Gounon moments It is very hard to unsettle Jean-Marc Gounon, who by all accounts has been around the block a few times in motor racing, but at Anderstorp the press corps managed it during the European Touring Car Championship. Creation Sportif Lister Storm driver Gounon saw a different side of the GT championship when he sat in the press room to watch the ETCC races. Behind the wheel, it is all blood sweat and sometimes tears, an uncomfortable cooking pot of heat and noise. In the press room, we have televisions, lap charts, and some fiercely patriotic press officers. Gounon had finished another typically eventful FIA GT Championship race. Having un-lapped himself from Andrea Piccini's Lister Storm, he went off into the gravel, climbed out of the car and was last seen removing his gloves on the tyre barrier as the wrecker truck tugged his Lister out of harm's way. His Creation team, one that prides itself on its 'mojo' which Gounon provides by the bucket load, had already had one car retire, and the team sat down for a cup of tea at the back of the garage. No one, especially driver Bobby Verdon-Roe, expected to see Gounon's yellow Lister again before the chequer flag, but suddenly there it was, in the pit lane and ready to be serviced. "He's back!" yelled Bobby, on his hands and knees scooping gravel out of the radiators and cutting his hands and arms in the process before the rest of the team arrived to help out. It brought to mind Enna Pergusa last year, when Gounon had an electrical switch problem in his Ferrari and solved it by parking at the end of the pit lane, running back to his pit for a hammer, and then whacking his Ferrari until it worked again. For the Frenchman, the atmosphere in the press room at Anderstorp was something of a surprise. "Ah," said one experienced hack as he watched a BMW driver and an Alfa driver together on the track. "He'll have him off." The next shot, of an Alfa in the gravel, was no surprise to anyone but Gounon. "We are all out there fighting like monkeys and you are in here laughing?" said the incredulous Frenchman. "Yes," we replied, "and you should have heard us when you were driving at Donington!" There, Gounon and his Konrad team had somehow contrived to miss the signal to clear the grid, leaving him on the front row and not strapped in as the others pulled away. The team blamed cameramen getting in the way of the five minute board, observers blamed the rather attractive grid girl who was stationed in front of his car before the off. His come-back drive from the back of the grid was always going to be exciting, and indeed he delivered. "Who is number 2?" asked one observer as the message flashed up on the screen in the opening salvo of laps for the team manager to visit the stewards. "Gounon" was the simultaneous reply from many for whom it was simply a matter of time. The Frenchman had inadvertently hit a Porsche on his way through, in typical gentlemanly fashion he held up his hand to making a mistake and apologised. Before he served his stop-and-go penalty he had attempted to pass both Jamie Campbell-Walter's Lister Storm and Fabrizio Gollin's Ferrari 550 Maranello at the same corner. Sideways. He was given the chance to show his worth on the world stage when, at Le Mans, he fought mercilessly with the Panoz of Gunnar Jeannette. His clutchless Courage was driven to within an inch of its life, and Jeannette earned the praise of his hero Jan Lammers as he somehow held Gounon off to finish fifth. The story behind that last stint is another worth telling. Gounon's co-driver was finished, unable to continue, the other was asleep and it was left to him to finish the race. His leg was agony, swelling up and needing attention which he found in the form of a large, uncooked steak, which he strapped to his leg. The car came in for the final change of driver, Gounon leapt in and was strapped in by his mechanic who knew nothing about the steak until he tightened the belts. You can imagine his shock as red fluid leaked out of the chunk of meat and down the leg of the driver on which their finish at Le Mans rested. We wonder what else he has in store for us, his team, and the spectators, before the chequered flag falls at Monza. |
Andrew Cotton |
|
