consistency” of the
new HPD engine, and pointed out that “previously,
as long as the car has run smoothly we’ve
always ended up on the podium. This engine gives
every indication of being strong and hugely
reliable, so it’s now down to us to keep
out of trouble and be there at the finish.”
David Waldron then asked about
the relationship with HPD, and how this compared
with a team like Highcroft, which was viewed
by many as a factory squad. “The engines
are leased from HPD,” explained Mike,
“but we have a very close relationship,
and there are two support engineers with us
at every race. In essence, however, we’re
very much a privateer team.”
It was ten Tommy’s turn
to be quizzed, but rather than respond to a
rather predictable question about whether or
not the new car was better than last year’s
Mazda-powered Lola, the Brazilian headed off
at a complete tangent. Pointing into the crowd,
he wanted to know where the man had bought his
pain au chocolate. “That’s the largest
pain au chocolate I’ve ever seen!”
he said. Unfazed, the man indicated a nearby
boulangerie, but with the tone irreparably changed,
the rest of the interview took on a more light-hearted
flavour.
The
car is simply beautiful,” said Tommy,
getting back to the subject in hand, “and
it’s great for us to be performing so
much better again this year. The combination
of the HPD engine, Lola chassis and the Dunlop
tyres have created a very competitive package,
and we’re now leading the championship.
I guess we’re happy boys again now!”
Bruno
pointed out, as others have done, that the team
finished third in the first race at Paul Ricard;
took second in round two at Spa, and have now
arrived for their third race at Le Mans. “Is
this three, two, one?” he asked. Tommy
shrugged, but wouldn’t commit. Bruno changed
tack. After wins in 2005 and 2006, the team
had not enjoyed much success since, and was
this all down to the engine? No, insisted Tommy,
reminding Bruno that he, Mike and RML had taken
the Le Mans Series title in 2007, and had enjoyed
a very fruitful relationship with AER, the company
behind last year’s Mazda 2.0 litre turbo.
“The Mazda engine last year made for a
very difficult season,” conceded Tommy,
“but AER also gave us some of our best
results, and they were excellent to work with.
However, after last year, we were ready for
a change, and we’re very happy with the
HPD deal, and ready to move on.”
Turning
to Andy, Bruno wanted to know whether a giant
pain au chocolate would be his choice of snack
before warm-up. “If that’s what
you like, why not!” was Andy’s response.
Moving on, Bruno and David Waldron then teased
Andy with an excellent Le Mans trivia question.
“Andy, you are one of three drivers here
this year that have something unique in common.
Can you guess what that is?” Andy tried
a couple of suggestions, but got nowhere near
the correct answer. It transpires that Andy,
together with Jean Alesi and Emanuele Pirro,
are the only drivers racing this year who experienced
the Mulsanne before the chicanes were added
in 1990. Pirro made his Le Mans debut in 1981,
aged nineteen, with Beppe Gabiani in the Martini
Racing Lancia Beta Monte Carlo. Andy won on
his debut with Jaguar in 1988, co-driving with
Jan Lammers and Johnny Dumfries, while Jean
Alesi first appeared here in the Team Schuppan
Porsche 962 with Will Hoy and Dominic Dobson
in 1989.
“So,
what you’re saying is, I’m very
old!” said Andy. “Actually, it was
an amazing thing to do. To drive along the Mulsanne
at nearly 400 kilometres an hour was an astonishing
experienced, but I still like the track the
way it is now. Perhaps, with the chicanes, it
is even more of a challenge?”
Bruno, with his head cocked
slightly to one side, then looked at Andy directly.
“Tell us, Andy, what is your secret?”
Tapping a book in front of him, he then added;
“I was reading the Le Mans annual for
1988, and you look exactly the same today. How
do you do it?” With a gesture back towards
the man in the crowd with the pain au chocolate,
Andy’s reply was simple. “Good food!”
he said.
How did Andy see this year’s
race? “The ACO has assembled a very impressive
grid, and LMP2 in particular has no weak entries.
It’s going to be very tough. The HPD is
extremely fast, but here at Le Mans you must
run your own race, and first and foremost, you
have to finish. Obviously we would very much
like to win, but we’ll see.”
As
well as a new engine, the car was also on new
tyres for 2010. “They’re all fantastic
tyres,” suggested Andy, “but you
have to set up the car to suit the tyres and
the circuit. If we can find a setting that works
well here at Le Mans, I think we’ll be
fine.” Testing recently, and the results
from the opening two rounds of the Le Mans series
suggest that RML is well on the way to finding
the measure of the new Dunlop rubber.
Returning to Tommy – did
he prefer an open or closed race car? Between
2004 and 2008 the RML Lolas were all open topped,
but last year, and this, the team is running
a coupé. “There are pros and cons
to both,” said the Brazilian. The coupé
is very slippery and should be quick here at
Le Mans, but an open car gives you a better
connection with what’s going on. You can
sense the speed, and you get a clearer view
of the track. As a driver, I probably prefer
to be out in the open.”
This is the last year of the
current LMP regulations, and from 2011 the LMP1
cars will be more like today’s LMP2. Did
Mike see the team moving “up” to
LMP1? “We’ve made no decision yet,”
replied the CEO of AD Group, the team’s
principal sponsor. “The regulations have
yet to be finalised, and we won’t make
any decisions until we’ve seen those,
so it’s still an open question, but LMP1
is not impossible.
There
was then a short exchange about Andy’s
wife Catherine, who was hiding behind some pot
plants at the back of the stage, her nose buried
in a book. “She loves reading,”
grinned Andy, but as Bruno pressed the point,
Andy acknowledged that Catherine is a fully
qualified aerospace engineer and an accomplished
aerodynamicist, as well as an assistant team
manager in the States.
The interview was wrapped up my Bruno’s
suggestion that Andy liked cars – anything
that had “an engine in the back and goes
fast”, agreed Andy; Tommy had a fondness
for motorbikes, but Mike was known to be a qualified
pilot. Did he prefer cars, or aircraft? With
a reference to the RML Lola’s untimely
departure from the Le Mans 24 Hours two years
ago, Mike suggested he preferred cars . . .
provided they didn’t try to take off and
become aeroplanes.
With
the car loaded back onto the transporter, and
the team heading back to the circuit, the three
drivers picked up their kit and headed for the
car park. Tuesday will be a chance to relax
after an exhausting day – and scrutineering
truly is a test of driver and machine –
before the compulsory autograph session in the
later afternoon, and then the serious business
of practice on Wednesday.