Gearing up for Le Mans 2018
The first of two races at La Sarthe are upon us, and Ben reveals how the top teams prepare
Having waited for what felt like an eternity for the first round of the 2018-19 FIA World Endurance Championship, they’re now coming thick and fast, with the daddy of them all – the Le Mans 24 Hours – now just around the corner.
Of course, this is the ‘big one’ for any selfrespecting sports car racer, the one we all want to have on our CV, but more than anything with the word ‘winner’ written large alongside it. The 24 Hours isn’t just the longest race on the schedule, or even the longest race ‘weekend’ – with scrutineering taking place the previous Sunday – but it also has the biggest build-up, with a prerace test due to take place fully two weeks before we turn a wheel in pursuit of a grid slot.
By the time you read this, the Gulf Racing team will have completed its pre-race preparations and be right in the middle of qualifying, with the important part of setting the car up for race week hopefully behind us. The ideal situation for any team racing in the 24 Hours is to use the test day to fine-tune the handling and balance of their car so that they can go into practice, qualifying and the race needing as little adjustment as possible. This wasn’t the case with the #86 Porsche 911 RSR last year, as we were still chasing pace through practice and qualifying, but hopefully, with the latest-spec RSR for this season, we’ll have gotten an early handle on the setup and be well-placed to position ourselves among the contenders for LM GTE-AM class honours.
Although the opening round of the WEC didn’t exactly go to plan at Spa-francorchamps at the start of May, there were plenty of positives to take from the event: I topped the second free practice session after working through a series of set-up adjustments and then set the third fastest time among the ‘Pro’-rated drivers in the timed session. With owner-driver Mike Wainwright performing better than ever, and new boy Alex Davison living up to expectation, the #86 looked to be a competitive proposition – until a pit-lane speeding penalty negated our qualifying result and dropped us to the back of the field. To make matters worse, Mike was then forced to take avoiding action at the end of the flat-out Kemmel Straight on lap one, resulting in tweaked handling and a six-lap delay while the car was repaired…
If we can carry the better parts of Spa into the 24 Hours, however, I think we can be optimistic of a good result. The latest RSR is a definite step up over the car we ran in both 2016 and 2017, and the Balance of Performance should be a little more friendly to Porsche than it was last year! Gulf Racing finished fifth in class a couple of seasons ago, so it knows how to get a car through all 24 hours. If we can marry that sort of reliability to our improved performance on track – from both the car and its drivers – there’s absolutely no reason why we can’t push for the podium.
The #86 will be a little different at Le Mans, with changes to the aero package specifically for the 24 Hours. We’ll be taking some of the front aero off the car to reduce drag, especially on the Mulsanne Straight, and Michelin will be bringing a different tyre for us to use. The Circuit de la Sarthe is notably less abrasive than some other tracks we visit, so the rubber will be softer to increase performance without fear of excessive degradation. The dreaded Balance of Performance also looks locked in for Le Mans and, based on comparisons from Spa, that ought to mean we are competitive with the other marques in LM GTE.
As if anyone at Gulf Racing needed any motivation for the event, there are two important anniversaries being celebrated this season that we’d like to mark with some silverware. Not only is it the 70th birthday of Porsche’s first sports car, the 356, but 2018 also marks 50 years since Gulf colours first appeared on a Le Mans winner, after the JW Automotive Ford GT of Pedro Rodríguez and Lucien Bianchi took the chequered flag back in 1968. Both Porsche and Gulf have since established great legacies at Le Mans, so let’s add to that this year.