Hi all, and welcome to the second instalment of what I like to call ‘Racer’s Digest’ but what’s more commonly – but less imaginatively – referred to as ‘The Brundle Blog’ (We much prefer the second one – Ed!).
This month is all about one thing: Le Mans. The final 24 hours might not begin until 3pm local time on June 14, but I can assure you that by then we’ll be more than ready for the rigours of the world’s greatest endurance race.
Those of you charitable enough to have read my first blog will know that I was at Magny-Cours a couple of weeks ago with Onroak Automotive and G-Drive Racing by OAK Racing to give our Ligier JS P2 Nissan its final development run before travelling to Le Mans for the Test Day. We’ve tested a lot since the start of the year but Magny-Cours felt a little different, like this was where our road to La Sarthe really began.
That’s probably because it was my first time working with Jann Mardenborough and Mark Shulzhitskiy, who I’ll share the car with at this year’s race. With an average age of just 23 – the youngest on the grid –, just five starts between us and Mark making his debut, the question of experience – or lack of – is bound to rear its head.
Honestly though, I don’t see that as a problem. I’m not saying we’re taking the race lightly; when La Sarthe bites it tends to bite hard. But the law of diminishing returns is just as applicable to experience as it is to anything else. Every driver, no matter how many times they’ve driven a circuit, has the capacity to make a mistake on any given day. And Le Mans is no different in that respect. Yes, you respect Le Mans, but fear it? Not if you can help it.
Magny-Cours was also the first outing for our Ligier’s Le Mans-spec aero package. Now, I wouldn’t say it was ideally suited to Magny-Cours, but we certainly logged some useful data. Getting a handle on things like balance, straight-line speed and comfort (finding the best compromise for all three drivers) before the Test Day gave us more time to hone other areas that could only be addressed at Le Mans itself. And with track time at La Sarthe at such a premium – especially when you have no previous data to fall back on – it’s essential to sort the basics beforehand.
And so to the Test Day, the only chance teams have all year outside of race week to run their cars around the 8.4-mile Circuit de la Sarthe. We’re up against three other manufacturers in LMP2, all of which have seen it all before at Le Mans, not to mention countless races the world over. Our Ligier is the new kid on the block, and Onroak are throwing it straight in at the deep end.
We’ve completed a Le Mans distance in testing and know the car is reliable, but there’s always a degree of uncertainty until you run at La Sarthe itself. We’re undoubtedly at a disadvantage in that respect, so to have finished the test fourth in class without going all-out for a one-lap banzai run was a promising start. Of course, you can’t read too much into the times at this stage of the game, but it suggests that we’ll be in the mix come June 14/15.
This week is all about mentally preparing yourself for what’s to come. I’ll be back there on Saturday for the build-up, with scrutineering on Sunday and Monday marking the event’s official start. I guess it’s the calm before the storm in some respects. And what a storm it promises to be: 56 cars, 155 drivers and the greatest race circuit in the world. What could possibly be better than that?
PS: keep an eye on @AlexBrundle and facebook.com/AlexBrundleRacing throughout Le Mans week for more updates.
