The Hills are Alive, With the Sound of Racing.
There were two further omissions from the expected grid at the Red Bull Ring on Friday morning beyond Greaves Motorsport that we already knew about. DKR Engineering were a no-show, so could that be a case of Le Mans done, season done? If that is the case then the no-show is also a bad show.
The other omission was far more significant, being Oliver Turvey, whose name was highlighted on the entry with the rather ominous words: “Not authorized to take part in the sessions” next to it.
Your scribe has been loitering around the Jota awning (garages belong to the Renault event this weekend) for far too long in the sweltering Austrian heat to find out the story, but Simon Dolan has been a very busy man. Busy because he had the whole Free Practice 1 session to himself and made a pretty good account of himself, fifth overall and only 0.6 seconds off the best of all. That translates to a whole lot of cooling off and de-briefing.
What we have managed to glean however is that Turvey has, since FP1, arrived at the Spielberg track having been at a young driver test at Silverstone representing McLaren, some kind of single seater series called F1 apparently. He will be out in Free Practice 2 and of course Saturday which will make a nice change from just driving round in circles.
With Dolan putting Jota fifth, the story at the head of the times was largely one of TDS Racing. Beche is one of those drivers who likes to be on it straightaway and TDS seems to be one of those teams. So they let him do his thing and he was quickest for most of the session, as was team-mate Pierre Thiriet when he took over the championship-leading #1 Oreca 03 Nissan towards the end of the hour. TDS Racing really do go at it 100%, 100% of the time and it wasn’t surprising to see them top of the times with a 1:25.638 taken on the flag, but what was surprising (not least because the timing screen said otherwise) is that it was Pierre Thiriet that did the time. “We had a great set-up and the engineers did a great job so it is not very hard to push when you have a very good car.”
But there are at least three other drivers with that ethos in P2 (two of them are here the other is travelling very fast towards Austria from the UK) and Signatech Alpine’s Nelson Panciatici and Murphy Prototypes Brendon Hartley didn’t disappoint. Panciatici looked like he had taken the top spot with a 1:25.864 with only minutes to go before Thiriet trumped it.
Ragues was as smiley as ever though: “We have the second practice session to properly prepare for qualifying and it is hard for us to know at the moment where the balance of our car, with its Michelins, is compared with everyone else is on their Dunlops. Of course, if we are quick, people will say it is the tyres, but if we are fourth, then people might say we are not having such a good day, but it could be the tyres too. It all depends on the conditions. At Imola we didn’t make the best strategy with our tyres at the start and we had to change them twice, which the others didn’t. Here we must make sure we have a good strategy, the same as anyone else who makes a good one, then we can see how we really compare but then we must be looking for a win. It is my first time at this track but I have been driving it a lot at Signatech’s Ellip6 simulator and it is amazing how accurate that is. For sure, it is a little bit short and tricky for our car but I think it will be a fun and compact three hours in the race. The GTs are very fast in a straight line here so to do well I think we are going to have take risks in the traffic.”
Hartley was only 0.2 seconds further back in third, having given the itchy-footed Jonathan Hirschi most of the session. He was getting to grips with his third P2 chassis in as many races and posting some times that were making Greg Murphy feel pretty pleased with his choice. He doesn’t need to deliver a blinding pace, that is what Brendon Hartley’s job is, but he does need to put in a performance to both prove the outspoken TDS manager wrong and put the nightmare of Imola’s gravel traps and brake/damper problems behind him.
Boutsen Ginion sat fourth in class by the end, the new (Lotus WEC) driver pairing of Dominik Kraihamer and Thomas Holzer showing the true potential of the team and enjoying themselves too. Kraihamer: Although I am from Austria I have never driven here before, in fact I only came here for the first time a month ago to watch the DTM race. It is nice to be here in my home country and racing in front of Austrian fans. I know the Boutsen Ginion team well, I raced with them for a year and a half in FLM and then in the ELMS and they can make a competitive car. I thought it would be good to take Thomas here, he went really well at Le Mans and as we can see from Free Practice 1 he is going well here too. He knows the track really well and he can help me find its ‘secrets’. There are about two or three that are very important and if you don’t know them it will take a long time to find them. There is a really big break in the WEC series, it is too long really and a lot of the drivers are saying that. We hardly get any seat-time unless we go testing so it is good to come here and race.” Kraihamer noted that the Oreca was “much easier than the Lotus to get in and go at a quick pace, but the Lotus is still being developed whereas everything is sorted [on the Oreca]. The visibility is heaps, heaps, heaps better but it is different and I’m still trying to get all the braking points and turn-ins right. This circuit is one where braking is very important, but exit speed too. “
Natacha Gachnang posted Morand’s quickest laps at the end of the session, within a second of TDS but sixth overall. If it stays this tight for the race then we are certainly in for more Imola-esque excitement in the race. SMP Racing were half a second further back with Zlobin’s still impressive 1:27.097, the team getting to grips with a prototype for the first time having made the decision to join P2 only a fortnight ago and against Maurizio Mediani’s initial advice “Serguey, we are not ready I said, but here we are!” Race Performance were only a tenth further back, Frey taking most of the seat-time but there is no reason not to expect Niederhauser to move them up as the weekend develops.
Developments in PC were encouraging in one way and disappointing in another. On the plus side, we have a new team for the rest of the season (and maybe next) in the Algarve Pro Racing Team. Cornelius Jones (Portugese and not a Brit as previously reported) joins GT specialist Nicky Catsburg. And what an opening session it was for them, Catsburg eclipsing even the mercurial Paul Loup-Chatin to head the class with a 1:29.080. That time did bring the Frenchman out seemingly to try to match it, but he couldn’t quite do it. The disappointment was that Soheil Ayari suffered front end damage after an incident with AF Corse’s #62 GTC Ferrari only two laps in that put the car out for the rest of the session. #26 will be playing catch-up now. Catsburg was relaxed and upbeat as he took in the sun: “I have a GT background, after winning the Megane championship in 2010 I have raced Corvettes and Nissans in GT1 and helped develop the Nissan GT3 car. I’ve since done Blancpain with Marc VDS, which is in effect a semi-works BMW outfit. Our line-up for Spa has some really good ingredients! But as for this team, Cornelius drove in the Megane Trophy and I was his coach. He decided he wanted to move on and bought the LMPC car, did some testing and we saw that he was quick. The plan is to take the car to Daytona for the 24 Hours if everything goes well, maybe Sebring too but everything is very new so we will have to see. I last drove an open car in 2008, Formula Renault 2 litre, so it is all quite new being in a prototype, but isn’t going so bad. I love this kind of track, very old-school. Lots of elevation changes which changes the balance of the car and if you are off, you are in the gravel, not still on the asphalt like somewhere like Ricard. We need to focus on Cornelius of course because he will do two of the three hours in the race. ”
GTE is extremely tight as we would expect, Tandy setting a good pace for his initial set-up run. “It was a bit hot in the car but it went well. I’ve raced here in the last year so I did a few laps just to check the car, then we put Gianluca Roda in because it is a while since he has been here. He had most of the session and then we put Christian Ried in at the end. We’ll work on our qualifying pace this afternoon and go from there but everything is good so far. Having three drivers is always going to be a disadvantage but we also need to work out the tyre strategy here, how long we can go at what kind of pace. I think new tyres will make a big difference here.” Team-mate Christian Ried was clear on the broad strategy: “We are second in the Championship so we will push and go as fast as possible.” The trio fell to fourth in class by the end as Roda got into the groove.
The matching sister car, #88, with its all Austrian crew also went well. Klaus Bachler isn’t a well-known name but he lives only around 25km from the circuit and knows it very well from Porsche racing. He made a good account of himself but this car will inevitably be playing second fiddle.
Ferrari took a 1-2-3 in GTE at the close of the session, AF Corse’s Federico Leo lodging a closing series of clinical laps in #55 culminating in a 1:30.993 at the end to edge out Bertolini in JMW’s #66 car by 3/100ths of a second. Bertolini had jumped clear of the pack at one point, his Dunlops helping to bite a half-second gap, but it is all to play for again now. Mowlem was third with RAM Racing’s #52, despite a coming together with #66 that was under investigation but resolved with a handshake. Collard, who missed round two, was right on the pace too, well the Porsche pace at least, with a 1:31.630.
In GTC Viktor Shaitar in SMP Racing’s #69 and AF Corse’s Lorenzo Casé were duking it out for quickest time in GTC and finished in that order in the low 32s, so extremely close to the GTE cars here despite it being warmer and drier than anyone could have possibly imagined from a race in the Austrian mountains. SMP Racing’s Frolov and the evergreen Peter Kox ultimately demoted the class-leading Ecurie Ecosse BMW to last in class right at the end of the session, but Ollie Millroy isn’t the sort to allow that to remain the case for long.
Roll on Free Practice 2, for this correspondent endurance racing is finally sweet once again.
PS
