Two encounters with RAM Racing’s Team Principal Dan Shufflebottom, one at race 2 of the ELMS (and therefore mid-season!) at Imola and one at the team’s Silverstone base at the end of the season, gave the opportunity to put the team’s formation, objectives, achievements and new aims into perspective.
“This team was originally a bit of a dream of the investor [who wishes to remain out of the limelight], who didn’t know a lot of the inner workings but just loved sportscar racing. I met with him, he already owned a GT3 car, but he loaned it out.
“The dream was Le Mans and you can’t do that with a GT3 car, so the investor made the commitment to buy two GTE cars and set up the team. The ALMS or WEC were not beyond the realms of possibility for us but in reality they wouldn’t have been right for the team’s first year.
“ELMS offered a five race championship and quite a relaxed calendar, so it worked out perfectly for us. We thought about the GT Open too but kept a close eye on the press as to how the ELMS was looking to pan out. We bought two 2013 specification cars because we thought initially there would be a Pro and an Am class. We went to see the organisers to discuss it but, when it was clear it was going to be a single class [run to GTE Am specification], it seemed logical to just convert our cars back to the required 2012 specification.
“We spent the next eight months putting everything together, including taking premises on the technology park at Silverstone where we are now based.
“Our car was the very first 2013 car out of the factory. We went to pick it up, shook it down and then brought it back in November last year. The second one we collected in February and that was built as a 2012 specification car; there is very little difference in all honesty, mainly bodywork changes. We did a direct exchange between the 2013 and 2012 parts whilst at Michelotto.
“Then we went into winter testing. We had two days in the wet at Jerez, testing Michelin’s customer tyre and trying out Frankie Montecalvo and Federico Leo. We also did three days at Estoril with Michelin and we got both wet and dry conditions there. We did the Ricard ELMS test too… we thought we were obliged to go but it turned out it was only us and IMSA Performance there, but still it was all good experience for the guys.
Everything happened so quickly after that and we were into Silverstone Free Practice before we knew it.”
Johnny Mowlem was also involved from RAM’s early days of gestation, with the reward for a great deal of background help being a guaranteed drive in their lead car. These were his thoughts at Imola: “The long-term plans for RAM Racing and sportscars were already forming around February 2012. The question was where and what because we were almost spoilt for choice. They were exciting times but also uncertain times. The WEC was getting stronger, especially with the automatic entry at Le Mans, but there were problems with the P1 field. In GT, America had probably the finest series in the world but, as we saw at Spa with the WEC, that championship wasn’t far off.
“Around August/September 2012 we had to decide. In all honesty, the European Le Mans Series had pretty much had its last rites but I have to say the ACO and LMEM has done a fantastic job in resurrecting it and I am delighted with the way things are going.”
It wasn’t just the team’s management who were going into the new season with a large element of the unknown either, as Gunnar Jeannette recalled. “Pre-season, RAM Racing had committed to the Championship and we had our line-up sorted, whereas others still had TBAs, so we didn’t know until two to three weeks before Silverstone what the level of competition would be. It was a real pleasure to see world class drivers on the entry list, with the potential of being a fantastic GT battle.”
And indeed it was, although it did seem that RAM Racing always had the upper hand and was regarded as the team to beat, as Mowlem himself acknowledged: “Everyone I’ve talked to, whether that’s drivers, team managers and anyone in the pitlane, they have all commented on RAM Racing’s set-up almost being to another level. You only have to look around the pit garage to see how serious this effort is. But it’s not flashy for the sake of it; everything there has been carefully thought through and is there for one purpose – to win races.”
Silverstone was a tricky debut and emotions were mixed throughout the RAM Racing camp afterwards. Dan Shufflebottom: “We learned so much from Silverstone, more than you could ever learn from just reading the regulations!
“The [awful] weather gave us the opportunity to get the #53 car up to the front even though it qualified seventh. First and seventh in qualifying to second and third in the race… we should be happy but it did feel a bit disappointing not to convert the pole.”
Frankie Montecalvo: “The weekend at Silverstone was a high-pressure one. I think the whole team felt like that, especially because Dan Shufflebottom had a lot of important people there and not just friends and family! But this team performs better than any other I’ve been with.
“Getting one car on pole gave us all a sense of relief because it proved we were quick enough. We knew the weather would be changeable to say the least and my feel in the immediate post-race was that I was relieved they had red-flagged it. I knew that Matt and Gunnar would have struggled to have held onto second and third places. In those conditions [the relevance of] talent goes out of the window.
“Of course, if someone had said we could have pole position, a second and a third place finish, we’d have ripped their arm off, but we wanted to win. If it was dry we might have won and it was very positive for the team early on.”
Matt Griffin: “It could always be better, we always want to win but for a new team, even one with good resources, to rock up at Silverstone and put two cars on the podium in a really competitive championship is a great result. Yes we expected to be there, but it is still a mega achievement and that is attributable to Dan and the team.”
But from Silverstone onwards it was a relatively straightforward climb to the championship title for the team and for Mowlem and Griffin in the driver’s championship. Imola: first and third on the grid and in the race. Austria: first and third in the race again, Hungary: second and sixth (a good result in difficult conditions but still regarded by the team as something of a disappointment) and the final race at Paul Ricard: first and fifth.
Dan Shufflebottom: (back in May) “We’ve all had an input as to what needed to change and everyone has pulled together and the belief was there that we could win the Championship. If we can win the ELMS, then I am sure the investor will want us to do something else, ALMS [or its replacement, the TUSC] or WEC? Who knows? The American series has a lot of things to clear up and, as ever, the team will need the information early enough to commit. By that I mean a couple of months.
“We did submit an entry for this year’s Le Mans, but we only got onto the reserve list. We were a new team, so you could understand that, but I think now they would see how serious we are. In the end we withdrew that entry because we didn’t want to find that suddenly we were going to be invited to do the race when we weren’t properly prepared. If you aren’t properly prepared for Le Mans, there is no point in going, it is just money burnt. The ACO tried to coerce me into staying on the reserve list but it didn’t look like a reality. So we thought we would do it properly, win this championship and get the automatic entry so, whatever we do in 2014, we want to be at Le Mans too. We’d also love to do Petit Le Mans with a car if we can.”
Petit didn’t happen but the Championship was won and an automatic entry for Le Mans in 2014 is the result.
So with the season over and the trucks in the final stages of being unloaded post Paul Ricard, the workshop was a hive of activity with the two GTE 458s in the early stages of their post-season rebuilds. Before talk returned to the topic of GTE plans for 2014, attention was turned to the third race bay, filled with the team’s GT3 spec Ferrari which is once again bound for the Dubai 24 Hours, the race where the team made its racing debut in January this year (Guy Smith is pictured below).
But, instead of the now familiar white and blue livery, the GT3 car is being prepped for a very different look with the car which was in the final stages of being wrapped in chromed vinyl during the DSC Ed’s visit.
“Dubai is unfinished business for us,” said Dan Shufflebottom, “we feel we could have shown better last year and want to have another crack. The driver squad is yet to be finalised but will include Matt (Griffin) and Johnny (Mowlem) plus a local businessman and a third pro.”
Beyond Dubai there are no firm plans for the GT3 car, the plan is to get the car out to the Gulf very soon and to test extensively, getting the gentleman driver up to speed ahead of January’s 24 Hours.
The subject of Code 60 came up almost immediately. The Creventic-developed alternative to Safety Car periods finds favour at DSC Towers but Dan begs to differ, at least in part: “In theory I think it’s a great idea, it saves the lengthy safety car periods that racing nowadays seems to involve, but the problem is in its implementation. There’s not enough lighting at Dubai to make the marshals’ posts visible enough at night and the driving discipline shown out on track is sometimes a bit suspect too.
“Code 60 periods led to both the incidents that heavily delayed us this year. The instructions are very clear: at the Code 60 you should come off the power and coast down to 60 km/h. Sadly though, that doesn’t happen reliably enough. Guy (Smith)’s incident happened when he came onto the start/finish straight just as a Code 60 was called and he found the two cars ahead braking heavily in response. He had to throw the car hard to the right to avoid them and was then hit hard from behind and punted into the pit wall by another car that hadn’t slowed down.”
As for the 2014 programme for the GTE cars that has elements of certainty about it, but there are questions still to be answered too:
“Our ELMS title gets us a GTE Pro entry for Le Mans and we will certainly be taking that up. Beyond that, the current plan is likely to involve a two car entry into the WEC for 2014 but whether that will be with a pair of Pro cars (it will certainly be one) or one car in Am remains to be seen.”
There’s another potential programme that might just emerge though. Having taken a good long look at ALMS for 2013, is TUSC of any interest for next year as an alternative to WEC?
“Yes definitely, I know we all look at the prospect of racing in North America with some real enthusiasm, but the reality is that it can’t happen without some support from Ferrari. The budgets in TUSC are, pretty typically, around 15% more than for the WEC. With a 24-hour, 12-hour, 10-hour and 6-hour race on the schedule there is a LOT of track time, and that means a lot of hours on the cars.”
(Ed’s note – DSC understand that Ferrari support has not been forthcoming for any customer team for a full TUSC GTLM programme.)
RAM has made its mark straight away with an impressive first season on the international scene; be prepared for more potential surprises in the coming season.
PS and GG
