Back in the race, the Audi has been retired with gear linkage issues. The No. 31 Brunswick Racing BMW refuses 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.
The No. 19 Ginetta suffered a broken differential and was towed back in. The team expected about a one hour repair. The No. 47 Racing for Friends had its turbo replaced. The No. 28 Gambler Racing BMW came into the pits with a broken right front wheel assembly. The team is rolling the dice that they can fix it. The once near overall podium No. 21 BMW was bonked about and rivals (no, betters) the Saxon BMW for having every panel bent. It lost about 10 laps making repairs, dropping it to 16th overall and third in SP3.
The standings in that category reverted to a Ginetta 1-2, the two Nova Race entries. No. 25 was the leader with Fabio Ghizzi aboard and a fine 4th overall. It remained the sole car in that class not to have problems—please don’t let it be jinxed by saying that! All of the others were in recovery mode although doing well, out of the running for the top spot. The other Nova entry had Mark Speakerwas doing the morning stint. Moving into the final podium spot was another success story in the latter stages, the Lotus.
With three hours to go it can be said that all of the likely class winners have enjoyed very steady performances here in Barcelona. This applies to no one more so than the overall and class A6 leaders, the No. 4 Hofor Racing Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG. Starting from third place on the grid, Christiaan Frankenhout drove very conservatively and did not chase the faster Aston Martin. Indeed the car dropped down a few spots, being one of those to swap tires in the wet conditions. Frankenhout, followed in order by Michael Kroll, Kenneth Heyer, and Roland Eggimann, held station at 3rd-4th place for most of the opening hours. They only rose thanks to attrition, to second place in hour 11. The break came two hours later when the engine blew on the Stadler Porsche that had led since the Barwell Aston’s early problems. The Hofor inherited the lead and built and built upon it each hour.
There was only other A6 class car still running in the morning was the De Lorenzi Mercedes. It also featured early in the running, dropped back, and then embarked on a stoic recovery drive.
The Ruffier Racing Porsche (No. 10) consolidated its lead in the 997 class as the No. 9 Motorsport Services rival dropped a few spots. The De Lorenzi Porsche occupied a not so distant and very worthy third in class.
Both of the D2 runners looked set to finish although the No. 56 Saxon Motorsport entry was a long way down. The real story here was the 4th overall—briefly to 3rd overall in the 20th hour, by the class leading MDM entry, Tristan Boorsma taking the morning shift. Their position was emblematic of the makeup of the order across many hours of the race. Problems and attrition among several of the fast cars dropped them well down the order, leaving cars from the slower classes to move up the overall classification. Then those faster cars that were able to recover became interspersed with the steadier runners from the smaller categories.
SP2 is another recovery story, all about the No. 17 GC. Both of the GCs had problems at several stages with the No. 18 never recovering. Liv Fridman, taking the morning stint in No. 17 helped bring it into the top 10 overall. The GCs are the only survivors in the class.
A2 became the most competitive class in the closing hours. The No. 46 Besaplast Mini led as it had done for most of the race. However, a few delays put them within range of the No. 51 Roadruner Clio, Jürgen Peter aboard at breakfast time. There was a long gap back to two teams fighting for the last podium spot in A2—indeed both were on the same lap. The No. 53 VDS Honda (Joel Vanloocke) was working hard to pull away from the No. 52 Sola Sport Renault, Jean-Louis Dauger the man of the morning.
The top three in A5 seemed set, barring the usual late race dramas. The Intersport Racing BMW (Adam Hayes) survived various delays to stay a few laps ahead of the No. 32 RTR Projects E46 M3 GTR (Jan Cervenka). The No. 30 MMC entry featuring the Cox family was third in the A5 class—a category that was not particularly full of too many thrills this weekend.
The D1 class had parallels to A5 in that the top three remained well spaced out. Andreas Kempf guided the No. 60 TTC Racing VW Golf through the morning hours, well clear of Maurice Faber in the No. 59 Red Camel Seat and Adrian Salazar’s Black Motorsport Seat, No. 58.
Now recall that at about 06:00 this reporter wandered by the Red Camel garage where the Audi was sitting cold and unattended while the crew drank coffee, chatted and watched TV. They noted that the gear linkage problems were terminal. At 09:30 the one and only race driver from Papua New Guinea, Keith Kassulke, appeared back on the circuit with a miraculously repaired R8—only in endurance racing. And only in endurance racing would this car come to a halt on its out lap—time to get silly.
Most of the front end on the No. 55 Synchro Motorsport entry became detached from the rest of the car. A welder worked trying the re-synchronize the Honda Civic in time for the finish while the crew held their breaths that the makeshift assembly would hold. No Speedlovers left in Barcelona—the team has retired their second car (No. 14) after extensive damage from an off-course excursion.
With two hours to go the overall lead for the Hofor Benz was back up to 11 laps. The Ruffier Porsche was equally unchallenged in second place and the 997 class lead. By sheer speed the No. 25 Ginetta (Stefano Stefanelli) had risen to the last overall podium spot and at the head of SP3. The remarkable diesel BMW was next, but likely to get overhauled by the De Lorenzi Mercedes that was a tour behind and lapping ten seconds faster than the little 320d.
Stijn of Creventic has pointed out an interesting observation. With 80 minutes to go the leading Mercedes made a stop. It may or may not be their last stop—a quick splash and cleaning of the sponsor logos may be in order since the team was under no threat. However, as Stijn, pointed out, the No. 4 Mercedes ha made more stops than any other car in the field, regardless of class or position. That is remarkable and unusual given that the usual adage for winning endurance races is to stay out of the pits. It seems that this victory was accomplished by being ultra-conservative in nearly every respect.
While most attention is focused on the overall winner, the accomplishment of the third place overall car is also noteworthy. This is most certainly the first time that a Ginetta has been on the overall podium of a 24-hour race. The Walklett Brothers would be most proud.
The struck out sentences preceding this must be left in place in order to provide context. Several hours earlier I wrote about the recovery of the No. 1 Aston—it soon crashed. A short time later I commented about the good run of the No. 45 Drivex VW—moments later it crashed. You know where this is going. No sooner had the electrons settled on the opening sentences then . . ., well at least it didn’t crash, but Luca Magnoni came to a halt dead center on the circuit with the No. 25 Ginetta—I’ve developed some sort of evil powers. Do you have a team that you do not like?—I’ll write a piece about them.
Perhaps we should stop writing until the checkered flag is shown? Cautiously, I may add that a Dutch team has been elevated to third overall—oh, oh. The stalled Ginetta brought out the race’s 20th Code 60 or 22nd neutralization counting the safety car periods. The reason for the Ginetta’s sudden halt was that right side wheel departed company with the car. Nova Race was able to repair at hold onto the class lead. A late retirement was the VDS Racing Honda which caught fire. One of the last to stop on course was the No. 17 GC Prototype Silhouette, the leader in SP2 and briefly in 4th overall. It made it back to the pits under its own steam and then on to the finish.
There were no such problems at the front. Michael Kroll took the Mercedes to the flag, with the last few laps at a virtual crawl of 2:10 versus the fast laps in the low 1:50s. Way down the order, but of course second in class, Gian Luca Di Lorenzi was not letting, hoping to gain one last overall spot with the No. 3 Mercedes.
Patrice Lafargue brought the second place overall and 997 class winning Porsche to the line, followed by Mark Bus in the diesel BMW—now there’s a podium spot to remember. Clint Harvey finished second in 997 with the No. 9 Porsche while fifth overall and A2 winner was another story, the Mini driven Fredrik Lestrup—another high finish by a small car.
Although not an overall podium finish, Magnoni recovered with the Ginetta to properly win the SP2 class from sixth place. Next across and second in SP2 is very much the comeback award winner. Matt Di Leo wheeled the No. 22 Cor Euser Racing Lotus to the win. This car was in the top five in the very early going, then lost over an hour in the pits, and fought back to such an exalted position—nice going!
Third in SP2 and 8th overall, Michael Bonk brought home a BMW that was more duct tape than bodywork. Classed 9th and first in SP2, but not actually making it back to the line on the last lap was Gerard Bonjean in the No. 17 GC—too add insult to injury, but no effect on overall or class position, they were penalized two laps for speeding in pit lane on that last frantic stop. Leonardo Maddalena rounded out the top ten with the third in SP2 Ginetta, the other Nova Race entry which also recovered well.
All the finishers in this grueling event should be saluted, but most of all the other class winners and podium finishers.
With the finishing drivers noted, they are:
11th overall, 1st A3T, No. 43 Motorsport Services, Seat, Jeff Lowrey
12th overall, 2nd A2, No. 51 Roadrunner, Renault, Boris Hrubesch
13th overall, 2nd A3T, No. 37 Ymor Racing, Seat, Gijs Bessem
14th overall, 1st A5, No. 33 Intersport Racing, BMW, Mark Radcliffe
15th overall, 3rd 997, No. 11 De Lorenzi Racing, Porsche, Dario Paletto
16th overall, 2nd A6, No. 3 De Lorenzi Racing, Mercedes, Gian Luca De Lorenzi
17th overall, 2nd A5, No. 32 RTR Projects, BMW, Michal Vitek
18th overall, 3rd A2, No. 52 Sola Sport, Renault, Carlos Sarrea
20th overall, 3rd A3T, No. 35 Küpper Racing, BMW, Bernd Küpper
21st overall, 2nd D2, No. 56 Saxon Motorsport, BMW, Richard Corbett
23rd overall, 1st D1, No. 60 TTC Racing, Volkswagen, Daniel Schilliger
24th overall, 2nd D1, No. 59 Red Camel Racing, Seat, Klaus Kresnik
25th overall, 3rd A5, No. 30 MMC Motorsport, Stephen Borness
33rd overall, 3rd D1, No. 58 Black Motorsport, Jordi Sturlese
37th overall, 2nd SP2 [first actual finisher], No. 18 Gomez Competition, GC, Philippe Cimadomo
Next for Creventic, Dubai, 2014—good series, good people—join us.
With thanks to Janos Wimpffen
