22.08.07 A Principal View

Ever wondered what the Principal of an LMS team is thinking during a race? Well at the 1000km of Spa, Embassy boss Jonathan France kept a record of some of the things that went through his mind as the race unfolded. Here are a few of the thoughts that are printable.

• Best looking LMP2 car on grid. Best grid show with the Embassy Girls - our general presentation a league above the rest of the field.
• Excellent start by Warren ending lap one in P2. Good decision to start with the more experienced Embassy driver. Now let’s build from here.
• Tommy Erdos up ahead in the MG Lola. He is a prodigious talent and the RML MG package is good. It will take something special to beat them but we are in the best shape ever. I feel that we can stay with them.
• Looking at the data on lap eight – I have some concerns about our fuel image.
• Warren driving well. Race going well. Running in second closing gap to Erdos to under 6 seconds. Quifel Lola of de Castro behind but only 3 seconds adrift.
• Lap eighteen, fuel concerns reflected by Technical Director instructing a change of map.
• Traffic favours Erdos who goes away. De Castro still right with us.
• First stop as scheduled on lap 22. In from P2 for fuel only. Lots of pick-up on tyres - out lap will be slow. Stop took 38 seconds. Team worked very well. Stop seemed to go without a problem.
• All leading LMP2 teams stopped – we are P5. Must have lost time on out lap as stop was good.
• Warren back in rhythm, driving well.
• De Castro puncture on lap 33, we retake P2. Excellent.
• Not so excellent, Warren reporting intermittent sticking throttle.
• Sticking throttle was a feature of the Judd engine towards the end of Nurburgring round. Engine has been back to Judd in interim but they could not find a reason for the symptom so no work was done. Problem has not miraculously fixed itself. Very disappointing.
• Chris Buncombe in the Binnie Motorsports Lola is lapping 2.5 seconds a lap faster than Warren.
• Warren is in the gravel at Rivage. What happened? Driver error? Throttle? Is there damage? Is that the end of our race?
• Off caused by sticking throttle. Angry, frustrated. No real damage and car pulled back on track. See what we can do if Warren can get it back to the pits.
• In pit lane lap 42. Team working on the car to get it into fuelling attitude. Important to ensure only four people working on the car at the same time. New nose cone being fitted, need more than one person to carry bodywork to and from car. Nose cone fitted. Five minutes work couldn’t resolve the fuel issue. Car into garage.
• More frustration. Some discussions and decisions on action to resolve fuelling. Opportunity to get off pit wall, eat, drink, stretch legs. Very, very frustrating.
• Rejoin race sixty four minutes later. All hope of podium gone; see what we can learn from the rest of the race for future. Not a brilliant start with Darren spinning on cold out lap tyres at le Source. Kept it going – understandable mistake under the circumstances, but slightly disappointing.
• Lap 103; salvage some Embassy pride – Warren records fastest LMP2 lap of the race.
• Rain. I think stay out on slicks. Team agrees.
• Drying track, lap 111 more good news as we are the quickest car on the track.
• Attrition rate grows, laps down but looks like we could finish in the points.
• Both drivers well on the pace. Without problems are certainly capable of race winning speeds.
• Race ends. 6th in class better than expected with our situation after two hours, but could have been so much more. Mostly positive feelings – still need to work on reliability – get that right and we can win!