Spa race report

The final results can be found at www.fiawec.com

It is good to report that around 14,000 members of the public turned out in force to sit in the sun and watch some top of the range motor sport.

During a short pause in hostilities before the start we had a chat with Paul Truswell.. the amazing combination of voice and analytical brain that we know so well from Le Mans. Not surprisingly he had a few thoughts… He suggested that it would need a simply huge c*ck up for Audi to lose this race, in fact it would probably take a huge c*ck up to keep them off the top three steps of the podium. So why no Toyotas in the frame? The ‘new’ #7 car is geared up more for Le Mans in June and is brand new.. the #8 car on the other hand is now out of date. As far as Le Mans goes Toyota will probably miss out tactically by not having three cars to deploy at La Sarthe. We also discussed LM P2 and how hard it was to keep up with them during the race and on TV. The problem sort of lies with the fact that as far as sponsors are concerned there are no really big, distinctive ones that highlight the cars, which makes them hard to identify in the midst of the action ( and during the TV edit) Equally while they have some very experienced and quite famous pilots they are short of big name endurance super-stars. We all agree that despite all this they do give us some cracking racing even if goes unnoticed for some of the time. In GT Porsche may well continue to struggle until they can get their hands on the new 991 engine ( good old Porsche .. keep us guessing on these numbers!). There was only one safety car session and it caused a couple of teams problems not just with pit lane access but also with getting stuck behind the safety car.

The LM P1 lead sort of ‘went with service’ for a sizeable part of the race. The analysts amongst us were told that the lead changed around 13 times. The #7 Toyota took up the lead several times occasionally on merit but generally during the pits stops. All the same the new car did lead the race until that is with three hours or so to go it wound up in the pits and expired with what was clearly a brake overheating problem but we think that may have been related to the ‘Hybrid’ systems. The Toyotas would appear to be able to match the Audis, broadly speaking, on pace and apparently beat them in the fuel consumption stakes. As you may have gathered we are fans of the Rebellion Racing Team, the only problem is that being ‘petrol powered’ they have nobody much to race against apart from each other! Even so this is a highly professional and superbly managed team… now .. have a think ..what if …?! The #25 Strakka Racing Morgan Nissan is not truly competitive but they are heading for Le Mans come what may! Back with Audi they did suffer with a puncture on the #1 car but in the true tradition of Audi it didn't appear to faze them at all and the team carried on in its unflustered way. Incidentally the #3 Audi was running in ‘Le Mans’ specification which didn't suit Spa but the casual onlooker might be hard pressed to spot the difference. The new fashion is ‘Long Tails’ everybody is trying them, maybe as a tribute to the Porsche 917 Lang Heck!

In LM P2 it goes almost without saying that we will see some close racing and today was no exception. It was eventually won by #49 Pecom Racing Oreca 03. This was probably due in no small way to presence of one Mr Nicolas Minassian who is immensely quick. Even so they came home just 12 seconds ahead of the #24 OAK Racing Morgan Nissan which was only 16 seconds ahead of the third placed #38 Jota Zytek Z11SN. The Lotus T128 fared much better than they had done at Silverstone and despite the #31 car hitting problems but still finishing the #31 car saw the chequered flag. All the LM P2 cars finished the race except the #25 Delta ADR which crashed out. They are quick, reliable and well worth watching when they get to Le Mans.

For Aston Martin things didn’t pan out as well here as they had at Silverstone. We did wonder if the other teams might have been holding back at Silverstone. Maybe they were because this time in LMGTE Ferraris came alive with the two AF Corse Ferrari F458 Italia’s looking much more dangerous in ‘Pro’ . This was helped by the Astons getting caught out by the safety car. Porsche didn’t have a great weekend, it was summed up rather well when, with about 45mins to go , the #51 AF Corse Corse Ferrari punted the #91 Porsche up the back end and took it out of the race! With around 40 mins to go a flurry of stop go penalties kicked in after that safety car business hours ago. This involved the two factory Aston Martins #97 and 98. Team boss David Richards reckoned it was all entirely legal so we suspect this might involve a protest form Aston Martin Racing.

In ‘Am’ it was Ferrari again and they did well with the #81 Ferrari 458 Italia seing off the #95 Aston . The #50 Chevrolet had a steady race and came home 3^rd, again ahead of an Aston Martin, this time the #96 car. So not quite the spectacular performance we saw at Silverstone. But everybody is now heading for Le Mans so all bets are off !

After 168 laps only three cars retired from the race , these were the #7 Toyota, The #25 Delta-ADR which crashed out after 25 laps and the unfortunate Patrick Pilet in the #91 Porsche who crashed out after being hit by #51 Ferrari driven by Bruni. As a curtain raiser for Le Mans? Well .. guess what Audi do look incredibly strong but Toyota have the pace and the economy and maybe with a bit of luck they might see the podium.

The final results can be found at www.fiawec.com