A Great Day for Racing

At the time we started the day by issuing an apology for the erratic nature of our posting for the Algarve weekend, but like everyone else at the new circuit, we were suffering enormously from power outages and very intermittent Internet access. The speed of the connection was woefully slow, and connections dropped out without warning. With a single photograph taking several minutes to upload, it was a frustrating process, and with a 3G connection, we were the fortunate ones. Those on the official connections were even slower.

Warm-up

After two days of searing heat, Saturday's official Warm-up actually came late in the morning on a day when things weren't actually so warm. A light breeze had picked up overnight, and with some very thin, wispy clouds, the air temperature had actually fallen by several degrees. The heady heights of Thursday afternoon's 36 degrees had dipped to a very bearable 27 or 28. It was enough to tempt a number of team members and journalists to take to the pool. Pool? Yes, the Autodromo is probably one of very few race circuits anywhere in the world to feature a swimming pool in the Paddock!

Quite why it's there hasn't been fully explained, although one theory persists that the water is needed in case of a major fire, but it was certainly appreciated on Saturday. At half olympic proportions, it looks very tempting, although would-be divers are warned that it's only about a metre deep.

Mike and Tommy had no time to appreciate these unexpected facilities, although with the air conditioning in the RML Lola working overtime (but making little headway against the all-pervading heat) they might have been grateful for a chance. The session started at 10:50, and lasted a mere twenty minutes. Tommy went out first, and completed a single flying lap before returning to the pitlane for a full driver-change with Mike. After two days of not very much daylight running, the plan was to give Mike as much time in the car as possible, and he stayed there until the chequered flag was waved.

Mike completed his last lap and then headed for the pitlane, where he and the crew executed a perfect pitstop simulation; Mike hauled unceremoniously from the car and seemingly dumped inelegantly on the ground as Tommy was shoehorned into the cockpit. Phil was delighted. "Well done everyone, excellent!" he said, as the team concluded a faultless routine, and in a time they've rarely matched before. "If we can do that every time during the race, we'll be doing fine."

The drivers were pleased to confirm that the Lola was every bit as compliant as it had been in practice and qualifying, giving them the confidence to think they had a well-balanced car for the race. "All we did was verify that the car was race-ready. We'd made a few minor changes since qualifying, including fitting the replacement engine, and it all looks OK," said Phil. "It was also an opportunity to give Mike some extra time in the car. He's been a bit deprived of that, so every lap helps."

One thing has to be said for the night-race event; the schedule has been very relaxed. Unlike regular race meetings, where everything is crammed into the shortest possible time, the Algarve weekend featured late-starting mornings and generous gaps between sessions. With warm-up starting at almost eleven (instead of the usual eight-thirty) the teams had an easy start to the day, and with the next obligatory duty being the autograph session at 17:00, there was now plenty of time to be hospitable with the team's guests, and even watch some of the support races.

This weekend's timetable included rounds of the Formula Renault World Series, the Formula Le Mans Championship, Radical European Masters, the Classic Endurance Racing series, the Seat Leo Eurocup and the SuperStars saloon car series. The World Series by Renault is about as close to F1 as you can get without being there, and appears to offer a far more enthralling spectacle that Formula 3. However, the number of pace car periods that punctuated just about every one of the support races did start to give rise to some apprehension regarding the six-hour Le Mans Series race. Having heard many drivers voicing their concerns over the nature of the circuit - punctuated by blind crests, hidden apexes and corners where the exit is obscured, there was a growing expectation that the evening's feature race might not go smoothly. Only time would tell.

At five Mike and Tommy sat at a table beside the front of the truck signing and giving away HeroCards. Just along from them the last few scaffold poles were being secured on a massive stage, where "The Fingertips" were booked to play a live concert later in the evening. Reputedly one of Portugal's top pop bands, the group was described as the Algarve's answer to Coldplay. Mmm.

The last of the support races - a somewhat chaotic Seat Leon Supercup event - overran briefly after more carnage on the track. It's amazing how enthusiastic drivers can get behind the wheel of a car that appears to have the handling and performance of a shopping trolley, but they evidently enjoy themselves, and it is quite entertaining. With the debris cleared away, the pitlane opened, and the Le Mans Series cars began to stream out into the evening sun and take up their positions on the grid.

The promised crowd wasn't half bad. The other half might have been better, and maybe even filled the stands, except they'd decided to stay in the bars and clubs of the Algarve on a Saturday evening. Hardly surprising really. The grid was full to bursting though; thronged with guests, grid girls, photographers, race crew and trolleys full of spare tyres. That alone made quite a sight, and quite a challenge for the marshals to clear. But clear it they did, and at about seven-twelve, the pace car dipped down into Turn 1 to begin the parade lap . . .

The Race

Race Start	Hour 2	Hour 3
Hour 4	Hour 5-6	Result

Race coverage was created "live" from approximately one hour after the start, and then driver quotes and additional observations added later. This process can lead to some inconsistency with tenses, for which we apologise in advance.

Race Start

There was a fairly large crowd to witness the start of the first-ever "night race" to feature in the Le Mans Series calendar. The circuit has a capacity of around 100,000, so any attendance for a sportscar race was likely to be dwarfed by the facilities, but the main grandstand over the starting grid looked as well packed as some seen at the recent Formula 1 event in Turkey. Official figures won't be released until after the weekend, but a guesstimate would suggest about 6,000 turned out to enjoy the sunshine and spectacle.

As stirring music echoed around the hillsides, the cars moved off the grid - well, most of them did. The unfortunate Danny Watts encountered more throttle as he pulled away from the grid than he'd anticipated, and next second he was nose-on to the Armco, sending nearby marshals scampering for cover. He recovered quickly enough and set off after the pack, weaving through the traffic to regain his position on the second row. (He came up with an intriguing explanation. Apparently, just before the start, he'd hopped over the wall to see to a call of nature, and while doing so, a Portuguese bandit had stolen his helmet, leaped into the car, and tried to drive off. Unfamiliar with the bite of a racing clutch, he'd lost control, giving the returning Danny Watts chance to wrestle the thug from the car, reclaim his helmet and climb back into the Strakka Ginetta-Zytek!).

Tommy, starting from the penultimate row, had no such problems, but it must have been a strange sensation for the RML driver to see thirty cars ahead of him, and know that he'd have to pass most of them the hard way. No luxury of a wave-by for the Brazilian.

With immaculate timing, the pace car veered away from the pack as they swept through Turn 16, releasing Nicolas Lapierre in the pole-setting Oreca Matmut AIM #11 to control the run down towards the start-line gantry. It was exactly seven-fifteen.

The start at the front of the grid was remarkably clean, but mid-way through the pack things turned ugly. Aiming for a gap that really wasn't there, Francisco Martins in one of the Felbermayr GT2 Porsches, #88, became sandwiched between the fast-starting Patrick Pilet in the #76 IMSA Porsche and Richard Lietz, his own team-mate, in the second Felbermayr car #77. Pilet had shot through along the main straight, followed by Martins, and Lietz was hanging back, but the net result was a melée on the exit of Turn 1, which Tommy - already three places up since crossing the line - had to negotiate at speed. He was remarkably lucky to find a gap, and threading his way between spinning Porsches, sped off towards the first hairpin-right at Turn 4.

(If you've looked at the circuit map (see here for more detail) then please note that the LMS racing line bypasses Turn 2, which has caused some confusion. The new circuit currently only has one named comer, Turn 9, which is named after the motorbike racer Craig Jones, who was killed last year. This means that, officially, the turn numbers are also the names of each corner, and don't change even if a corner is missed out. Unfamiliar with this fact some descriptions of the circuit have erroneously assumed the first sharp righthander is the third corner - which it is, when faced by an LMS driver - but is technically referred to as Turn 4. Confused? We hope not. In this account, we use the official nomenclature, as illustrated by the plan.)

Tommy's opening lap was a demanding one. Everyone hopes to exploit the tight-knit nature of the first lap to make up ground on others who may not be quite up to speed so early in the race, but as a prototype in the GT end of the grid, Tommy had not only to overtake much slower cars, but also be wary of those within the class dicing for position. He managed to keep out of trouble and regain a stack of misappropriated places, and overtook nine cars.

That meant he'd cleared the entire GT2 field in a single lap and Tommy's next targets would be the two GT1 cars and the tail enders in LMP2. By the close of the second lap, Tommy was already mixing it with cars that were, on paper, not a lot slower than he was, but he was dispensing with them rapidly nevertheless. Next to fall was the Bruichladdich Radical, flowed swiftly by the second Oak Racing Pescarolo #24, which had endured a dire start and already lost five slots. By the close of Lap 3, the RML Lola #25 was running 9th in class, behind the #40, followed by the numbers 41, 33, 35, 37, 30, 29 and the #43 Q8 Oils Lucchini Judd.

Things were getting steadily tougher now, as Tommy came up on behind rivals that were only marginally slower than he was. It took a lap and a half to get ahead of Cortes in the Q8 Lucchini, and then two more to latch onto the tail of Bruce Jouanny in the #37 Salini WR Zytek The much-improved car might be a handful round the corners, but the Zytek engine gave it a fair turn of speed along the straights, but eight laps into the race and Tommy was through to seventh in LMP2.

Overall, there had been a number of changes. After his bewildering start, Danny Watts had risen to the challenge, and had moved through to 3rd overall on Lap 5 after Bruno Senna misjudged a corner and ran wide, and was closing on second.

Twenty minutes gone and LMP2 had started to get pretty well strung out. The #40 ASM Quifel Ginetta-Zytek had eased out a lead of nearly five seconds over the #41 GAC Zytek in second, with the Oak Racing #35 third, a further six seconds down the track. The Speedy Sebah Lola #33 was fifth, narrowly ahead of the two Racing Box Lola Judds, the #29 just having a narrow edge over the #30.

19:42
The #29 Racing Box Lola has closed to within striking distance of the #33, with Benjamin Leuenberger at the wheel. Tommy Erdos has arrived almost under the rear wing of the #30 Racing Box Lola.

19:44
Filippo Francioni in the #29 passes the #33 on the exit of Turn 5.

19:46
Tommy lapped by the leading Oreca Matmut AIM #11. The WR Salini has pitted, reputedly with electrical problems, and the Ibanez Racing Courage is in the garage.

19:48
Olivier Pla continues to stretch his advantage in LMP2, and has extended his lead to more than ten seconds in the #40 ASM Ginetta-Zytek. No change for second, with the #41 comfortably clear of the #35 Oak Pescarolo, followed by #29, #33, #30 and then Tommy in the #25 RML Lola-Mazda.

19:52
Danny Watts up to second overall for Strakka and the #35 Oak Racing Courage has stopped unexpectedly out on track, reason unknown

19:58
The second of the two Racing Box Lolas has got ahead of the #33 Speedy Sebah Lola.

20:00
Tommy passes Leuenberger in the #33 Lola.

20:04 PITSTOP (Fuel only, Erdos remains in)
Tommy makes the #25's first scheduled pitstop. Between entering and leaving the pitlane, it's a slick stop of less than a minute.

20:07
The LMP2 leader makes its first pitstop - Olivier Pla and the #40 ASM Quifel car taking on fuel. The stop is nearly five seconds longer than RML's. Out on track, the Bruichladdich Radical has been involved in a collision , possibly with the #29 Racing Box Lola. The Radical had only just emerged from its own first pitstop.

20:09
The GAC #41 Zytek, having inherited the lead briefly from the #40, now pits for the first time, followed soon after by the #29 racing Box Lola.

20:10
The #30 Racing Box Lola is one of the later LMP2 runners to make a first routine pitstop.

20:14
The #33 Speedy Sebah Lola pits, and Leuenberger hands over to Jonny Kane.

Entries from now were added "live" during the race. Tenses may vary, for which we apologise.

Hour 2 (20:15-21:15)

20:17
Current position in LMP2 is that the #40 ASM Ginetta-Zytek, which has been in the lead of the class since the start of the race, is still there, with Olivier Pla into his second stint behind the wheel. He leads by 49 seconds from Philipp Peter, second in the similar (but slightly older) #41 GAC Zytek (which predates the link with Ginetta). Third place, having started from very nearly the back of the grid, and now up to 9th overall, is our own Thomas Erdos in the RML Lola Mazda, ten seconds off the tail of Peter's Zytek.

Looking back down the field, fourth in LMP2 is currently occupied by the #30 Racing Box Lola, the victor in a microcosmic inter-team battle with the #29, which is falling back little by little and now stands 35 seconds behind its twin.

20:22
A new fastest lap of from Tommy Erdos, who is steadily reeling in the #41 GAC Zytek. The gap, which was more than ten seconds at the end of the last lap, is now just over eight.

20:25
Peter responds with a new fastest lap of his own; 1:36.848. Unfortunately, the timing system here is not retaining fastest lap times, so can't offer a direct comparison at this moment with Tommy's quick lap.

Towards the back of LMP2, two cars are already unconfirmed retirements; the #26 Bruichladdich Radical, which had a coming together with the #99 JMB Ferrari, and both suffered, but the Radical came of worse. Another garage-locked P2 car is the #28 Ibanez Racing Courage.

20:30
Tommy just remarkably lucky not to have been taken out by Stefan Mucke in the 007 Aston Martin Lola, which just spun out in traffic from the lead of the race, allowing Boullion through to the lead, followed by Danny Watts in the Strakka Racing Ginetta-Zytek. In the incident, Mucke caught the kerb on the inside while trying to negotiate a backmarker, and whipped across the track within inches of the RML Lola. No comment from Tommy on the radio, but that was close!

While narrowly avoiding being taken out by the erstwhile leader, Tommy is pressing on and has restored the eight-second gap that he'd found on Peter before, but had subsequently lost in traffic. Elsewhere, the #28 Ibanez Courage has had an off, and damaged the rear wing. It returns to the pits for repairs.

20:35
Tommy narrows the gap on second place to just 4 seconds after a slower lap from the #41 Zytek. Even the TV director has picked up on Tommy's pace and is following him round the circuit. The RML Lola has the onboard TV camera this weekend, and the feed is providing entertaining viewing as Tommy dices through the slower cars.

Tommy has the tail of Philipp Peter's Zytek just a few yards ahead of him as he narrows the gap to less than 2 seconds, but he's light on fuel as he nears the end of his second stint. Having been the first to make a routine stop at the end of his opening stint, he looks set to be first again with his second.

20:43
After a stop of almost half the race, the Ibanez car finally rejoins. They'd had damage to the rear wing. The Radical is still "under repairs".

20:45 PITSTOP (Erdos out of the car, fuel & tyres, Newton in)
Tommy into the pitlane. Refuel, driver change to Mike Newton, fresh tyres and Mike out into the race.

20:50
The pitstop has dropped the #25 car back down to 14th overall, 7th in LMP2. It will be interesting to see where Mike ends up when others complete their pitstops. Olivier Pla continues to extend his lead over Philipp Peter and is now 63 seconds clear, and had briefly overtaken Miguel Ramos in the 009 Aston Martin Lola for 6th, but has now swapped back.

20:56
A slow lap for Jonny Kane in the not-so-Speedy Lola #33. He was 11th overall, but has now lost the place to the #35 Oak car. Danny Watts has pitted from second overall in the Strakka Racing Ginetta-Zytek, and is now into the garage.

20:57
Kane's problems persist, and Mike has now eased passed him too. Moments later the #33 Lola enters the pitlane.

21:00 Officially "night"
On the hour . . . Watts still in the Strakka garage with the engine cover off, and slipping rapidly down the order. His was a scheduled stop, and others are also making them on a regular basis. The #10 pits from second, and out again (Monteiro driving). The #29 Racing Box Lola pits from third, allowing through the #30. Olivier Pla also pits from the lead of LMP2. It's all change, and difficult to follow.

21:03
Philipp Peter now leads LMP2 from Thomas Biagi in the #30 second, and then Miguel Amaral, who's taken over the #40 ASM Ginetta-Zytek. There are still several cars yet to pit in this sequence, but MIke Newton now stands 4th in LMP2, more than a lap behind Amaral.

21:05
First and second in LMP2 into the pits. #33 nearly ready to return to the race after repairs to the rear suspension.

21:08
The #16 Pescarolo now leads overall by 45 seconds from the #10 Oreca AIM, with the first of the Aston Martin Lolas third, a full minute behind the leader. The pitstops have unravelled in LMP2 as well, and Amaral has the #40 ASM car back at the sharp end, with a 90 second lead over Karim Ojeh second in the GAC Zytek, and Matteo Bobbi third for Racing Box in the #30. The gap to Newton in fourth is a generous 47 seconds, but his pace is good, and the gap is not changing much.

21:14
We notice that the Radical is running again after a very lengthy stop for repairs.

Hour 3 (21:15-22:15)

21:16
The #24 Oak Racing Pescarolo made what looked to be a scheduled stop in sequence with everyone else, but has now been static in the pits for about five minutes. Having been well up the class order, the car has now dropped to 20th overall, and is about to drop off the first screen. Another car plummeting down the order is the Strakka Racing Ginetta-Zytek. Having looked so strong in the early laps, the LMP1 privateers are now 23rd overall, but have rejoined the race with Nick leventis in the cockpit. The car refused to re-start after the last pitstop, and Danny had been aware of a misfire for a handful of laps beforehand.

21:23
The impressive run from the #40 ASM GZ continues, and Amaral has now moved through to 5th overall, but he's only 9 seconds ahead of Olivier Panis in the #11 Oreca AIM, recovering from a lengthy pitstop. The #33 Speedy Sebah Lola is up and running again, and has returned to the #1 screen in 20th position overall.

21:25
Mike has lost one position to the #29 Lola, and is now 11th overall, 5th in LMP2. The rest of the class, after Amaral in the lead, has Karim Ojeh second (#41) and Bobbi third (#30) by a minute from his team-mate in the #29.

21:29
A major spin for the GT1 leader. The Corvette does a semi-graceful spin of several revolutions before shuddering to a halt in a cloud of dust and gravel. It does, however, resume after a few moments, Yann Clairay in the cockpit.

21:37 PITSTOP (Fuel only. Newton stays in)
Mike into the pitlane for a routine pitstop for fuel, but the team also check the car's intakes for debris. He leaves the track from 12th overall, but loses 5th in class to Matthew Lahaye in the #35 Oak Racing Pescarolo as he heads for the pits. It's a very slick stop by the RML crew, and Mike's back out again very swiftly.

21:45
Just seven of the original twelve LMP2 runners are still in genuine contention, and Jonny Kane is making up good ground in the #33 Speedy Sebah Lola, having had a lengthy pitstop for reasons as yet unknown. He's now back up to 14th (from a low of 22nd) but four laps down on the RML Lola #25, which holds 12th overall, 6th in class.

21:50
Spin into the gravel and well buried for the #24 Oak Racing Pescarolo. Nicolet had only returned to the track a couple of minutes earlier after a battery change - perhaps the tyres weren't quite up to temperature.

21:56
Confirmation that the #33's problem and extended pitstop was the result of a collision with an LMP1 car, unidentified.

Both LMP1 leaders into the pitlane for what must be scheduled stops. So too the #40 LMP2 leader, with Amaral exiting the track from 7th overall. The stop not faultless - the crew seen to be rocking the car backwards and forwards, as if stuck in gear, but then it gets going again and Amaral speeds away.

21:59
Both Racing Box cars into the pits at the same time! A bit of a logistic nightmare there for the team, bringing the #29 are in before the #30, and then having to hold the #30 for some time before Ceccato could get away in the lower-placed car.

22:02
Karim Ojeh into the pits in the #41 Zytek. Routine, and away again.

22:05
We get confirmation that the Strakka Racing #23 is a retirement.

22:08
Jonny Kane pits the #33. In terms of race positions overall, Christophe Tinseau retains the overall lead for the #16 Pescarolo, with Jan Charouz second in the 007 Aston Martin by 70 seconds. The two Oreca Matmut AIM cars are third and fourth, with the second Aston #009 fifth, who pits at 22:10. The #33 returns to the track with Pompidou aboard.

22:12
A spin for the WR Salini and he ends up broadside across the track, and then reverses across it just as one of the racing Box Lolas comes through. It's another near miss at Turn 4.

Hour 4 (22:15-23:15)

22:19
Into the fourth hour of the race and it remains an impressive run of reliability in the top fifteen or so. The overall leader, the #16 Pescarolo, has now completed 112 laps, with 215 laps the published total for this 1000 kilometre race. Tinseau does now have a full lap's lead over Charouz, but that may change as the French car makes a routine pitstop and driver change and dropping to third.

22:22
We have a solid block of six LMP2 cars between 7th and 12th overall; Amaral (#40) leads by XX seconds from Bobbi (#30) second, Ojeh (#41) third and then the second Racing Box (#29) fourth. The #35 Oak Racing is fifth, and then Newton in the RML Lola sixth, two laps adrift.

22:32 PITSTOP (Fuel only. Newton stays in)
Mike into the pitlane for his second scheduled stop, but this will be a quick one. The plan is to give Mike a half-tank of fuel, or enough for about ten laps, so that he can complete enough tracktime to leave Tommy with the final two hours of the race. He mustn't exceed four hours in total. The team also remove a length of Astroturf that has become wrapped around the car's suspension, causing an unnerving vibration.

The pitstop goes well, and Tommy is quickly back out and on track

22:42
Oak Racing's #35 pits for fuel, followed a couple of minutes later by the Bruichladdich Radial still running but way down the order.

22:50 PITSTOP (Fuel, tyres and driver change to Thomas Erdos)
Mike makes his final pitstop, handing back the RML Lola to Thomas Erdos for the rest of the race. Tommy resumes from 6th in class but more than a lap down on Andrea Piccini in the #30 Racing Box Lola, although the Italian car is in the pits for five minutes while the crew attend to a cooling problem, allowing Tommy to close. The class is still being dominated by the ASM Ginetta-Zytek, with current occupant Olivier Pla lying 7th overall.

22:55
Fuel stop for the LMP2 class leading AS Ginetta Zytek. A few minutes later and the #41 GAC Zytek also pitstops.

22:08
Pitstop for #33 Speedy Sebah Lola.

23:10
Massive spin and gravelly ending for Pompidou in the #33 Speedy Sebah Lola, perhaps on cold tyres. The car has had an eventful race, but has consolidated well in 13th overall, two laps behind RML. Pompidou makes a precautionary pitstop at the end of the lap.

23:12
Pitstop for the #35, currently running 10th overall, and 4th in LMP2.

After roughly two hours, Tinseau retains the overall lead by 73 seconds from Tomas Enge in the 007 Aston

Hour 5 (23:15-00:15)

The fifth hour, and despite the darkness and limited illumination around the circuit, several drivers are now pushing their cars into new personal bests. Giacomo Piccini in the #29 Racing Box Lola has just set a new fastest lap for his car, and so too Pompidou in the #33 Speedy Lola - evidently not fazed by his spin of only a few minutes ago.

23:20
Tommy moves through to 5th in LMP2, passing the #35 Oak Racing Pescarolo as the purple and black car pits for fuel. In LMP1, Tinseau pits from the lead, handing over the Pescarolo to Boullion and allowing Enge through to the lead.

23:26
After some discussion over the radio, Tommy is instructed to pit this lap

23:27 PITSTOP (Fuel only. Tommy stays in)
Tommy into the pits and pulls up smartly outside the garage. The guys refuel the car, clean the screen and top up the water, and then Tommy's straight back out again. The #35 Oak Racing car also pits - which can't be on schedule either.

23:34
New fastest lap for Andre Piccini in the #30 (1:36 dead).

23:43 PITSTOP (Fuel and water. Tommy stays in)
The team has confirmed an issue with fluctuating water temperatures, and have decided to bring Tommy in for a precautionary top-up of fluids. They'll see how the car responds. Tommy returns to the track with the minimum of delay.

23:45
Routine pitstop for #40.

23:47
The #29 Racing Box Lola is into the pits for a refuel and a clean-out of the ducting. Many cars have had problems with the astroturf that has been used to border some sections of track, but after several hours of racing in the dark, sections are being ripped clear and left in flapping chunks just off the racing line. As Piccini discovered, it can end up in the most awkward places, and risk causing overheating.

23:52
Philipp Peter pits the #41 GAC Zytek from second in LMP2. Routine and efficient.

00:02 PITSTOP (Fuel and into the box. Tommy stays in)
Having radioed in to complain about a misfire, Tommy returns to the pits for a third visit in half an hour. This time the team completes the refuel, as they would for any routine pitstop, and then hauls the car back into the garage where they refit plugs and coil. The car is stationary for seven minutes in total, including entering and leaving the pitlane.

00:04
The #33 Speedy Sebah Lola also in the pits, but appears routine.

00:10
Tommy given the OK, pitlane clear, and heads back out again.

00:15
Just before the start of the final hour, a run of new fastest laps from Andrea Piccini in the #30, who's evidently on a charge to catch Giacomo Piccini (are they related?) in the sister #29. The gap is now down below 20 seconds, and we have the real prospect of a battle in LMP2, where Giacomo is only 17 seconds behind Philipp Peter, second in class.

With all his various pitstops, Tommy has dropped down to 14th overall, and is the last of the genuinely "running" LMP2 cars.

00:22
The #30 Lola is into the pits, so Andrea drops back from Giacomo, who pushes on to narrow the gap on Philipp Peter to 14 seconds. Tommy meanwhile is pushing on, and his last few laps have been very representative; 1:38 or quicker is among the fastest in the class at present, and has allowed him to return to the same lap as Karim Ajlani, currently in the cockpit of the #35 Oak Racing Pescarolo.

00:28
Tommy now 26 seconds behind Ajlani, but Tommy will still have to make another pitstop for fuel. There are 24 laps still to run.

00:30
Tommy continues to eat into the gap to Ajlani, and it's down to 21 seconds already, suggesting that Tommy is eating into Ajlani's advantage by between 2 and 5 seconds each lap.

00:33
The gap dips below 20 seconds with 22 laps to go. It would be nice to pick up a place before the end, but that will only work if Ajlani also has another pitstop ahead of him.

00:35
Tommy is currently at the helm of one of the fastest, if not the fastest, cars in LMP2. Philipp Peter pits from second and Giacomo Piccini gets the place he's been promising to gain for the last half hour or more, so it's a Lola up into second in class. Tommy's target gap is now down to 16 seconds.

00:40
Another three seconds gained on that last lap. The gap stands at 13.4 seconds. The lead LMP2 car, the #40 ASM Ginetta-Zytek, comes in for what will probably be the car's final pitstop.

00:41
Lap after lap, Tommy eats his way into Ajlani's advantage, and its now down to 10 seconds, and then seven on the next lap. Tommy can probably now see the Oak's tail lights down the main straight.

00:45
It has been an impressive stint from the Brazilian - of course - and one can only wonder where the #25 RML Lola might have been if it hadn't needed to make those extra pitstops in the middle of Tommy's last stint. There's one more of those yet to come, but he's taken some forty seconds out of Karim Ajlani in about twenty minutes. The gap between the two can now be measures in feet, or maybe inches, as Tommy arrives under the rear wing of the fluorescent pink and black Pescarolo.

00:48
Next lap through and Tommy takes Ajlani for 12th overall, 6th in class. That, however, is probably as good as it's going to get, as the gap to Jonny Kane in the #33 in 5th is two full laps.

00:53 PITSTOP (Fuel and water. Tommy stays in)
Tommy into the pitlane for a splash and dash - fuel, windscreen clean and a splash of water, and then he's away again. Unfortunately, by making the pitstop he's lost that hard-earned 12th place, and with only 8 laps remaining, there's little chance now of recapturing the scalp.

All else in LMP2 looks fairly well settled. The ASM Ginetta Zytek has lead the class form the start, and now has almost two laps in hand over Giacomo Piccini. Philipp Peter is 42 seconds adrift in third, with Bobbi fourth.

00:57
Jonny Kane makes a final pitstop for the #33.

00:58
The #35 has a spectacular spin, but recovers after a brief delay, but is it enough to allow Tommy to close the gap? The cross the line, and the gap was 40 seconds, but has now narrowed to 19 seconds. Four laps to go.

01:00
The leader overall makes a final splash 'n' dash pitstop, but probably has more than enough leeway to play with at this late stage. Tommy's gained another three seconds.

01:04
Two laps to go, and Tommy has to find ten seconds. It's a tall order. Of the 35 cars that started, thirty are still moving, even though some are many laps behind their respective leaders. It's doubtful that the same could have been said if the race had been run in the heat of the day.

01:06
Tommy is told he's minus nine with just one lap to go.

01:07
Chequered flag. Several cars set their fastest laps right at the end of the race. Tommy crosses the line 13th overall, 7th in LMP2, 11 seconds behind Ajlani. A great effort, and the first one home all season for the RML Lola Mazda.

Olivier Pla takes the class win for the Ginetta-Zytek, two laps clear of the #29 Lola Judd, and then third for the second Zytek (#41) with the #30 Racing Box Lola 4th.

Post Race

For a concise rundown of the race and the most salient points raised by team and drivers, please see the Press Release.

LMP2 Result

Pos	No.	O/all	Team	Driver	Car	Laps/gap	Best Lap
1	40	6	Quifel ASM	Amaral/Pla	Ginetta-Zytek GZ09S	207	1:35.316
2	29	7	Racing Box	Ceccato/Francioni/Piccini	Lola B08/86 Coupé	205	1:36.632
3	41	8	GAC Racing Team	Ojeh/Gosselin/Peter	Zytek 07S	205	1:36.848
4	30	9	Racing Box	Biagi/Bobbi/Piccini	Lola B08/86 Coupé	203	1:36.000
5	33	11	Speedy Sebah	Pompidou/Luenberger/Kane	Lola B08/80 Coupé	198	1:36.140
6	35	12	Oak Racing	Ajlani/Lahaye	Pescarolo Mazda	132	1:37.420
7	25	13	RML AD Group	Erdos/Newton	Lola B08/86 Coupé	195	1:36.740
8	24	21	Oak Racing	Nicolet/Hein	Pescarolo Mazda	179	1:39.104
9	37	24	WR Salini	Salini/Salini/Jouanny	WR Zytek	171	1:39.104
10	26	25	Bruichladdich	Bruneau/Greaves/Sini	Radical SR9 AER	165	1:41.832
			NOT CLASSIFIED	(Not running or less than 150 laps)
11	28	28	Ibanez Racing	Ibanez/da Rocha/Cavailhes	Courage AER	124	1:41.840
12	43	31	Q8 Oils Hache	Jorda/Cortes/Nieto	Lucchini Judd	90	1:40.332

Post-Race Comment

Such has been the frustration of the 2009 season for RML AD Group that just seeing the car take the chequered flag was almost as good as gaining a podium . . . almost, but not quite. There's every chance that a podium was within the team's grasp in the Algarve. Had it not been for the 20-place penalty on the grid, Tommy would have started the race from the sixth row. It took him nearly two hours to work his way up through the field to reach second in LMP2 - the position where he should have started.

That he achieved such a position at all is remarkable, and an enormous testament not only to his skills as a driver, most notably through traffic, but also to the team, who put together a car that handles so well and can offer such performance potential.

The issue with the Astroturf was a bizarre one. At the time, Mike was convinced he'd collected an enormous amount of spent rubber "pick-up" on the tyres, but as soon as he came into the pits the team was able to identify the true culprit. With hindsight, RML's encounter was tame. The GT1 Saleen also had a run-in with the Astroturf, catching a loop of the stuff on part of the undertray that then ripped away a huge chunk of the floor. After a lengthy stop for repairs it would still manage to finish second in class, but then again, there were only two runners.

What really put paid to RML's hopes of a podium was the misfire. Replacing the plugs and coil was a relatively easy fix, and took only five minutes (plus one more for each in and out down the pitlane, making seven in total) but in a category that is now so fiercely competitive, any delay can be costly.

The stops for the RML #25 were as follows:

Time	Delay	Purpose	Driver in	Driver out	Total
20:04	0:57	Fuel only (Scheduled)	Tommy	Tommy	0:57
20:45	1:37	Fuel, tyres and driver change (Scheduled)	Tommy	Mike	2:34
21:37	1:13	Fuel and tyres (Scheduled)	Mike	Mike	3:47
22:32	0.54	Fuel and clear Astroturf (Scheduled half-fuel)	Mike	Mike	4:41
22:50	2:00	Fuel, tyres and driver change (Scheduled)	Mike	Tommy	6:41
23:27	1:05	Fuel and water (Scheduled)	Tommy	Tommy	7:46
23:43	0:58	Fuel and water (Extra)	Tommy	Tommy	8:44
00:02	7:00	Fuel, tyres, water, plugs and coil (Early)	Tommy	Tommy	15:44
00:53	0:52	Fuel, water (Scheduled splash ‘n’ dash)	Tommy	Tommy	16:36

From the total time spent in the pits of 16 minutes and 36 seconds, just over nine minutes can be assigned to "extra" time spent carrying out additional work, from extracting lengths of Astroturf, to replacing plugs and coil and pressure filling the cooling system. That's equivalent to about six laps of the Algarve circuit, and would have placed the RML Lola fourth. "All things being equal, a top-four was certainly achievable today, even starting from the back of the grid," observed Mike. "Had we been able to run cleanly from our true qualifying position, and given no water leak, who knows where we could have ended up."

The immediate concern after the race was the extent to which the water leak and temperature fluctuations might have affected the engine, but Mike was confident that the Mazda unit had survived unscathed. "That's one very positive note to take away from the Algarve," agreed Mike. "We can arrive at the Nürburgring without facing any fresh penalties, and we’re now back down to single-figures in our total of negative points, having picked up two points today to give us minus 8 in the series."

Tommy was pleased to have taken the chequered flag, but there was no denying his sense of frustration. "We worked very hard today for very little return," he said. "I was pleased with the opening stint, and to have got us back up to third, and be challenging for second, certainly demonstrated the underlying pace of the car. The guys put together such a good car for the race – it was simply delightful to drive - and that’s all credit to the team. They gave me the tools for the job, but fate denied us."

And a final footnote about The Fingertips. The band tried to start their session at ten, but nobody could hear them above the noise of the cars, so they postponed their concert until after the race. The music finally got under way at about two o'clock, and lasted about an hour. Surprisingly, quite a few spectators stayed behind to listen. The following day, Sunday, there was a very reduced schedule of support races, and everything was wrapped up by two in the afternoon.

For high resolution digital photographs, please visit the Algarve Gallery.

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