Musings on Le Mans 2014

Today’s Austrian Grand Prix may not have been quite as explosive an affair as the one we witnessed at Montreal, but the result was another crucial one for the title challenge of Nico Rosberg. The German’s third win of the season ahead of teammate Lewis Hamilton puts him 29 points clear in the drivers’ standings, with the pressure now well and truly on for Hamilton to respond on home turf at Silverstone in two weeks’ time.

But, despite the title of this blog, this post focuses on the events of the preceding weekend, during which the 82^nd running of the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans took place. It was a race that Toyota should have won, Porsche could have won and Audi – for the 13^th time in 16 attempts – did win.

It was a classic race of attrition, and the victorious trio of André Lotterer, Marcel Fässler and Benoît Tréluyer would be the first ones to admit that their third triumph around the legendary Circuit de la Sarthe owed much to the superior reliability of their #2 Audi R18 e-tron quattro as well a fair dose of good fortune.

Not for the first time in recent history, Audi did not have the fastest car in the field at Le Mans – as evidenced by the German marque’s trio of turbodiesel machines lining up in fifth, sixth and seventh places on the starting grid behind all four of their petrol-powered adversaries in the LMP1-H class.

That plaudit belonged to Toyota, who, on the back of two WEC race victories from two at Silverstone and Spa, were understandably being billed as pre-race favourites. But, having the quickest car is no guarantee of success at Le Mans, much as Toyota themselves found out in the late 1990s with their ultra-fast but somewhat fragile GT-One contender.

And so it proved again around 14 hours into this year’s event, when the #7 TS040 Hybrid of Alexander Wurz, Stephane Sarrazin and Kazuki Nakajima – which had started from pole position and led virtually the entire distance up to that point – ground to a halt along the Mulsanne Straight after a wiring loom melted having established a cushion of over two minutes out front.

With the sister car of Anthony Davidson, Nicolas Lapierre and Sebastien Buemi already out of the running for victory following a shunt along the Mulsanne in the torrential conditions that arrived in the second hour of the race (which also eliminated Marco Bonanomi’s #3 Audi on the spot), that was it as far as Toyota’s victory hopes were concerned.

The fact the #8 car, which ultimately finished in third place and five laps down on the #2 Audi, ran pretty much trouble-free  thereafter and thus could have won race without its early incident will come as scant consolation to Toyota, whose search for their elusive first Le Mans victory goes on for at least one more year.

If Toyota are to finally break their Le Mans duck, they would be well-advised to enter three cars in 2015, thus maximising the chances of at least one car getting through the whole race unscathed. Audi lost a car at the same time of the #8 Toyota’s accident, but the Ingolstadt marque still had two chances left to win, while Toyota had just one – which was ultimately squandered.

The #2 Audi assumed control of proceedings after the demise of the #7 Toyota, but a 23-minute stint in the pits to replace a turbocharger around two hours later saw Lotterer, Fässler and Tréluyer relinquish the lead to the sister #1 car of Tom Kristensen, Marc Gené and Lucas Di Grassi.

It seemed at this stage that the trio were on course for a fairytale victory; the ultimate comeback after the #1 car was decimated in a terrifying accident at the Porsche Curves during first qualifying on Wednesday which saw Loïc Duval hospitalised. Indeed, Gené, originally scheduled to drive for the Jota team in LMP2, was a last minute call-up to Audi to replace the Frenchman.

Not only that, it would have been the 10^th Le Mans victory for Kristensen, as well as the first ever win for a Brazilian driver – but it was not to be, as the #1 machine suffered a more or less identical problem to that of the #2 with less than four hours to go, demoting it to an eventual second place at the finish, three laps down.

It was at this stage when the #20 Porsche took the lead, but the car shared by Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley and F1 convert Mark Webber was suffering from a handling imbalance that was allowing Lotterer in the #2 Audi to close the one minute advantage that Porsche held with three hours to go by around five seconds a lap.

Still, without that issue, it’s not inconceivable that Porsche could have taken their first outright Le Mans win since they last fought for overall honours back in 1998. Second place, which would have been a remarkable comeback result, was certainly assured before an engine problem that eventually forced Webber to retire the #20 car with less than three hours to run manifested itself.

The #14 car of Marc Lieb, Romain Dumas and Neel Jani was never in contention, losing time in the first hour of the race in the pits solving a fuel pressure problem and suffering from brake problems en route to an eventual 11^th place finish overall, 31 laps down on the #2 Audi.

Nonetheless, Porsche’s return has to be regarded as a qualified success in spite of the lofty expectations with which some observers saddled the team, with the 919 Hybrid showing some handy pace in qualifying trim (lining up second and fourth on the grid) even if reliability clearly proved an issue. 

Indeed, many are already regarding Porsche as hot favourites to triumph in 2015, though the pressure that comes with such a tag will only make chasing a 17^th outright Le Mans victory that much tougher.

The all-new Rebellion R-One finished a commendable fourth place in only its second race outing, but was massively off the pace of the hybrid-powered factory machines, the #12 car of Nick Heidfeld, Nico Prost and Mathias Beche ending up 19 laps adrift of the winners in spite of enjoying a relatively trouble-free run.

Such a result has to throw into question the point of the LMP1-L class (L stands for light), ostensibly designed to allow private teams such as Rebellion Racing, who cannot afford to develop complex hybrid systems, to at least be in a position to pick up the pieces when the works-entered cars run into trouble – as they all did to varying extents.

What’s more, seeing Heidfeld, Prost and Beche stood alone on during the LMP1-L podium ceremony was an odd sight to behold. The only other entry in the class, the #13 Rebellion, was an early casualty after engine trouble, although a third entry in the form of the Lotus-backed Kodewa team was due to compete before withdrawing due to delays in completing their new chassis.

The LMP2 class was a rather more keenly contested affair, class honours ultimately going to the #38 Jota-run Zytek of Simon Dolan, Harry Tincknell and Oliver Turvey (a late replacement for the Audi-bound Gené) after the pace-setting #35 OAK Racing Ligier developed a spark plug problem late in the race which cost it straight line speed.

It was a bitter pill to swallow for the exceptional trio comprised of GT Academy graduates Jann Mardenborough and Mark Shulzhitskiy as well as Alex Brundle, who would have been fitting class winners; instead, the trio had to be content with finishing fifth in class, but all three can take solace in the fact that they established themselves as endurance racing stars in the making.

In fact, the LMP2 class right now is full of bright young talents who have found their paths on the single-seater racing ladder blocked: Tincknell, who showed some impressive pace on his first visit to Le Mans; Jon Lancaster, another debutant to catch the eye behind the wheel of the #34 Race Performance Oreca; and Oliver Webb, who co-piloted the #36 Signatech Alpine to third in class, to name a few.

It’s good to see that the secondary prototype class is enjoying such strength in depth at the moment, with plenty of ELMS entries bolstering the meagre contingent of WEC cars. And, with Zytek, Dome and HPD in the processing of developing new cars to join the new-for-2014 Ligier, the class looks to set to continue providing a gripping sub-plot to the main event at Le Mans for years to come.

The GTE classes had their fair share of drama too, with the #51 AF Corse Ferrari of Gianmaria Bruni, Toni Vilander and Giancarlo Fisichella taking a comfortable victory in the Pro division after the challenge of its closest rival, the #97 Aston Martin of Darren Turner, Stefan Mücke and Bruno Senna, faltered late in the race with a power steering failure.

The British marque could however celebrate victory in the Am class with victory for the all-Danish #95 crew of Nicki Thiim, David Heinemeier Hansson and Kristian Poulsen – a fitting tribute to the late Allan Simonsen, who was tragically killed at the start of last year’s event in a crash at Tertre Rouge driving for the team.

The future at the moment is looking very bright for Le Mans, as well as sports car racing more generally. Porsche’s return meant that the 2014 race saw three manufacturers in true contention for the overall win for the first time since 1999 (the petrol-powered Aston Martins of 2009-11 couldn't touch their diesel-propelled rivals for pace), and that number looks set to swell in the coming years.

Nissan have already confirmed their comeback to the LMP1 class next year, following on from their ‘Garage 56’ entry this year – which, while failing to complete more than five laps during the race, succeeded in its primary aim of completing a lap of La Sarthe under pure electric power – and are bullish about their prospects with their GT-R LM NISMO contender, which begins testing this autumn.

Then there’s Ferrari. Fernando Alonso, present at Le Mans to wave the tricolore to officially start the race, gave the strongest hint yet that the Scuderia have set their sights upon an LMP1 assault. Rumour has it BMW are also weighing up whether to have another crack at the endurance classic and attempting to give marketplace rivals Audi and Porsche a run for their money.

The beauty of the LMP1 regulations as they currently stand is that they allow each and every manufacturer to approach the category in any way they see fit. Audi, Toyota and Porsche all use completely different engine configurations and methods for deploying their hybrid power, and Nissan claim that they are going to employ a new approach on at least one of those counts next year.

That makes it a far more attractive prospect for prospective new entrants than, say, F1, where the regulations are much more restrictive. Even if a manufacturer isn’t winning, they can at least enjoy the R&D benefits of a trying out a particular technology on the race track that has direct relevance to how they wish to evolve their road cars, making it a far easier task to keep the board happy.

The increasing popularity of the race among the manufacturers was reflected by the number of spectators present. The ACO claimed 263,300 made the trip to Le Mans this year, up by 18,000 from the previous year’s figure, no doubt boosted by the presence of Porsche and Webber – which will have made some that were hitherto on the fence choose to finally make the pilgrimage.

Were Ferrari and Alonso to join the party, it’s more than possible that figure could begin to nudge towards the 300,000 mark, which would give Bernie Ecclestone and the F1 fraternity some real food for thought. It seems endurance racing is on the brink of another golden age to rival any other seen throughout its history so far.

From Melbourne to Montreal: The Story of 2014 So Far

First of all, allow me to apologise for my lack of activity since my last post on this blog some two-and-a-half months ago. In that time, I have finished my degree and the other site for which I have been busy writing, Sportontap.com, has become non-operational for the time being – so I should have more time to devote to updating this blog for at least the next few months. Now we’re (roughly) a third of the way through the 2014 season, a review of the year so far seems as appropriate a way as any to resume my blogging career.

The defining feature of the season so far has of course been the emergence of Mercedes as a hegemonic force to rival any other seen throughout F1 history. Winning the first six races of the year in a row has given the Brackley-based team a record surpassed only by McLaren in their all-conquering 1988 season, and such was their degree of dominance at supposedly non-Mercedes friendly tracks such as Catalunya and Monaco that many had begun to predict a Silver Arrows clean sweep of wins this year. 

Alas, more or less simultaneous MGU-K failures for both cars at Montreal put paid to any such aspirations, although beating the record of 15 wins in a season remains a distinct possibility for Mercedes.

But, while Mercedes has the constructors’ championship in the bag already, calling the outcome of the drivers’ championship is a far more difficult task. Following his fourth successive triumph in Spain, it seemed as if Hamilton had gathered unstoppable momentum – but then came Monaco. 

In many ways, it was a race Rosberg really could not afford to lose, and regardless of whether you believe his incident in qualifying was a nefarious ploy to prevent Hamilton from taking the all-important pole position (for the record, I do not), the German drove an immaculate race under immense pressure to re-ignite a title challenge that had hitherto seemed in danger of wilting.

Rosberg followed this up with a dogged run to second place behind the victorious Ricciardo at Montreal two weeks later despite being hobbled by a loss of some 160 horsepower, which arguably was an even more impressive display than victory at his 'home' race.

Much like at China, where Rosberg suffered from a loss of telemetry, damage limitation became the name of the game once the energy recovery problems struck – one which he played to perfection, keeping Sergio Perez’s Force India (which, admittedly, had issues of its own) at bay lap after lap in spite of his Mercedes’ considerable power loss. 

Though Rosberg was unlikely to ever hang on to the victory once Ricciardo found a way past Perez, the 18 points the German picked up on Sunday could prove crucial when the title fight reaches its climax in November.

Just as was the case following Melbourne, Hamilton now has to win the next four races on the trot, assuming Rosberg were to come second each time, in order to wrest back the championship lead. But, this will be a considerably taller order now that Rosberg has proven he can just about match Hamilton’s pace in qualifying and that, by the time we reach the summer break, Red Bull may well have just about hauled themselves into contention for wins on merit.

It may be through no fault of his own that Hamilton finds himself in arrears of Rosberg, but, then again, were the Englishman to eventually triumph regardless, his achievement would arguably be all the greater for it.

Speaking of luck, Ricciardo’s maiden Grand Prix victory on Sunday may have been more than a little fortuitous, but it was nonetheless a just reward for what has been an utterly stellar season for the Australian so far. 

Few pundits were giving Ricciardo any hope of matching his more illustrious teammate Sebastian Vettel coming into the season, but on the four occasions this year that both Red Bull RB10s have made it as far as the chequered flag, car #3 has beaten #1 every time. In fact, if not for his disqualification at Melbourne and his mechanical maladies at Malaysia, Ricciardo would now be just 31 points of shy of Rosberg in the drivers’ standings. 

It’s always refreshing to see a driver whose talent had been masked by a lack of adequate machinery finally show the world what he’s made of, but the sense of satisfaction at seeing Ricciardo standing atop the podium in Canada was made all the larger by the 24-year-old’s warm demeanour, easy-going charm and winning smile which make him an ideal ambassador of the sport. 

Not only that, but Ricciardo has succeeded in shaking off the reputation he acquired during his time at Toro Rosso – that of being a good qualifier but an average racer – as well as confounding those who were sceptical of Red Bull’s decision to select him to replace outgoing countryman Mark Webber last autumn.

In fact, based on the evidence of this year, Ricciardo looks the more likely man to spearhead a potential Red Bull title challenge in 2015 of the Anglo-Austrian team’s two drivers. That’s bad news for Vettel, who clearly is yet to fully get to grips with the loss of the exhaust-blown diffuser that was so crucial to his dominance last season. 

With this year’s title clearly out of reach already, the four-time champion would be well advised to focus on using the remaining 12 race weekends of this year to refine his driving style to suit the nuances of the new regulations in the way that others, not least of all Ricciardo, have clearly been able to. Should he fail to do so, it may be that history comes to look upon his four world titles a little less favourably than would otherwise have been the case.

At least Vettel can take comfort in the fact that Red Bull’s star designer Adrian Newey is going nowhere fast, even if, as was recently confirmed, he plans to take something of a back seat once he has laid the foundations for the team’s 2015 challenger. 

There has even been suggestion that Newey could switch his attentions to designing a bespoke Red Bull engine to replace the Renault unit, which, while much improved compared to the start of the year, continues to lag behind its Mercedes counterpart in terms of power and the efficiency of its energy recovery systems. 

Rumours were abound that Red Bull might try to lure a new engine manufacturer such as VW into the sport, but the fact that the Hanover marque has recently re-iterated its commitment to rallying until 2019 makes an alliance with the German auto giant an unlikely prospect.

Ferrari reputedly offered Newey a salary of $30m to depart Red Bull and join the ranks of Maranello, which would have put him behind only Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton among the drivers in terms of remuneration, but even that wasn’t enough to convince the 55-year-old to leave a team whose success in which he has played a central role.

Then again, you have to question the extent to which Newey’s presence would actually help a team whose technical department can already boast such renowned names as James Allison, Pat Fry, Nicholas Tombazis and Loic Bigois. 

As Allison recently alluded to, Ferrari’s biggest problem is that their engineers are not given the breathing space they need by the management to deliver the best results. Whether this will occur under the stewardship of Marco Mattiacci, the successor to the now-departed Stefano Domenicali as Ferrari team principal, remains to be seen.

It has certainly been a testing year so far for the Scuderia, whose best result so far in 2014 has been a distant third place behind the two Mercedes drivers at China courtesy of Alonso. 

Indeed, unless the team are able to make some serious performance gains with the troublesome F14 T, Ferrari could well end the year winless for the first time in 20 years – a state of affairs that will no doubt be leaving Alonso wondering whether he can afford to wait much longer for the team to get its house in order if he is to finally take that third world title he so badly craves. 

Overtures to Mercedes were reportedly made, but there’s no room in the Brackley inn for the Spaniard in the short term; ditto at Red Bull, who are said to have taken up their option to retain Ricciardo for 2015 after his Canadian victory. 

A return to McLaren can’t be ruled out for Alonso, but their performances this season, combined with the return of Ron Dennis, make such a move a considerably less attractive prospect than it was six months ago.

Since the first race of the season, after which McLaren led the constructors’ standings thanks to Kevin Magnussen and Jenson Button finishing second and third respectively, it’s been mostly downhill for the Woking équipe, who have somehow managed to translate the vast resources at their disposal into a fundamentally flawed car for the second year in succession. 

McLaren certainly cannot afford to drop the ball for a third year running if they are to please their new engine partners Honda, although the potential early arrival of former Red Bull chief aerodynamicist Peter Prodromou (in exchange for Red Bull's Dan Fallows staying put despite supposedly having signed to join McLaren) should help to ensure that this isn’t the case. 

Securing the services of Alonso would be another huge coup for a team which would appear to lack the driving strength for a full-blown assault on the championship, with Button surely now past his prime and Magnussen ostensibly struggling to re-capture the dazzling form he displayed during his F1 debut at Melbourne. 

On race pace, McLaren have been by far the least impressive of the Mercedes-powered teams so far this year. Williams have been consistently quick, even if errors by both team and driver have served to cost them a considerable number of points – not least of all at Canada where, a slow pit-stop for Felipe Massa deprived the team of a possible win. 

Instead, the Brazilian ended his race in the barrier after a coming together with Sergio Perez’s Force India, who himself may have triumphed if not for brake failure late in the race.

It’s been an up-and-down season so far for the Mexican, who has outshone teammate Nico Hulkenberg more often than was perhaps expected but has predictably lacked the metronomic consistency of the German, who has scored points at every single race (only Rosberg and Alonso have managed likewise). Indeed, Force India have a very solid chance of gaining their best ever constructors’ placing if McLaren can’t get their act together in fairly short order.

Elsewhere, Lotus has made significant progress, going from being barely able to string 10 laps together in testing to qualifying fifth on merit at Spain courtesy of Romain Grosjean in the space of just over two months. 

Although the Frenchman has not had the machinery at his disposal needed to continue where he left off at the end of his remarkable 2013 campaign, he can take solace in the fact that the contrast between he and his older, more experienced and (on paper, at least) more illustrious teammate Pastor Maldonado could scarcely be greater. 

Such has been the frequency of the 29-year-old’s mistakes this year that you would have a hard time convincing someone new to the sport that this is Maldonado’s fourth year at this level. Should the Venezuelan state oil cash dry up, there’s no way he would retain his seat at Lotus on merit as things stand, especially when there have been so many youngsters showing great promise this year.

Chief among these is 20-year-old Toro Rosso driver Daniil Kvyat, who has been seriously impressive during the first seven races of what is already shaping up to be a long and successful career at the highest level – further evidence, were it required, that Red Bull know what they’re doing when it comes to driver choices. 

Also worthy of mention is Valtteri Bottas, who, despite not having had any more opportunities to ascend the podium since his brush with the barriers at Melbourne, has been in the points every race so far bar one. 

That race was Monaco, where another precocious talent by the name of Jules Bianchi turned in one of the performances of the year so far to record his and his Marussia team’s first ever points with a sublime ninth place finish.

Should a vacancy emerge at Ferrari next year, they could do far worse than take a chance on the young Frenchman, who is, after all, the most senior member of the Ferrari Driver Academy scheme.

Bianchi’s result puts Marussia up in a dizzying ninth place in the constructors’ standings, ahead of not only perennial rivals Caterham, who could now well end up being sold to the new Forza Rossa outfit, (thus keeping the 2015 entry at 22 cars now that Gene Haas has wisely deferred his entry into the sport to 2016), but also Sauber. 

The Swiss team have struggled with an overweight Ferrari customer power-train, which required a major overhaul of the Sauber chassis for the start of the European season to bring it closer to the minimum weight limit, and a driver line-up frankly incapable of producing the heroics seen during the last two seasons courtesy of Messrs Hulkenberg and Perez. 

Indeed, both Adrian Sutil and Esteban Gutierrez threw away the chance to finally get some points on the board at Monaco, both having appeared to have fallen into the trap of over-driving what has to be one of the worst cars (if not the worst) to have come out of Hinwil in the team’s history. And, with the team already in a desperate financial situation, Sauber’s potential lowest ever constructors’ position could hardly come at a worse time.

This weekend sees the circus return to the Red Bull Ring (née A1 Ring) for the first time in 11 years, where, barring a repeat of the problems seen last time out at Canada, the thrilling battle for supremacy between Mercedes teammates Hamilton and Rosberg looks set to recommence.

There’ll be no F1 posts for a little while as I’m off to France for a holiday next week, but look out later in the week for my thoughts on last weekend’s 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance classic, which I was fortunate enough to attend for a fifth time this year.