Le Mans Series
8 Heures Du Castellet – Race Report
Audi Sport Team Joest took a deserved victory in the 8 Hours of Le Castellet, the opening round of the 2010 Le Mans Series season. The new Audi R15 TDI stayed clear of trouble, where its rivals were unable to do that. After 8 hours and over 1500 kilometres the German team was able to take the first trophy of the year.
At the start of the race McNish and Sarrazin battled it out for the lead and in doing so they briefly hit each other. Aston Martin Racing’s Stefan Mücke took advantage of the situation and took the lead on the opening lap. Further down the field two FLM cars hit each other, both cars came into the pit with light damage.
Three laps into the race McNish moved back into the lead, while the Peugeot overtook the Aston as well a lap later. Diesel power from the start. The Audi and Peugeot disappeared into the distance, but the second Oreca car came into the box early on with a damaged tire, it was followed by the #12 Rebellion Racing Lola which suffered suspension damage. The Swiss team sent the damaged car back out on the track – only to realise the problem wasn’t solved. A very slow lap later Jani was back in the pit.
20 laps into the race Mücke came in with a smoking front left tire. One lap later GT2 had some havoc with the JMW Motorsport Aston first in trouble coming out of the final corner, Further down the track Peter Dumbreck’s Spyker was hit by the Hankook-Farnbacher Ferrari of Dominik Farnbacher. The Scot suffered a damaged suspension and the Dutch team lost valuable time in the pit.
Just before the end of the first hour the Oreca Peugeot had problems in the pit and was pushed into the box. The gap between the leading Audi and the second placed number 009 was almost 46 seconds.
When the 908 returned 18 minutes later it was already 8 laps down on the leading Audi. The second hour wasn’t a good one for OAK Racing, Race Performance and ProSpeed Competition either. The number 24 was given a stop and go, the Radical handed a four minutes stop, while the number 75 Porsche stopped on track and would become the first retirement..
The Audi increased its lead to a full lap over the hour and when the two-hour mark had passed the Strakka Racing HPD ARX-01c was leading LMP2, with IMSA leading GT2.
LMP2 leader Strakka Racing was the next car to hit trouble and the car came in just halfay the third hour. After some bodywork replacements the car returned to eighth in class.
RML and OAK Racing took over the lead.
JMW Motorport, retiring its Vantage GT2 with a fuel related problem, did not see the halfway point of the race. More cars hit trouble, as the Quifel-ASM Team slowly entered the pit, the #29 Racing Box Lola stopped on the track and the IMSA Performance Matmut Porsche was pushed back into the box.
After four hours Audi Sport Team Joest led the race by 2 laps. RML was the LMP2 leader, with the number 77 Felbermayr-Proton Porsche leading GT2. Applewood Seven was the FLM leader.
The fifth hour of the 8 Hours of Le Castellet saw more LM GT2 drama. The #91 CRS Racing Ferrari, third in class, stopped on the track. As the GT2 field was close to each other the car immediately dropped down the order.
At BMW Team Schnitzer the BMW M3 came in with a radiator problem, the water pouring out of the front of the car. The German team lost several laps and any advantage of being able to pit later was gone.
The Peugeot 908 HDi FAP slowly but steadily moved up the standings and after five hours it was seventh, still far behind. The Audi was three laps away from everyone else, while in LMP2 OAK Racing was first and second.
As the temperature dropped and the wind increased the chance of rain also increased. Grey clouds rolled in but despite the threat no serious rain would fall. The colder conditions meant that teams were able to set fast lap times.
Olivier Pla suffered a problem with the 2009 LMP2 championship winning Quifel-ASM Team Zytek. Just after it had completed 200 laps the car suffered whar seemed like a steering problem and was forced to retire. Strakka Racing meanwhile made its way back to second place.
In the final hour the FLM car seemed to suffer with a DAMS car coming to a halt and the Boutsen car having a small fire in the pit. Class leader Hope Polevision Racing had no problems, other than being in a fight with the Applewood Seven car. Strakka Racing finally moved ahead of the OAK Racing cars.
Oreca’s number 6 car came in to the pit where ducktape was used on the front right louvers. Interesting, as it seems to be against the rules, which state that it should be replaced. The car would return to the pit twice, the last time for a tire change that helped the team’s Peugeot 908 HDi FAP to move into fourth place and get some extra points.
Just over ten minutes were left when there was some rain on the back straight. Most teams opted to sit out the remaining minutes and just be cautious, except for Audi. The German team used its huge advantage to bring in the R15 and switch to rain tires.
The only thing that really changed was the lead in the FLM class, where the Hope Polevision Racing car spun, allowing Zollinger in the Applewood Seven car to pass and take the lead.
After 266 laps Capello crossed the line and was shown the checkered flag. The first win for the new Audi R15 Plus. Aston Martin Racing took second, with Rebellion bringing home third place.
Strakka Racing won LMP2, Felbermayr-Proton secured a 1-2 in GT2 and Applewood Seven and Larbre Competition won their classes.
UPDATE: In conformity with the regulations, as the first competitors completed more than 1 500 kilometers during the race, the points allocated for the 8 Hours of le Castellet are multiplied by 2, excepted the points allocated to the teams for the pole position.
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does this mean that audi effectivly got double points? great debut fot the new car, roll on spa
Looks like (unsurprisingly) it’ll need a works Peugeot to beat Audi and even then they’ll have to really work for it. Great job by Strakka, surprising pace from Oak Racing too!
Well i found out a way to watch parts of the race.. if you guys ever heard of P2P/Sopcast its a good way to watch if your not from Europe.
I still ended up missing mid-race highlights and end though.
@Brett you u were watching the LMS race live here in the states? (no way) lol I’ll check out that site next time.
I was listing to radio le mans, and also live timing and scoring on the LMS site at the same time. The last 30mins or so, it was raining. I was hoping it would shake up the GT2 class at the time, cause I wanted a Ferrari to win haha.
but good win by Audi, very surprise from the pace at Strakka and Oak Racing.
Im Ferrari to the core. Shame about Melo/Bruni going out, the best Ferrari Gt drivers around. Has very impressed with Fisi and Alesi. Good start for Audi, that car looks amazing, roll on Spa and ROLL ON Le Mans. Think Audi will win the 24hr at Le Sarthe.
I am not surprised by the pace of Strakka. In my opinion they are to become a similar team to Highcroft. And I refer to how strong Highcroft came on once they obtained the HPD (Acura here in the states) setup. However I feel that the performance of the HPD equipment is at the mercy of a Porsche team of equal caliber. With that being said, P2 class at Le Mans in my opinion will be the race to watch!
Great win for Audi considering they only had two drivers to work with.
you can catch streams on justin.tv and ustream.tv. not the greatest but a great combo w/ RLMs audio
This is not looking good for TK…I wonder if Dr Ullrich can risk the wrath of a whole nation and replace Kristenssen.
I thought the Oreca 01 would be liveried in all black. Matmut probably cried foul “breach of sponsoring agreement”.
Unless they meant to have the all black just for the test sessions. But I believe a livery is at its best when seen racing.
Audi probably wished the Oreca Peugeot didn’t hit trouble, after all they wanted to test themselves, especially with sarazzin in the car. At least they know they can still fend off the Aston a bit. But the Mulsanne might be different.
Pescarolo is somewhere pondering about the race and his plans. I hope they come to spa and lemans with full pro lineups and a well rehearsed crew.
Since Audi is supposedly working on a P1 car for 2011 that means no Porsche P1 so the ACO won’t see any reason to make the equivalence even more balanced. Aston Martin isn’t lobbying hard enough, it seems they’re focusing back on GT racing.
Spa will be the best sports car race of the year outside LeMans.
@ Christopher yeah man at like 4:05-6am caught the first 2 or so hours. I would post a direct link but im not sure if thats allowed, just google search ‘myp2p motorsports’ and it should be first thing to appear.
@ Bamba ive noticed the Aston Martin teams enter more series though.. i hear one of their cars if not 2 are suppose to race in one of the Asian Le Man races later this year. But i guess your right.. their focusing alot of development into those teams in GT1 World Cup (which by the way im soooooo excited for)
I hope GT1 World Cup opens up to more manufactors in future… i know Ferrari may not enter.. but i would really love to see Ferrari in GT1 again… i miss those 550′s and 575′s.
Acura/HPD equaled Porsche and its strongest team Penske/DHL.
While they won Sebring overall (Porsche), Acura beat them in 2007 when both Penske cars hit trouble during the race. Also Fernandez finished 2nd be failed the stall test in post-race, likely due to the bumpy nature of Sebring.
Relive the 2008 ALMS season and you’ll see it went hammer and thongs the whole season, including Penske coming out with 3 cars for Petit Le Mans and I believe the season ending race at Laguna Seca. Porsche won, but Franck Montagy was taken out by Pro-Am driver in one of the two Intersport Lolas while leading LMP2 and Scott Dixon crashed the DeFaren Acura about mid way into the event as well.
Porsche came out with a Direct Injection Engine late in 2008 as well. I would say if development had continued, I’m sure HPD would have come out with GDI as well if not more tweaks.
Strakka also sported low drag body work and its been brought up to “C” spec as well. Its the match of any Porsche Spyder in the right hands. I’m not surprised at the pace set by Strakka and while the LMP2 cars might top out around 180mph at Le Mans, I expect the car to be wicked quick around the Porsche Curves. I expect the HPD powered RML Lola to have a speed advantage with its enclosed cockpit.
Never the least it was a good race though coverage as always is lacking on Eurosport. I expect both cars to podium at Spa.
Congrats -
HPD, Lola, Wirth Engineering, Strakka and Team RML
@Brett: thanks man, yea I Google it. I will keep it next time when the next LMS race rolls around.
Yes I would love to see Ferrari back in GT1. But most of there racing effort goes into F1.
But we do have Maserati, and that is the closet to a Ferrari. I was hoping that Maserati will show up at Le Mans this year.
@ Christopher oh damn your talking about the old Ferrari GT1 with the Maserati looking body haha yeah it would be cool to see one of those built again. I guess i was talking more about the privater/independant teams using a normal Ferrari built into a racecar.
Ferrairi owns Maserati, they wouldn’t want to cannibalise their own brand. So ferrari GT2 and Maserati GT1.
The 550 GT1 were prodrive built (not factory suported). The 575 GT1 was factory supported but ferrari didn’t put enough of a budget into the program. They figured they would put all the goodies into the maserati instead.
That MC12 is a big cheat I believe. I hope Corvette beats it this year in FIA. That’s the only championship the C6R hasn’t won. It doesn’t help Corvette that Maserati now has Enrique Bernoldi (lightning quick).
Ferrari deliberately built the MC12 wider the the regs allowed. Good thing the ACO kept them out of LeMans.
Ferrari has too many minions from the FIA in its back pocket. And now with Jean Todt in charge they will be even more favored. They even conspired to oust Ron Dennis in F1, he was getting too powerful for them. With Lewis he could rule them. O.k I’m done you can all carry on.
Just back from Ricard, here’s a punter’s view of the place and the race. Good circuit, smooth and fast, with an interesting complex of fast to medium speed curves at the end of the back straight ending in a near hairpin at the start of the pit straight. LMP1′s on the back straight were awesome, but there is no spectator access so we took advice from friendly locals and sneaked a view through the trees – without doing any damage.
The parkland around the circuit is extensive, it must have cost millions to develop in such an eco friendly and beautiful way. Top marks to the owners for vision, and right that they asked spectators to respect the place. The underlying message was ‘no respect – no public access’ – and that seemed fair enough to us.
New spectator tribunes offer panoramic views of the complex between the straights, and of the pit straight and the pits. Live timing and live TV were provided in the main tribune, but spectator vantage points at the back of the circuit and radio commentary are also required. Local enthusiasts were concerned that racing at Ricard may be halted next season and race organisers encouraged spectators to sign a petition to allow future public access.
It was an interesting first race of the season. Looks like it’ll take the best works Peugeot to beat the McNish Audi in a fair fight. The Audi ran like super sprung clockwork all race. Top efforts came from Aston and Rebellion but they did’t have the torque coming out of the corners or the top speed on the straights. Further rule changes are required to match the energy advantage of the diesels if there is to be truly competitive racing in LMP1.
There were great efforts by many teams, especially Beechdean Mansell. HPD was visibly faster than all but RML (also with an HPD engine) in LMP2. Oak racing was 2 to 3 seconds a lap down in normal running. The GT2 Aston looked great and was there or there abouts. It should be competitive once fuel pump and related issues are sorted. The BMW is work in progress. It looked fabulous, but it’s a big car, it seemed slow on the straights and cumbersome in the corners compared to other good GT2s. At first we thought Schnitzer might have been sand bagging but they weren’t, the car looked a real handful to drive.
Great circuit. Good race, and good ticket prices that included a high quality programme free of charge. We’d go again. Roll on Spa.
Very keen eye you got there. Thanks for taking the trouble to give an account. Wish I was there.
The BMW GT2 in the LMS is mechanically different than the ALMS version. The ALMS has allowed it a few “liberties” to be competitive.
The LMS version is built under true GT2 regulations. It will take a bit of time to develop. But with the budget they have for the program I think it’s only a formality.