FIA WEC/ALMS, 12 Hours of Sebring - Thursday Afternoon
Audi 1-2-3 - GT Sandbagging?

As the afternoon session kicked off at Sebring, the weather had started to change a bit. The blue skies had been transformed, turning the backdrop of the action into an appearance very similar to what has been in the Simpsons Springfield for many years now.  The wind has kicked up a bit too, but nothing too major.  Just enough to keep a non-Florida native cool.

Early in the session, the Dyson Lola lost power on the back straight and coasted into the pits in stealth mode, coming to a stop in front of the Audi pit.  Crew rushed to retrieve the car, pushing it down pit lane.  If it had been an Audi, they simply could have blown on the car to move it down pit lane.  According to the team, there was no warning, but also no bang – the power simply vanished.  The car did not return in the session.

Reports are that Rebellion has picked up the ex-Peugeot paddock tent.  Thus, it becomes the Peugeot past tents and now the Rebellion present tent.

Early on, the time sheets took on the expected Audi 1-2-3 at the top.  Timo Bernhard, who’s car was second fastest in the session said, “the car is very good, but good lap time are so dependent on the track conditions.  The wind picked up to around 15-16 mph on the back straight and you can really feel that in the car.  We’ve been able to stay in the top couple spots in all the sessions so that is good, but the Muscle Milk car is also very quick. I don’t think you can forget about them.”

I know feeling sorry for Audi is sort of an odd thing, but in this case, I think you’ve got to.  When planning started for Sebring, the thought was that they’d have Peugeot to battle here.  Instead, they’re in a win/no win situation.  If they win, well no shock here.  Sort of no big deal will be the general thought.  They were expected to.  If they lose, wow – a disaster for them.  Even by not being here, the presence (or lack thereof) of Peugeot is still felt.

Muscle Milk has been enjoying their short time with their HPD ARX-03a, where they have typically been in the top spots in the sessions.  In this session, Klaus Graf guided the car to a top 5 position yet again.  “The car is very good so far. The track conditions have not been the best - I got into some fluid early this morning.  The weather has such an impact on conditions here.  The track is constantly changing with the wind direction and temperature.  I don’t think we have the outright speed of the Audi’s, but in race conditions it will be different. Our HPD is very drivable and works well through the traffic.  I believe the Audi will be down in the 46’s for qualifying, but again that depends on a lot on the weather.  If it continues to get hotter the track will slow down.  Our tire wear appears to be good, and we should be able to double stint.  We would like to get some longer runs in during practice to really test that.”

In GT, early on it was a Corvette 1-2, but as the session went on, the others started catching up.  But is it only a game right now?  The combined WEC/ALMS GT(E) class saw the 51 AF Corse Ferrari on top, followed by the 155 BMW.  To keep the variety up, the 45 Gliding Reptile looks to be ready to fly, rising to 3rd fastest.  The top two were in the 2:00 range, and the next seven, including the second BMW, both Corvettes and also the Aston Martin were in the 2:01s.  It looks like the 2:00 barrier will be broken this this weekend.

Patrick Long – “It’s a typical midweek at Sebring.  Everybody in GT is holding back trying not to show their hand.  They are all afraid of the officials reaction if you show to much speed. Wait until qualifying and somebody will miraculously find a second and a half in their lap time.  But we will continue to work on the car trying to make it drive well.  Traffic is crazy.  It is great for the race to have a large grid, but it makes it tougher on us.  The GTC and PC cars have been great, but the P2 cars are so down on power that racing with them has been difficult.”

Oliver Gavin – “The 4 car has been pretty good.  I think we are genuinely in the mix in GT.  Any one of about 12 cars have a shot at it. Right now there is sand pouring out of everyone’s doors.  Nobody is really showing what they have.  It’s a real challenge out there with the traffic. There are so many drivers that are inexperienced at this track.  They go off a little bit at turn 7 and dirty their tires.  They think no problem I’ll have them cleaned off by turn 10.  They brake normally and discover they have no grip and go straight off.  They come back on dragging a bunch of sand with them through turn 13, get off line a bit there and pretty soon the track has got sand from turn 7 all the way through 17. It’s going to take patience and driving smart to survive the race.  You can’t afford to get crazy early on, or get caught up in a personal battle two other cars might be having, which is all easy to say sitting here on the sidelines. It all tends to change a bit once you pull the hat on and are fighting for your life out there. Earlier I had some contact on track with Tom K.  He’s got 8 wins at Le Mans and how many laps here?  I have 4 wins at Le Mans and thousands of laps here.  So there is always the possibility of contact no matter how experienced you are.  But the depth of talent and the quality of machinery out here is amazing.  It’s really the strength of the ALMS and the WEC. It’s a race that any driver would want to be in and a win here would be huge for us.”

The weekend will end with nine podium celebrations.  Why not make it an odd and even more uncomfortable eleven.  Our proposals are for the Gulf and Lotus marked cars – why not just carry the celebrations on into Sunday morning? 

P2 continues to be a Level 5 show, as they took the top two spots in the class, courtesy of a late push by Hunter-Reay.  The HPD P2 project has progressed tremendously since it started last season. 

In the Politically Challenged class, the new Merchant Services Racing took the top time, a spot that had been held by Butch Leitzinger in the PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports entry for quite some time.  Second in class ended up being Performance Tech. 

Butch Leitzinger – “It’s crowded out there! It makes it difficult to really work on the setup of the car as you never get a clear run.  I only got a few corners to myself during my entire stint.  You’re always adjusting your line and braking at different spots to allow for the traffic.  You will never get a full clear lap, just moments along the way and then into a another pack of cars. The GTC, GT, PC and P2 cars all have a pretty similar top end speed, and the GT cars brake into, and get on the gas out of the corners at about the same location as us, so that makes it extremely difficult to get around a slower car. Our car is running good - I think we are right there.  The PC class is going to very completive.  It should be a fun year.”

Defending Champions CORE did not have a great session, ending up 7th and 9th in the session.  Before the session, Jon Bennett, team owner of Core, as well as a driver for the team talked about his and his team’s efforts.  “We’re quite happy here racing in the PC class.  It’s a financially workable way for us to go racing.  We’ve looked into P2 a bit, but we’d only move up to it if the numbers made sense.  Right now, they don’t make sense for us.  I think the class, when it grows (more entries) may make sense, but right now there just aren’t enough entries to make it attractive.”

Last season, the series struggled to find the right balance between the classes, and early on, the PC cars were excessively strangled, when it came to straight line speed.  “They made some changes as the season went on and I’m pretty content with how the balance has worked out now.  Early on we were just too slow in the straights – it’s ok now.  It’s a difficult thing to do – to balance out all of these classes, but I think overall the series has done a pretty good job.”  As far as the difficulty of being an owner/driver, Jon said there were no real problems?  “No problems at all.  When I arrive at the track, I’m just one of the drivers.  I leave it up to the team to keep things going and I drive.  It’s important to keep the attitudes right.  Last season, I saw that there were times when we were caught up in the battle too much and we’d lost some of the fun aspect of racing.  We aim to keep it fun and loose here, but still competitive.  The car knows the attitude of the driver.  Too much aggression in the car is not a good thing.  It leads to slower lap times, as well as likely incidents on track.”  

The session was stopped by 3 red flag incidents.  Thankfully all were minorand didn’t appear to lead to any long lasting problems.

Quotes:

Christian Zugel (Greaves Motorsport) – “The car is very good!  We’ve really had no troubles with the traffic.  Even the Audi’s and other P1 cars have been giving room.  We’ll see if the changes for the race, but so far so good.”

David Brabham (JRM) – “We are on a steep learning curve.  It’s all new to this team.  We just shook the car down for the first time on Tuesday and I’ve yet to have any hot laps in the car.  The other drivers are learning the car and this circuit for the first time and the team is also learning the car.”

RW & GH