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Le Mans Endurance Series 2005
Round 4. Nurburgring 1000 Kilometers. September 3rd - 4th 2005
Weekend Report

LMES - Nurburgring - RML Weekend Report

Practice & Qualifying
The RML MG Lola EX264 was the star of LMP2 at the Nurburgring, for last weekend’s fourth round LMES race; quickest in every practice session, class pole in qualifying, and fastest race lap by some margin, but once again the team’s first championship win eluded them. Their consolation must be that everyone else with a chance at the title has also endured some bad luck this season, and with one round to go, RML stands just three points away from the title, with everything to play for. By rights, of course, they could have had it wrapped up by now, but this is endurance racing and, like every other branch of motorsport, anything can happen.

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That the MG was going to be a strong contender around the fluid curves and stabbing straights of the Nurburgring became evident right from the start. To see Erdos setting a best of 1:49.905 on Friday afternoon, and finish the day fifth quickest overall, was to witness a master at work. The Brazilian readily admitted that the nimble Lola chassis is perfectly suited to the German track, but he was making the most of it. “The car just works so well around here,” he enthused. “The short straights and tight corners, with excellent braking areas, simply benefit the car, and we know it always runs well on twisty circuits.” Even allowing for the fact that some of the MG’s closest rivals missed the faster of the day’s sessions, Erdos was the best part of two seconds clear in LMP2.

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Proof that this was no flash in the pan came on Saturday, with the MG once again comfortably quickest in LMP2, claiming class pole with a best of 1:48.223. That came on just his second flying lap, throwing Erdos and the #25 MG straight to the top of the overall times before the fastest of the LMP1 cars started to get into their stride. Obstructed on his next lap, Erdos then managed a 48.355 before deciding that saving his tyres for the race was a more worthwhile enterprise. He sat out the remainder of the session, content to see a second’s daylight between his best and next up in LMP2, Sam Hancock in the Binnie Motorsport Lola B05/40. With Didier Theys and the Horag Lista car third, it was a good session for Lola, although Bob Berridge was having problems in the normally front-running Chamberlain-Synergy car to spoil a Huntingdon factory lockout. The result suited Erdos perfectly, however. “The car has been very quick all week,” he suggested, “and this puts us in an excellent position for the race. I’m really looking forward to it!”

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The Race
Being right up there amid the LMP1 cars would give Erdos an opportunity to consolidate his class position early in the race, provided everything went smoothly over the opening few laps. In the end, it couldn’t have gone better. While there was some snapping and changing right at the very front, Erdos found just the space he needed as the pack thundered down the main straight and headed into Turn One. “I was right there at the front of the pack. When you come into a corner as tight as Turn One at Nurburgring, you have to be conscious of getting your braking just right. I didn’t want to get involved in anyone’s accident, so I was watching those around me very closely. I had McNish on my left, Barbosa on the right. When I went on the brakes, Barbosa was beside me, and maybe braked a little late, and McNish had gone wide and deep, off to the left. I found a perfect gap right through the middle, so I went for it!”

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That put him into fourth place overall, at least for the time being. “Allan came back at me towards the end of the lap. I knew he’d be coming through at some point, and I wasn’t going to fight it, so I let him through. On the other hand, I also didn’t want to be so conservative that I’d fall back into the thick of it again, so I kept pushing hard to try and find some space; string it out a bit, and avoid the mêlée that I knew would be developing just behind me.” John Stack, caught in the middle of that mêlée, would spin out the Jota Zytek at Turn One and encourage an early appearance by the safety car, but it would only last a lap, and then racing resumed once more.

The push by Erdos left Barbosa, driving first stint in the Rollcentre Dallara, some three seconds adrift inside a couple of laps, and allowed the LMP2 leader to close down on Cochet in the works Courage, but it was only a temporary assertion. “I’d started to encounter a little too much understeer, so I eased off after three or four laps just enough to save the tyres. We wanted them to last two stints,” explained Erdos. That allowed Barbosa to catch up again, and set up an entertaining battle for fifth that would last for the best part of twenty minutes. “In the end I wasn’t going to fend him off for ever,” continued Erdos. “He was in an LMP1 car, and he’s a very good driver, so I was happy to let him through in the end.” A couple of laps later he’d have to do the same again, as Hayanari Shimoda came blasting through in the Zytek 04S; fastest in qualifying but denied pole when the car failed the stall test in scrutineering. Far and away the fastest thing on four wheels, the Japanese driver had sliced through more than thirty cars in less than ten laps, only to deny Erdos of sixth on lap thirteen. “He may have started from the back of the gird, but that car is just so quick!” said Erdos in admiration. “ I saw him coming and let him through. I wasn’t about to argue!”

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With Shimoda’s thrust through to fourth, some degree of stability was established at the sharp end of the race. Collard had taken the lead in the #17 Pescarolo on lap fourteen, narrowly demoting Minassian to second in traffic, while McNish was eleven seconds behind in third. The gap to Shimoda stood at about half a lap at this stage, although that was narrowing steadily, while the margins between Cochet, Barbosa, Erdos and Theys – the latter eighth overall and second in LMP2 - had settled down to an even ten seconds apiece. Not until the onset of the first scheduled pitstops, roughly an hour into the race, would that change. First to go was Barbosa, pitting on lap twenty-seven, followed by Collard, then Cochet, McNish, Minassian and finally, on lap thirty-two, Erdos.

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The first RML pitstop was perfection. The tyres had survived well and would last another stint, Erdos was staying on board, and the only requirement was fuel. In a matter of moments the MG was back out and racing, having picked up a place in the process thanks to a slower stop by the #13 Courage. Another losing time was Collard, the Pescarolo needing swift repairs to the back end and costing the Frenchman the lead. Indeed, McNish would emerge out front after this first round of stops with two seconds over Minassian; Collard was trailing thirty seconds down the road in third.

The situation in LMP2 was pretty clear at this stage. With Erdos typically lapping one-and-a-half seconds faster than anyone else in the class, the MG’s lead was extending steadily. By lap 42 it would stand at 17 seconds, and finally lengthen to nearly a minute as the race entered its second hour. “After I went back out, I was able to keep on building up the lead. The gap just kept going up and up and up each lap. I was still pushing fairly hard! We were in a really good position” On lap 55 Erdos would finally move back ahead of the #8 Rollcentre Dallara, as the LMP1 car headed for the pitlane, almost out of fuel. The fuel-efficient MG, by contrast, would manage another eight laps before the call came for Erdos to end his second stint, and hand over to Mike Newton. “Coming into the pits we had a minute’s lead over P2, and I believed we had a good enough cushion to be on for a win,” was Erdos’s initial thought.

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The pitstop began well enough, with Mike Newton, fresh tyres and a full load of fuel all safely and quickly installed, but when Jakey gave Mike the signal to restart the V8, nothing happened. It wasn’t a case that the engine wouldn’t fire – it wouldn’t even turn over. Under the regulations, a car must restart unaided. No quick fix with a slave battery, no push-start along the pitlane. It has to fire up on the button, and the RML MG EX264 was clearly not about to comply. Within a heartbeat the engine cover of the car was whipped off. A few beats later and it was heading backwards into the garage, where more of the RML personnel could get to work finding and correcting the problem. With two starter motors, it seemed unlikely that these were the fault, but as yet we still don’t know exactly what caused the process to fail – maybe a lead, but certainly something that was able to affect both units. It cost the team an extra eleven minutes, and four laps on the LMP2 lead.

When Mike Newton resumed the race it was from 21st overall, seventh in LMP2, but he set about the challenge with gusto. Despite being in the thick of the traffic, Newton was setting a sprightly pace, clocking off lap after lap in the one-fifty-seven or eight bracket, and certainly fast enough to start making up ground on those ahead of him. Initially the places came regularly, every couple of laps or so, as he tailed the recovering #18 Rollcentre Dallara through the thick of the GT1 and GT2 front-runners. Inside ten laps the MG had recovered four places (including the Dallara) and was lying 17th overall and fifth in LMP2, but then progress hit a rut of some kind, mainly in the form of the #39 Chamberlain-Synergy Lola. Although the yellow car was Newton’s next target, it was a full lap ahead, and the MG was only gaining at the rate of two or three seconds each tour. Twenty-two laps would pass and the gap would narrow to around a minute, but then the MG was due another pitstop for fuel, and how would it fare?

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The car’s third pitstop went far better than expected, although the starter motors were still reluctant to do their job. A mere ten seconds or so was lost to their ill humour, enabling Newton to be swiftly back out on track at the cost of just one position; the Convers Ferrari 550 GT1. Problems for Jan Lammers’ Dome gifted Newton seventeenth, and then he had the satisfaction, not only of passing the Ferrari, but also of moving in front of the Synergy Lola when it also pitted for fuel. With memories of those heroic fight-backs at Silverstone and Monza no doubt passing through their minds, the RML guys must have been watching progress on the screens and praying for another miraculous recovery. Twenty dogged laps later, Mike’s stint came to an end as he headed back down the pitlane from an impressive 14th overall, a previously unlikely-looking fourth in LMP2. “Mike drove really well all weekend, and there’s no doubt that, had we not had those starter problems, he’d have maintained our lead,” said his co-driver. “Even so, Mike had a huge deficit to make up, and he did a great job to get us back up to fourth.”

The next of what would be five pitstops for RML revealed ongoing problems in the starter motor department. Wise to the fault, the team was able to minimize the additional delay to a mere twenty seconds, but each passing breath must have seemed like an eternity to the frustrated Erdos, keen to get back out and continue the charge. Once confidently back in the driving seat, he set about his duties with typical verve. A succession of rapid laps, several running close to qualifying pace, soon had the MG eating into the deficit, but there was a mountain of lost laps to climb. He did manage to pick off a few places, including the Convers Ferrari (again!) and the BMS 550 #51, but it was electrical problems for the #35 Renstal de Bokkenrijders G-Force Courage that finally gave RML third in LMP2.

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A ding-dong battle raged between the Horag Lista Lola and the #37 Belmondo Courage for the lead in the class over the next twenty or thirty laps, but with a six-lap deficit, Erdos had no realistic hope of joining in. Within the overall standings, however, he had one more move to make before his final pitstop, taking the Aston Martin #62 for twelfth position before heading down the pitlane for fuel. The leading Audi was just completing its 166th lap, with Erdos on 153, and the race was about to enter its final hour. Unfortunately, just as it had during the second pitstop, the MG’s restart would not go smoothly. For the second time the car would be drawn backwards into the garage, allowing the crew to work on the starter motors and encourage the engine back into life. It cost a further twelve minutes and another five laps but, as luck would have it (for once!) Erdos was given the green light just in time to rejoin the race a lap ahead of the delayed G Force Courage. Third in LMP2 was still RML’s for the taking, provided the last stint went smoothly.

Out at the head of the class, the battle raged on. While Erdos had been languishing in the pitlane, the #27 Lola had just had the edge over the #37 Courage, but within a handful of his coming back out on track, the roles had been reversed, with the Belmondo car snatching back the lead once more. For ten laps the French car held sway, easing away just a tad from the chasing Lola, but on lap 175 disaster struck the #37 in the form of some unforgiving barriers. Did the suspension break before or after the impact? Hard to tell, but whatever the cause, the effect was to send the car limping slowly back to the pitlane. Was it terminal? Excitement and anticipation was rife in the RML garage, as Thomas Erdos started to reel in the nine-lap deficit. By the time the Courage had been stationery for five laps, the chances of picking up second place suddenly looked possible. “That gave us a glimmer of hope,” said Erdos. Having been circulating in the modest one-fifty-threes, the MG’s pace picked up, with Erdos pushing hard to cover as much ground as possible. “I was lapping strongly again – near to the LMP1 pace, perhaps,” he suggested. “I was trying as hard as I could to make up the ground.” Then, with the gap down to four laps, the #37 appeared on track again. It wasn’t perfect, as smoke from the rear testified, but it was moving. It was also gathering speed. After a hesitant first lap, the car began clocking two-oh-fives, and while Erdos was ten seconds or more quicker on each circuit of the track, making up so much with less than half an hour to go was a tall and unrealistic order.

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In the end Erdos pulled back another lap on the Courage, but had to be satisfied with fifteenth overall, third in class, when the flag dropped at the end of a classic and truly thrilling race. “What on Earth do we have to do to finish higher than third!” said an incredulous Mike Newton. It does seem hard to believe that a team that is evidently the best in its class can encounter such consistent misfortune, and nobody can accuse RML of being anything less than the most accomplished at what they do. Thomas Erdos, although happy to have salvaged a good clutch of points and another podium, was understandably disappointed not to have done better. “It was all looking so very good,” he said. “The car was going more than just OK, it was fantastic. Everything was working together so well - the engine never missed a beat, the tyres were unbelievable, and the handling was superb. I couldn’t have asked for more from a car. We built up a lead of more than a minute during those first two stints, which is some indication of how well it was running.” Unfortunately, those elusive electrical gremlins would deny the team a richly deserved win. “We lost so many laps with the starter motor,” shrugged the Brazilian. “Maybe ten or twelve laps altogether, and that made it impossible for us to recover the ground. After all that, perhaps we should be very pleased that we were able to come through to a podium position at the end, but we could, perhaps should, have won.”

Although RML has been without doubt the class act of LMP2 this season, no one other car has been able to capitalise on the MG’s missed opportunities, and the championship remains wide open as the LMES heads towards its final showdown at Istanbul, two months away in November. “We’re second in the championship, behind the Belmondo car, so there’s still a chance,” admitted Erdos. “This result has had a major impact as far as the championship is concerned, and it’s all down to the wire now at Istanbul. Being only three points behind gives us something to try for. The car is brilliant, Mike is driving better and with more confidence than ever, and the whole team is working together so well. We can feel pumped up now, and take the fight to the Berridge and Belmondo cars when we arrive in Istanbul.”

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To be sure of taking the LMP2 title, RML must win in Turkey, and the Chamberlain-Synergy Lola has to finish third or lower. It’s not impossible. “They’re long races – the length of three grands prix,” points out Erdos. “As we’ve already seen, things can go wrong, so nothing’s ever certain.” It should be a thrilling finalé.

Marcus Potts

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