International Endurance Series 2015, The Story So Far

While the eyes of endurance racing fans are focussing on the resumption of the World Endurance Championship at the Nürburgring in a a week’s time, the International Endurance Series will reconvene at the Circuit de Catalunya the following week, for the third and final twenty-four race of the Creventic-organised series.

The series gained FIA recognition at the start of the year, as the long distance races for “amateurs and gentleman drivers, semi-professional and professional drivers […] in Touring Cars, GT-Cars and 24H Specials” have become ever-more popular in the last five years.

Dutch agency Creventic, in co-operation with the Dutch National Racing Team, first organised the 24 Hours of Dubai in 2006, but additional events have been added over the years, to the point that this year, a series of three 24-hour and three 12-hour races make up the schedule for the season. Fields range from full-house GT3 cars to hot-hatches, with a few specialist spaceframes in between, with reasonable entry fees(just €4,900 for an under 2-litre car at Barcelona) leading to big grids and a virtuous circle of increasing popularity.

So far this season, there have been 24-hour races at Dubai and Paul Ricard and 12-hour races at Mugello (“four plus eight”) and Zandvoort (“three plus nine”). Although Mercedes’ have won three of the four races thus far (a Porsche won at Mugello), each race has been won by a different team. In 72 hours of racing this season, there have been 60 changes of lead and eleven different cars have led a race at some point, from Mercedes, Porsche, Aston Martin, Ferrari and Audi.

At a time when the Blancpain Endurance Series is looking as strong as ever, Creventic’s series is playing to a rather different audience, with a rather different set of participants, but racing that is just as close and competitive. It is no surprise then, that the entry list for the Barcelona race – the only current F1 track on the schedule – currently boasts 76 entries, 10 of which are in the A6 (GT3) class.

Predicting the outcome of a 24-hour race is a perilous business, but Ram Racing, having held the lead of both of the 12-hour races at their respective intervals, finally scored a badly-needed win at the uninterrupted Paul Ricard 24-hour race. The British-entered Mercedes SLS AMG will no doubt arrive in Catalonia with high hopes. Jeroen Bleekemolen joins Tom Onslow-Cole, Thomas Jäger and Paul White in place of Adam Christodoulou, making the driving crew even stronger (at least in the eyes of the FIA, whose driver categorisation rates Christodoulou as “Gold” and Bleekemolen as “Platinum”).

Ram currently lies only third in the overall series’ standing, behind Hofor-Küpperracing (A5 class BMW M3) and Bonk Motorsport (CUP1 class BMW M235i), so will be eager for maximum points in the multi-class structure of the series. Competition will be fierce, however, with Mugello winners’ HB Racing Team Herberth’s Porsche, the Hofor Racing Mercedes (winners at Zandvoort) and the Scuderia Praha Ferrari 458 Italia (with Matteo Malucelli and Peter Kox aboard) all likely to keep Dan Shufflebottom’s team on its toes.

The beauty of Creventic series’ races though is often not in the fight for overall lead, but in the fights for the lead in each of the various classes. It is also interesting to watch how high the class leaders manage to climb in the overall standings. At Paul Ricard, the leading 997 class car (confusingly, a Porsche 991 Cup car, entered by Ruffier Racing), was fifth in the overall standings, and a little more attrition at Barcelona might lead to an even better result.

In broad terms, the class structure splits the entry into four groups: GT cars, Special cars, Petrol Touring cars and Diesel Touring cars. The Porsche Cup and GT3 cars compose the first of these – with, as already mentioned, 10 GT3 cars and 8 Porsches. There are 20 “Specials”, split into SP2 for the larger-engined cars, and SP3 for basically GT4 machinery. The petrol-powered Touring Cars are limited to a maximum of 3500cc, and include BMW M3s at the top end and Seat Leons, Renault Clios and Honda Civics at the less-powerful end of the spectrum. The diesels are less numerous, and although four cars feature on the provisional entry list for Barcelona, none has started a race thus far this year.

It is always fun to pick out ‘fan favourites’ in these races, and personal ones will be: Cor Euser’s GT4 Lotus Evora and Martin Short’s V8 BMW M3 in the SP3 class, the Synchro Motorsport Honda Civic (with Martin Byford and Dan Wheeler among the drivers) in A3T and Jakob Kristensen (yes, TK’s brother) in the class A2 Peugeot RCZ, entered by Team K-Rejser.

Finally, (if they turn up) I’ll be watching to see whether the diesel class will go the way of the efficient Swiss TTC-Racing Golf MkV or whether the mysterious (if unpronounceable) Lithuanians in the Kaukas Golf, the exotic Hungarians in the RCM Seat Leon – or even the all-Spanish driver line-up in the Black Motorsport Seat Leon FR – can take the class!

The green flag waves for the start of the 24 hours of Barcelona at 12:00 noon European time on Saturday 5th September, and the winners will be awarded with the “Trofeu Fermí Vélez”, in honour of the twice Group C2 Champion in the World Sportscar Championship and twice winner (in a Ferrari 333SP) of the Sebring 12 Hours. A Barcelona native, Fermin died from cancer just before his 44th birthday, in 2003, but is still fondly remembered by all who knew him.