No sleep 'til Le Mans

Sitting up in the middle of the night watching the Bathurst 12 Hour being run half a world away, I finally worked out what I find so engrossing about endurance racing.

Formula One is of course the pinnacle of motorsport, and rightly so.  It’s the world’s best drivers in the world’s fastest machines, and when most non-petrol heads think of motorsport that’s what they envision – kind of like when I think of competitive chess I think of a Russian in a sharp suit playing against an American in Oslo (I know there’s more to it, I just don’t know what).  But for me, endurance racing is the greatest kind of racing on four wheels.

My view of the Bathurst 12 Hour may have had something to do with it.

                My first taste of endurance racing was at the Nürburgring a few years ago when my friend Jens managed to blag some pit passes for the Nürburgring 24 Hours.  Of course I’d grown up hearing about Le Mans, but before seeing it in person I couldn’t ever really see the appeal of racing twice around the clock.  If I’m honest, my main motivation in going was to finally see The Green Hell for myself – but I also like camping and drinking beer, so there were enough boxes to be ticked that would ensure an enjoyable weekend.  I left a changed man.

                I’d be lying if I said access to the pit boxes didn’t help sell the concept to me.  But it wasn’t necessary – it was the icing on an already tasty, tasty cake.  Seeing the fervor with which the mechanics attacked a faulty rear brake caliper in the middle of the night while a safety car condensed the field, and the drained faces in the paddock the next morning (after I’d had the luxury of a few hours sleep) struck home the commitment required from the entire team just to finish.

                About 20 hours in and just past lunchtime on the Sunday, my friends decided they’d prefer to beat the traffic and head back to Stuttgart.  ‘Are you coming?’ they asked.

                ‘Are you crazy?  There’s still 4 hours to go!  You don’t know what’s going to happen.  Go ahead and leave, but I’m staying!’

                Twenty hours earlier while walking through the grid just before the red lights went out, I spotted an Australian privateer effort running a Subaru WRX and I’d been tracking their progress ever since.  They were a long way off from class honours – let alone the outright lead – but I felt that even though they had no idea I was there, national camaraderie dictated that I needed to stay (never mind being completely entranced by the drama unfolding before me).  As I stood there, clinging to the wire fence watching on as each car disappeared over the left-hand crest leading into Hatzenbach, anxiously waiting for the Aussie Subaru to come past every 8-or-so minutes (did they crash?), I was suddenly converted.  And I realized what I loved about it.

                Endurance racing shares a lot with Test cricket.  Sure, one’s a lot noisier than the other, but both are exercises in patience, opportunism, and not only carefully measured aggression, but also humility.  In both sports it can often seem to the casual observer as though not much is happening – a bowler bowls, the batsman blocks it.  Bowler bowls again, batsman blocks again.  Two opposing drivers consistently lap the course without the driver behind challenging the one in front.  It’s just cars going around a track.  But the torpidity on the surface belies a barely simmering tension.  A tension that, when you least expect it, is blasted wide open with the fall of a bail, or a de-laminating tyre.

That wasn't in our race strategy...

                Both are team sports decided between individuals.  Bowler versus batsman, driver verses driver.  However each individual relies on his or her teammates in order to gain incremental advantages – a fast bowler bowling an outswinging delivery resulting in a thick edge from the batsman is useless if the slip cordon isn’t there to catch it.  Likewise, a driver can post lap record after lap record, but if his co-drivers, race engineer or pit crew don’t take care of their responsibilities it can be all for naught.

I'm pretty sure I left my front door open!

                Roughly four hours into this years’ Bathurst 12 Hour, young Kiwi upstart Shane Van Gisbergen took the wheel of Darrell Lea Racing’s McLaren MP4-12C in second place and immediately set a blistering pace, each lap taking chunks out of the commanding 28 second lead enjoyed by Erebus Racing’s Mercedes-Benz SLS, being driven by German touring car legend Bernd Schneider.  Before long, and after negotiating past slower traffic, Van Gisbergen had the Mercedes in his crosshairs.  Schneider was nearing the end of his stint, putting down the last few laps before handing the car over to his co-driver, and doing his best to nurse his quickly fading tyres home safely.  On the surface, he was easy prey for the physically fresh Van Gisbergen and his just-pitted McLaren.

This is neither Van Gisbergen nor Schneider... but you get the idea. 

                For four laps they battled around Mount Panorama; it was clear that Van Gisbergen had the pace, but Schneider had track position.  Then, without notice or fanfare Schneider opened up the racing line and simply lifted off midway down Conrod Straight to let Van Gisbergen through, seemingly waiving the white flag.  But while Schneider had succumbed to Van Gisbergen’s skirmish, the message was clear.  He had shown that on a level playing field his Mercedes would more than match the McLaren.  He was also astute enough to know that it was too early to start getting tangled up in potentially race-ending battles. 

                Hubris is dangerous, especially at 170 mph.  Shortly after his battle with Schneider, Van Gisbergen quickly hunted down 90’s F1 star Mika Salo in Maranello Raging’s Ferrari 458, also nearing the end of his stint.  Maranello Racing were in 4^th place and struggling to stay on the lead lap, and it was taking all of Salo’s experience and fortitude to keep Van Gisbergen at bay.  But despite the struggle, Salo knew that Van Gisbergen was the strongest driver in his team.  While the McLaren itself was a strong package, Darrell Lea Racing lacked the depth of Maranello’s star-studded line-up, including V8 Supercars legend-elect Craig Lowndes.  Salo knew they would have ample opportunity to reclaim the deficit once Van Gisbergen’s weaker teammates took the wheel.

As Van Gisbergen finally made it past Salo, he gave the Finn the, shall we say, internationally recognized signal for ‘thank you for moving over’.  The gesture was duly noted not only in Maranello Racing’s garage, but throughout the paddock, and the always confident Van Gisbergen now found himself with a larger than usual target on his back.  Darrell Lea Racing’s lead would ultimately be short-lived.

                After 12 attritional hours Maranello Racing crossed the line first, winning by just 0.4 seconds from HTP Motorsport’s Mercedes-Benz SLS, with Erebus Motorsport rounding out the podium.  Darrell Lea Racing finished 4^th just 3.1 seconds behind the winner.  Just like at Edgbaston in 2005, where England managed to hang on after 5 days against Australia to win by just 2 runs, the grueling war was decided by the smallest of margins.

                To quote an old Harley-Davidson advertisement, for those who don’t understand, no explanation will suffice.  For those who do understand, no explanation is necessary.

                In the years since that eye-opening experience at the Nordschleife I’ve been lucky enough to witness a number of epic battles, including at Circuit de la Sarthe, just south of Le Mans, where it all began.  As of today there's just under 2 weeks until the green flag drops on the World Endurance Championship of 2014, the first round of which will be at Silverstone.

Danish endurance racing superstar Tom Kristensen
will be looking for a 10th win at the 24 Heures du Mans  win in 2014.

                This year has been hotly anticipated – more so than recent years past – due to the return of a factory Porsche effort in the LMP1 category, with recent F1 defector Mark Webber leading the charge.  In recent years Toyota has challenged Audi’s dominance without championship success, while Nissan continues to push the boundaries of technology with their ZEOD entry.  And with the news of Craig Lowndes reprising his role with Maranello Racing in this year’s 24 Hours of Spa in Belgium, there’s a lot for this cricket tragic to get excited about.