Creventic races offer a good blend of sportsmanship with a serious attention to rules. For most infractions there is a schedule where violations incur increased sanctions for repeat offenders. This appears to be the case for two teams, the No.14 Speedlover Porsche and the No. 32 RTR BMW. The latter incurred a one lap penalty for exceeding the maximum drive-time rules while the former is being handcuffed to the penalty box for a whopping two laps for having broken the 20 km/h speed limit in the refuelling area—a harsh lesson!
Just as the race reached halfway we lost one of the top competitors. Heinz Schmersal crashed the long-time second place No. 2 Car Collection Mercedes, damaging the left rear in particular. The car has been retired and the crew had already opened their first beers of the evening.
Big drama as the engine blew on the overall leading No. 7 Porsche. The car was brought back with the entire rear covered in oil. The No. 27 Perfection Racing Aston Martin had a very imperfect gearbox and retired. The No. 33 Intersport Racing BMW was hit very hard when they slowed for a Code 60. The car was being repaired but there seemed to be quite a bit of suspension damage. They subsequently dropped out of the class lead.
The No. 41 Monlau Seat was involved in one of the accidents. The team inspected the damage and decided to send the car back out without making any repairs. The No. 29 Tischner Motorsport BMW is back in the garage with work again being done to the left front suspension. The No. 61 SVDP Racing BMW had the entire cooling system and radiator break down. It is still too hot in that area for the team to completely evaluate whether they can fix it. The car had picked up a stray splitter lying on the circuit and it was only after all the coolant was gone that Wubbe Herlaar noticed a slight problem shown on the temperature gauge.
The No. 58 Seat had serious electrical problems. It was too early to tell yet if Black will be back. The No. 35 Hofor BMW had a less serious electrical problem, losing power to its headlights. Clearly, this has scrambled everything. Having led since early in the race it was easy to get accustomed to the Stadler team calmly circulating about. Oh, how easily we are led astray.
Following the demise of the long-leading No. 7 Porsche, it was time to take stock of the consequences. The No. 4 Hofor Mercedes (Christiaan Frankenhout) had taken over the overall lead. The next living car was the No. 10 Ruffier Porsche. It was a monstrous 13 laps behind. It would take an equally catastrophic end to the Swiss team to lodge them from first place. The Ruffier team had a spare one lap lead over the next 997 class car, the No. 11 De Lorenzi team (Dario Paletto) Porsche. Next up was another 997 class car, No. 9 of Motorsport Services (Brett Niall), but it was about 4 laps back.
Next up in what soon became 5th overall was the steady top Tourer of Bonk Motorsport (Michael Bonk), the No. 21 SP3 class leading BMW. Two more class leaders were next in the overall ranking. First came the No. 12 Clickvers/Destree/Sex Bomb Porsche (Wolfgang Destree), running like a clock. Behind this SP2 leader was the A3T front runner of William Paul (No. 45 Drivex School Scirocco). It was now the highest placed Spanish entry. Up to 8th overall was the D2 class leading MDM BMW. Yet another class leader, the No. 46 Besaplast Mini was next.
Only then came the lower positions in each class. Interestingly, the second place A6 car was now the No. 1 Aston Martin. Remember the No. 1 Aston Martin? They were the first leaders in this very long race! They were in 14th overall when all hell broke loose at the front. They were now some 32 laps behind, but as the race got longer it has also became weirder. Richard Abra was now the fastest man on the track, 13 seconds per lap quicker than the overall leaders and running much faster against the others in between. Ahh, but wait, Abra came in with a hub problem and they are back down again, the Aston losing 10 expensive minutes in the pits. This came soon after Bruno Senna had set the race’s fastest lap.
Speaking of expensive, the Euser team has finally given up with little BMW. It blew its second motor of the race. That must be like suffering a heart attack on a transplanted heart. The No. 12 Porsche had some problems with fluid leaks, caused by an accident with the Tischner BMW. It was enough to drop the Porsche down to 5th overall. Later the No. 11 GDL entry lost time with a broken spring.
The drop down problems of the No. 1 Aston and the No. 11 Porsche left the No. 3 GDL Mercedes as the next car to watch for as a possible comeback story. During the dead of the night Bert de Heus was some 10 seconds per lap faster than anyone else in the field. But again, he team would need help as it sat 54 laps down in 15th overall—too big of a mountain to climb in 9 hours.
Further down the order the Tischner team finally gave up on their battles with the front end of the No. 29 BMW E46, damaged at least twice, the last time in the accident with the Destree Porsche. Meanwhile the No. 44 Intersport BMW made a long stop to replace a wishbone.
There was big drama at 04:24—a huge, huge crash. Norbert Pauels (No. 12 Porsche) and Stefan Mücke (No. 1 Aston) crashed hard together into the outside wall about halfway down the main straight. The Porsche came to a sudden halt while the big British car continued down for some distance, spinning and with heavy damage. It was so severe that part of the engine was protruding outside the frame. Pauels was a bit dazed but emerged under his own power with a little help from the marshals. The initial report was that Mücke too stepped out but was transported to the care centre. The Barwell team is obviously tight-lipped and we will of course monitor the situation.
Update – Barwell Motorsport have released the following statement: “Stefan has been taken to hospital for observation for 24hrs, he has sustained no serious injuries”
The incident brought out a full-course safety car intervention rather than the simple Code 60s used thus far. It ends the run of the Porsche that had been near the front for many hours and the recovery run for the Aston. It was clearly the fastest car on the circuit at the time and one can speculate that speed differential may have been a factor, especially as the Porsche had been recently compromised. Indeed, Mücke’s fast lap of the race came just a few laps before the accident.
The field circulated behind the safety car for a half-hour and there followed two very short Code 60s not long after the restart. Needless to say, the mood turned a bit tense as a result of this frightening incident.
As for the race, it did little to change the standings at the top. The Hofor Mercedes (Kenneth Heyer) continued to have a dominant lead, although the gap closed by a few laps thanks to the team being held in the pits for quite a long time during the safety car procedure. The team was quite upset about this.
The other provisional podium spots were occupied by Porsche Cup cars, Ruffier ahead of Motorsport Services. The No. 21 Bonk BMW now moved to 4th overall, with the relatively cleanly running No. 25 Ginetta in a fine fifth overall. The BMW and the Ginetta were 1-2 in SP3, separated by only one lap.
The third in 997 Porsche was next in the overall standings, the No. 11 of De Lorenzi. Then came what remains a great success story, the best diesel, the No. 63 BMW of MDM Motorsport. The remainder of the top was in a bit of flux in terms of overall ranking since the cars were of different performance characteristics and would sometime move up or down based on stop patterns and divergent lap speeds. They included the A3T class leading Drivex School Volkswagen, the rapidly recovering No. 3 De Lorenzi Mercedes, the almost anonymous No. 19 Spanish entered Ginetta and another recovery project, the No. 19 GC.
At about 5:40 we had another Code 60 that was lengthened into a full safety car period. Perhaps we should avoid praising some car or another. This intervention came because Jaime Carbo hit hard into the infield at the pit entrance with the erstwhile A3T leading No. 45 Volkswagen. There were extensive repairs required for the barriers and the intervention was extended. Carbo was fine—the car not.
This accident scrambled the A3T positions, leaving the No. 37 Seat of Ymor Racing (Martin van den Berge) in the class lead. One lap behind was Jeff Lowrey in the No. 43 Motorsport Services Seat.
The Audi was retired with gear linkage issues. The No. 31 Brunswick Racing BMW refused to start, or rather, when it does all the fuses blow. The better placed of the GCs, No. 17, stopped for attention to the engine compartment. The No. 56 Saxon Motorsport BMW 135d is running reasonably well, considering that it is a battered heap. All the panels are bent, it is covered in all manner of grime, and it is hardly recognizable as anything other than a demolition derby veteran.
Another fairly short Code 60 came during the 18th hour, apparently as a result of the No. 19 Escuela Española do Pilotos Ginetta going off. While another SP3 car has hit trouble, this has allowed a long forgotten car in the class to re-emerge. It is the No. 22 Lotus of the Cor Euser team (Hal Prewitt driving). The car has been rock solid since its early race problems. It is within the top 20 overall and with a shot at a class podium.
JW
