|
It was a fascinating LMP1 season in the LMES, a year in which the weather and safety cars played significant roles, but one that eventually came to a conclusion in Istanbul in mid-November, where the rightful winners were crowned. When it went right for Henri Pescarolo’s team, it went superbly – the wins at Monza in July and Istanbul at the end. The low point was Silverstone in August, when all sorts of calamities struck the green team – but the low point could so easily have been on Saturday morning at Monza. We’ve all become used the appearance of the new LMP1s and hybrids, and the longer they’re around, the more acceptable the looks seem to become – especially as different approaches (around the same ‘ground rules’) see the light of day. The Audi R10 has a very different look around the front, for example. Twin roll hoops, the ramped floor between the wheels and the boxes behind the rear wheels all tend to create a certain uniformity – but there is room for variation in other areas. Saturday at Monza saw the new rules thoroughly tested, as Jean-Christophe Boullion had a huge moment in the Pescarolo hybrid. The rear suspension failed, the car spun through 180 degrees, Boullion and the Pescarolo hurtled down the track backwards, then hit the barrier and slid sideways.
Well done the FIA and its aero rules: the car showed no sign of letting the air get under it at all, and was swiftly repaired for qualifying, after which Collard and Boullion went on to dominate most of the second race of the season.
What Spa in April (daft scheduling, that) hadn’t really shown (thanks to the weather and the presence of the Oreca Audi, which didn’t race at Monza) was how much the 950 kg cars would struggle in 2005. The Audi was certainly an exception in Belgium (the Lister too early on, when it led the eventual race winner), but the R8 would typically only really shine later on in the season when conditions favoured it. The other 950 kg cars – Jan Lammers’ Dome and the Rollcentre Dallaras – were definitely off the ultimate pace, while the transitional rules hadn’t hindered the old 675 cars anything like as much. The three ‘old 675s’ were the factory Zytek 04S, Jota’s similar car and the Creation DBA.
Nic Minassian almost had the pace required at Monza, but he came across a hybrid problem there – finding that on a track like the Autodromo, his lack of straight line speed meat that Jean-Marc Gounon in the factory Courage hybrid was “unovertakeable”. Minassian would demonstrate how badly he didn’t want to get stuck behind one again as the field got underway at the Nurburgring (he locked everything up to beat the Pescarolo into the first corner).
A water leak at Monza – twin Jubilee clips failed – was desperate missfortune for the DBA. Martin Short was almost apologetic about scoring consecutive third places at Spa and Monza, with his #8 Dallara Judd, where solid runs at each track were amply rewarded. Joao Barbosa was stunningly quick whwnever he got in the Dallara.
Creation would have given anything for runs like that – having probably had the fastest car over the race distance at Spa, except that an alternator problem delayed the DBA, then a driveshaft failure put it out, when a recovery to a podium slot had looked likely.
The factory Zytek didn’t look like a race winner at Spa until Hayanari Shimoda took over, but he demonstrated the kind of form that would see him forge a great reputation over the course of the year. John Nielsen and Casper Elgaard shared the winning car, a lap ahead of the Pescarolo and five ahead of the Rollcentre Dallara Judd. And so to the mid-season event – Silverstone in August, when the weather for the Saturday afternoon / evening race really ought to have been fine and balmy. Unfortunately it was anything but. Rain was heading Northamptonshire way in time for the start, and the first three hours were held in appalling conditions.
Some entrants and team managers wanted the race either stopped or run behind the safety car until the weather improved, but eventually the rain eased off. Until that point, the safety car had often had the effect of simply bunching up the cars so that incidents on the re-start were more likely. It was all rather futile – but then all of a sudden, we had a race. Apart from early cameo roles from Tommy Erdos in the LMP2 RML Lola and Haruki Kurosawa in the Jota Zytek, the race was largely about two cars: the Oreca Audi and the Creation DBA. The Pescarolo (Boullion) and factory Zytek (Chilton) had both crashed early on, while the French car then ran out of fuel, was returned to parc ferme, pushed down the pit lane – and still managed to score a point. The Zytek ran faultlessly to the flag after its repairs. So did the Creation DBA (run faultlessly) – and it was an epic last hour of the race between Jamie Campbell-Walter and (initially) Allan McNish, until Stephane Ortelli took over for the final half hour – with the track almost pitch black all the way round.
“Lights,” explained JC-W afterwards. “The Audi has great lights and that helped to overcome Stephane’s disadvantage, getting into the car in the darkness. Let’s not forget the Audi is a fantastic car, it has had millions spent on development and testing, and to do what we do with the resources we have is a massive credit to everyone involved.” Ortelli somehow found his way past JC-W in the darkness, and won this extraordinary race by 6 seconds. And that was the R8’s second (after Le Mans), and last, win in Europe in 2005 – and the last one in Europe ever. “What a race the Creation boys gave us and what a finish from Stephane and from Jamie,” commented Allan McNish. “What Stephane did was very, very difficult, it is very fast and very dangerous and to have a finish so close is just great to attract people to this part of the sport.” So three races
and three different winners – and no one car or crew was looking
like a dead cert for the LMP1 title. Three third places for Barbosa
/ Short / Ickx were keeping them right in the hunt. It didn’t take him long to work his way up to fourth, and the whole race was a nip and tuck battle between the best four prototypes in Europe. The one that didn’t quite have the pace was the Pescarolo, which slipped to fourth and stayed there. The other three (Zytek, Oreca Audi, Creation DBA) swapped and changed with the pit stops, the race only being decided in the last few laps as Shimoda, following a great middle stint from Chilton, passed both Minassian and McNish for the win.
Best of the
rest was that Rollcentre Dallara again, but fifth effectively squeezed
this car and its crew out of the title race – which was really
between Shimoda on 27 (Chilton didn’t race at Spa) and Boullion
and Collard on 24. Short and co. were on 22 points, the Audi and
DBA drivers on 18.
It either drizzled, rained or poured throughout the Istanbul event (more daft scheduling to have this one in November) – and with fresh rubber at every stop, the Pescarolo was the car to have.
Henri Pescarolo (tongue in cheek): “It was necessary not to have the Zytek in second position, so I asked my friends at Audi and Creation to finish in second and third! When Emmanuel told me about the aquaplaning, we decided to change tyres at every stop. That cost us 15 seconds each time: it was a difficult choice, but a good decision.” The season
was largely about four cars, but Rollcentre’s 100% finishing
record with the #8 Dallara saw them take a fabulous fourth in the
points, ahead of Creation’s unlucky DBA and Jota’s Zytek. Overall, it
was an excellent season of LMP1 racing (which the weather tried
to spoil three times, but failed on each occasion). Thanks to the
rule changes, the only top car that will run in the same configuration
next year will be Henri Pescarolo’s winning hybrid. LMP1
Team Points LMP1
Driver Points
|
Qualifying
in Italy had an unexpected look about it, with three LMP1 / 675
cars on the front two rows, the Pescarolo only third fastest. Hayanari
Shimoda set the pole time in the factory Zytek, and having crawled
along until the cars passed the green light, he managed to lead
early on - but surely Monza should have been a hybrid circuit? Henri
Pescarolo suggested that a slightly disappointing pace from his
car was down to an engine that wasn’t quite producing the
power – and Shimoda set the fastest lap. But the Japanese
driver whacked a kerb and the 04S dropped back during repairs, to
finish an unrepresentative tenth.
Jota’s
best result of the season came at Monza - second place, but five
laps behind the winning Pescarolo. Second would have been fourth
but for the problems for the other ‘675s’.
So
the weather at Spa had helped to confuse the issue over what type
of car – heavy Audi, hybrid Pescarolo or mildly ballasted
‘675’ – would excel in 2005. The Pescarolo had
suffered with some unfortunately timed pit stops in relation to
safety car periods, and it was Ortelli in the Audi who’d dominated
much of the first half of the race, despite brushes with two GT
cars. Jean-Marc Gounon took over for the run to the flag, and then
suffered the embarrassment of crashing behind the safety car.
Oreca
saved time by not changing at each stop, and stayed in contention,
but even through a Silverstone-type downpour at the end, the Pescarolo
hung on, to take the win and the season’s LMP1 honours. Creation
clung on to worn wets for too long, and lost a bunch of time in
Minassian’s third stint, which was followed by Jean-Denis
Deletraz’s first drive for the team, in the middle of the
race. JC-W brought the DBA home third, with the Zytek fourth and
Jota heading the rest, Sam Hancock performing wonders early on,
in his first drive for this team. Contents Copyright © dailysportscar.com. All Rights Reserved. |