Last year saw the introduction of compulsory simulator and classroom training for all Le Mans 24 Hours ‘rookies’. That rule applies equally to Gentleman drivers and to full professionals who have never before raced on the hallowed track.
That means that even Force India F1 team driver, Nico Hülkenberg, who will race for Porsche’s factory LMP1 team has had a specific training session on a simulator.
Hülkenberg visited the AOTech company’s simulator on his way back from taking part in the Bahrain F1 Grand Prix on Wednesday in Saint-Pierre-du-Perray close to Paris via a stopover at Paul Ricard, where Porsche was testing its LM P1 cars.
In compliance with the Le Mans 24-Hours sporting regulations a debutant driver in the event, or one who hasn’t raced in it for more than five years, must spend a day there to familiarise him/herself with the innovative safety procedures in place during the Sarthe classic.
As Hülkenberg has never raced on the big Le Mans 24-Hours circuit, he had to do three-hours driving divided up into six 30-minute sessions in this machine to learn the layout and its traps, familiarise himself with the positions of the marshals’ posts, manage the traffic, discover the safety car and slow zone procedures at daytime and at nighttime, and pass the ‘surprise’ tests like a sudden change in grip on a section of the track, which often happens at Le Mans. It’s an excellent form of apprenticeship and a big gain in time for the day when he will be at the wheel of the Porsche 919 Hybrid LM P1.
Every evening, AOTech sends the reports on each debutant to the ACO. These documents give the Le Mans 24-Hours sports management a different take on the on-the-spot behaviour of these debutants during the test day (this year on 31st May), in which they must take part before they can hope to be allowed to compete in practice and then in the race itself.
AOTech, in collaboration with the ACO, is already working on a new version in which the drivers will be installed in cockpits very close to those in LM P and LM GTE, whereas today they are strapped into a single-seater chassis. In 2014 some 40 drivers in the Le Mans 24 Hours passed the test and this number should be fairly similar for this year’s event (the full list of drivers taking part in the 2015 Le Mans 24 Hours will be announced at the end of May).
The German driver enjoyed himself very much during this special day, and said that he was now looking forward to tackling the real, and not the simulated version, of the Le Mans 24-Hours circuit: “Over the past four or five years I’ve become very interested in endurance racing,” he summed up, “ and above all the Le Mans 24 Hours. I’m impatient to measure myself against the challenge posed by the circuit.”
Hülkenberg will find out what it’s all about on 31st May during the test day. But before that he still has two grand prix (Spain and Monaco) in front of him, plus the WEC 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps and then between the test day (31st May) and the Le Mans 24 Hours (13-14 June) the Canadian Grand Prix.
