Miami Nice Plus ca Change As you probably know Scotland isn’t renowned for its sunshine. There’s a saying there that goes something like, ”if you don’t like the weather in Scotland hang around for ten minutes, it’s bound to change!” Well the same might have been said of Miami for the Grand Prix of Americas ALMS race last weekend. We arrived in brilliant sunshine and left in brilliant sunshine but much of the time in between was spent skulking around the paddock in waterproof jackets with wet feet. Not that I’m complaining of course. Being a Scot obviously meant I had a bit of previous experience when the heavens opened on Friday morning for first practice. Slick Pickup With the track looking just a little damp Mike Pickup decided to let his drivers practice some car control and sent me out on slicks. After a few laps slithering around between the barriers (street tracks are not generally well endowed with run-off areas) I decided to pit for intermediates. The problem was the that the racetrack which has been constructed through the streets of downtown Miami consists of various types of surface each offering a different level of grip from zero to very low. In addition to that the section running between turns six and the hairpin, (which is also the narrowest part of the track), sits under the trees and offers a sprinkling of leaves just to test a drivers character. Not another Brick in the Wall The Pirelli intermediates are renowned for their usable spectrum by which I mean that they can be used in quite wet conditions and survive in quite dry conditions. However we soon discovered that the track was drying very quickly and within several laps slicks were needed. In these situations mechanics start having a sense of humour failure as they go from one tyre to another and so on but really it is simply a question of testing the different solutions to understand which tyre will perform best in various conditions. I came in just after half way through the session and swapped to my team mate Alex Caffi who finished the session on a drying track. Save for the small window when we were on the intermediates our times were not very impressive but at this stage we were just looking to learn the track, get a basic feel for the car, gather some data and above all not stick it in the wall. Something told me this weekend was going to be a tough race and the name of the game would be to stay out of trouble. Casualty List In every session throughout the race weekend at least one car ended up in the wall which concluded with Kelly Collins’ unfortunate off in the morning warm-up, the results of which precluded them from taking the start. Great shame for the drivers and the whole Corvette team but especially Ollie Gavin who looked very fast on the Friday. We had the good fortune to be positioned near pit in which coincided with the last turn and ”the bump” which seems to have been quite well documented both during and since the weekend. Things that go bump Let me explain. As you exit the hairpin the car naturally wants to run toward the right hand side of the road due to the adverse camber but you need to keep the car just left of centre in order to position the car correctly for the last turn which is a right hand kink leading onto the start/finish straight. This kink could just be taken flat but with a big bump right on the entry to the turn it proved to be highly entertaining to both drivers and spectators alike. You could stand on the inside of the fence right on the apex of the turn and get a real close up view of action and I have to say the cars looked really impressive through there. I would actually go so far as to say it was without doubt one of the most spectacular displays I have seen in motor racing and you could get within three feet of the cars and watch them leave the road completely as they turned into the corner. Bump ‘n Grind Imagine my horror then when the organisers announced that they would be grinding the bump away ready for Saturday. Anyone would have been forgiven for thinking it was an F1 race. ”Everybody seems to be enjoying the track, lets remove its character so we can make it easier for everyone”. The ironic bit of course was the grinders broke half way through the job which resulted in making the bump worse for the car but not as much fun to drive. Solid Alex Anyway back to the point. Session number two started off really wet and I went out (on wets this time) and really enjoyed my drive making a couple of changes to the car and when I got out the car we were 2nd quickest. The track was now drying again and Alex got the best of the session finishing up in 4th in the dry so that was quite promising. We decided it was smarter to let Alex qualify as he had driven in the dry and I hadn’t; clearly it is important to get the best from the new tyres in qualifying. He did a solid job which would see us line up 6th on the grid for the race start. Scrubbers The warm up on Saturday saw a dry track and at last I could get some dry laps. I scrubbed two sets of tyres and Alex one and he drove quite conservatively although I pushed harder to get a feel for the car in the dry. After the warm up I felt that the car needed a little change to improve the traction out of the slow corners which we duly did, but unfortunately that change saw us suffering from a little too much understeer in the race through the fountain section where the track is laid to concrete. Smart food strategy Raceday saw a really hot day and everyone getting a little hot under the collar. After a superb lunch courtesy of the Italian team Rafanelli (Italian teams always eat well) we lined up for the start. We opted to take the windows out of our car for the race to allow a bit more airflow and hence had to fit a window net for safety. I started the car and our strategy would allow us one stop for fuel, tyres and driver barring any safety car situations. Naturally we all expected safety cars so in the event that would most probably dictate the strategy but in these situations you need to be flexible. Wild Bill All was going according to plan until about 10 laps into the race Bill Auberlen who was driving the BMW M3 behind me decided to have the lunge of the century into turn 6 and hit me hard enough on the left rear quarter to knock me into a spin. I thought he was an experienced sportscar driver but he’s obviously been racing Touring Cars for too long and has forgotten how to finish an endurance race. Fortunately he damaged his radiator and retired shortly afterwards! My car was okay but it took a bit to get going what with cars whizzing by between walls and myself! I rejoined about tenth place and began to charge back up getting up to sixth before the first major safety car came out after one hour to recover the Orbit car of Marc Lieb who had hit the wall at the Fountain as a result of contact with a slower car. Bye bye Johnny At this stage we opted to stop as we could run Alex to the end of the race. The pitstop was good and we rejoined in fourth ahead of Johnny Mowlem in the Petersen car. As racing resumed it looked like a good battle developing between Alex and Johnny although Alex was getting the best of the traffic and was holding the gap constant before contact between Johnny and one of the JMB cars saw him pit with a puncture and drop out of contention. Podium place So there we were cruising round to a solid fourth place when boom (!) Jorg Bergmeister in the lead Alex Job car clips the wall at, you’ve guessed it, the Fountain and suddenly we are on for a podium. Alex gave us a bit of a fright when he locked up on some water at turn six and brushed the tyre barrier but with no damage done we were able to continue to our first podium position of the year. This result was a long time coming. Things have been looking good in some of the previous races only for a failure of some sort to prevent us from getting a good result. Naturally we enjoyed the podium celebrations and that continued into the wee small hours of the morning on South Beach. That can be the subject of another story though! |
Robin Liddell |
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