It was the 1000 km of Spa, we arrived in the best shape ever, the car had hours of trouble free running and we qualified third in class – it was supposed to be the race – a podium at the very least.
It didn’t happen.
Unfortunately, and it has to be said, yet again, the Embassy Racing Radical suffered technical problems, which pretty much put paid to any possibility of a top three finish after just 90 minutes of racing. On lap 42 an intermittent sticking throttle, which Warren had been managing to cope with, stuck open a little too aggressively and sent the car into the gravel at Rivage. Marshalls and tow truck put us back on track and as attempts at a quick fix in the pit lane faded, the Embassy Racing Radical was pushed into our garage for the problem to be resolved. The problem took over an hour to fix, before we rejoined the race on lap 77.
The story of the weekend and the race, however, is not all doom and gloom. Certainly, when the Radical is running and in the hands of either Warren, or new boy Darren Manning, it is very fast. And it is very fast consistently. Unlike other LMP2 machinery which can turn up the boost for qualifying but have to run a slower map for the race, we can run our race at very near to our qualifying times. Starting from third in class, our race pace was certainly good enough to put us in with a shout of a podium - and it is even more irritating that we suffered the problem, as when the car is running trouble free, the facts highlight the undoubted strength of our LMS challenge.
The facts are that the Embassy Racing Radical posted the quickest LMP2 lap of the race. The facts are that for one lap the Embassy Racing Radical went quicker than any car, including the unassailable Peugeot LMP1s, out on the circuit. The facts are that for the opening stint of the race we were running in a very comfortable second place. The facts are that following our return to the race we were posting times that would have seen us win it.
The facts are that we had a technical problem and although all the above bodes well for our future, within the context of this race, they are meaningless. We missed our chance and turned a potential podium into a sixth place finish.
So that’s Embassy Racing’s Spa 1000km in a nutshell. Months, weeks, days, hours and minutes of hard, hard work culminating in an endurance sportscar race that tests a whole team of men and a machine to breaking point. We are close, we are very close, but now it’s time to put in that vital extra effort for those vital extra seconds and maybe, just maybe during the next race there will be no breaking point.
The only way to find out is to see how we get on at the next round at Silverstone on September 16th. See you then.
1000km of Spa LMS Results
LMP2 Spa Classification
1. RML – MG Lola EX264 AER
2. Quifel – ASM Team Lola B05/40 AER
3. Horag Racing – Lola B05/40 Judd
4. Sauliner Racing – Courage LC75 – AER
5. Binnie Motorsports – Lola B05/40 Zytek
6. Embassy Racing – Radical SR9 Judd
LMP2 Standings after 4 Rounds
1. RML – MG Lola EX 264 – AER - 31 points
2. Quifel – ASM Team Lola B05/40 – AER - 24 points
3. Horag Racing - Lola B05/40 Judd - 21 points
4. Binnie Motorsports – Lola B05/40 Zytek - 13 points
5. Barazi Epsillon – Zytek 07S Zytek - 10 points
8. Embassy Racing – Radical SR9 Judd - 7 points
