David Soares on Fast Times at Laguna High
I’ve long been of the opinion that motor racing in America has deteriorated
into a parade of spec series pretty much everywhere except in the American
Le Mans Series, where diversity still rules the day. The ALMS is all about
wonderful cars and the blissful cacophony of four, six, eight, and twelve-
cylinder powerplants burning the gamut of gasoline, diesel, E10, and E85. I
have to admit that my experience of the series has been so colored by my
love of the cars and the technology and the fact that there is something other
than the drone of sameness when they turn up the noise, that I forgot what a
terrific driver line-up features at ALMS races. The driving at the Monterey
Sportscar Championships this year at Laguna Seca served as a reminder of
what a talented group of drivers are at the front of the sportscar pack.
For the past few years Laguna’s season-closing “Race into the Darkness”
has featured an evening test on the Thursday lead-up, leaving the teams with
a bunch of time on their hands after setting up camp in the paddock on
Wednesday. This year I accepted an invitation to a “Media Day” held at the
Pit Row Suites the afternoon before the late practice session. After parking
my old nail I found that most of the assembled journos had headed down to
trackside for demo rides in Vitesse and Spec Miata cars. I know Laguna
pretty well from behind the wheel and I don’t make a very good passenger, so
I decided to head to the lunchroom for a chicken Caesar wrap and a bottle of
water instead of guided tour.
I was greeted at the buffet by ALMS media supremo Bob Dickinson, one of
the true class-acts in sports and a key member of the brain trust who have
endowed the ALMS with its strong brand identity in the international press. I
only see Bob a few times a year due to my other commitments, but he
immediately grabbed me by the arm and sat me down for lunch with 2008 P1
champions Audi Sport North America drivers Marco Werner and Lucas Luhr,
and Eva-Maria Veith of Audi Communication Motorsport.
I wish that I could say that our 45-minute conversation was filled with the
scoops and inside skinny about Audi Sport’s plans for the future that
sportscar fans seem so obsessed with, but of course it wasn’t like that at all.
Marco and Lucas did both agree with me that the Audi board would have to
be crazy not to continue to race the TDI in the ALMS now that they will finally
have a TDI to sell to consumers, but they’re the hired help, not the decision-
makers. I pressed Eva-Maria whether the introduction of a diesel road car by
Acura might make a difference but she made it clear that the Audi board
make their decisions based on what is best for the Audi brand and not on
what others are doing in the marketplace.
It’s no secret that I’m a lawyer by training and I have to say that Marco
Werner and Lucas Luhr share a thoughtful and systematic approach to their
work to which I can relate very well. While I wasn’t going to shake loose the
Audi corporate game plan, there was plenty to talk about with these two
intelligent and talented drivers. Both men were bitterly disappointed with the
tire strategy at Petit Le Mans that gave them track position at the expense of
tired rubber that dropped them from first to third in the final stint of the race.
Even though the drivers’ and manufacturers’ P1 championships had been
decided Marco and Lucas felt that they had unfinished business to take care
of before the season came to a close.
We talked about the closed-cockpit cars and Werner and I connected about
the sweltering 2005 Le Mans contest (which I attended with John Brooks and
David Lister) that began his current four-race 24-hour winning streak. He said
that the heat never bothered him in the car because of his total concentration
on driving, but that waiting in between stints was miserable. He just wanted
to get back in the car, J.J. and T.K. of course having their own designs on the
seat. Marco said that he had the opportunity to test the Bentley and that the
closed car made him claustrophobic. The first thing that came to mind when
the door was closed was, “how am I going to get out of this thing!?”
Lucas Luhr was able to share the unique perspective of having developed and
raced the Porsche RS Spyder against the R10 before switching marques and
spending last year in the DTM. He laughed about how much trouble the Audi
R10 TDI drivers seemed to have controlling their cars during his ALMS
Championship year in the RS Spyder. He ribbed Werner that he thought that
the Audi guys must be a bunch of geriatrics the way that they constantly
seemed to be fighting for control while he teased them in his Porsche
Spyder. The RS Spyder is defined by its perfect balance and high-winding
horsepower. However, Lucas related that his first drive in the R10 was a real
eye-opener! The first characteristic of the R10 is that on cold tires it is like
driving on ice. The second thing that you notice is how tail-heavy the diesel
V-12, with its long wheelbase and beefy drivetrain, makes the car. Finally,
despite the monster torque of the TDI there is noticeable turbo-lag that you
don’t have to deal with in the Porsche.
This discussion lead into questions about why the R10 often qualifies well
behind the Acuras and Porsches but seems to be able to recover in the
races themselves. I asked Lucas if the Audi squad was sandbagging, but he
quickly dismissed this thesis and explained how the unique characteristics of
the P2 cars make them better suited to the ALMS qualifying format. The
P2’s are very light when fueled for ten or fifteen minutes of track time and
without traffic can really fly over the course of a few laps. Once the race is
under way the R10 TDI’s torque characteristics are much better suited to
working the GT traffic where the P2’s on full tanks lose significant momentum
if the breaks don’t come just right.
Luhr’s description of qualifying played-out the next day, with the R10’s
setting times early to save tires and then sitting back and watching the P2’s
fight it out for overall pole position, eventually won by David Brabham in the
Tequila Patron Highcroft Acura with a new ALMS lap record. The Audi times
were only good enough for ninth overall for the departing Emanuele Pirro and
tenth for 2008 P1 co-champion Lucas Luhr. At the post-qualifying press
conference Pirro added his voice to the complaints that the two classes don’t
make sense in the ALMS. However, when asked to reflect on his career in
sportscars he had nothing but praise for Audi Sport and the “fifteen beautiful
years” they have shared. He not only had a lot of success, but “a lot of
pleasure in driving,” and he related that he still has the form to keep
competing but that it wouldn’t be the same without an organization like Audi
Sport behind him. He related that you couldn’t have it all and that maybe it’s
better to quit while you’re ahead. “You know in Italy we say you can’t have
everything; you can’t have your wife drunk and your bottle of wine full.”
Words to live by.
The race result is by now well known. The Audi R10 TDI’s clawed their way
through the succession of too many yellows, which all agreed were
exacerbated by Laguna’s insistence on a naming-sponsor supplied four-
banger trucklet as a pace car that couldn’t lead the field at enough of a pace
to keep any heat in the rubber. Marco Werner would have loved to let Pirro
win his last race in an Audi prototype, but a pass presented itself and Tony
Kanaan and Simon Pagenaud in Acuras and Romain Dumas in a Porsche
were too many P2’s knocking at the door for an overall win to yield to
sentiment. In the end it was Werner and Lucas Luhr over Pirro and Dutch
F1-dropout Christijan Albers (on a tryout with Audi Sport) ahead of the tight
P2 gaggle of Kanaan/Montagny, Pagenaud/DeFerran, and P2 Champions
Dumas/Bernhard.
At the end of the race, Bob Dickinson introduced Allan McNish as the winner
of an Internet fan ballot for Driver of the Decade, marking ten seasons of
ALMS competition. McNish seems to have won on the strength of his three
ALMS Championships and his brilliant controlled aggression at Sears Point
in 2000, Laguna in 2007, and recently at Petit Le Mans in 2008. McNish
also pointed to Portland in 2000, fighting through injury at Adelaide, and the
maiden-win of the TDI diesel at Sebring in 2006 as his own high points.
McNish’s also acknowledged his driving partner Dindo Capello, who is the
winningest driver in the decade of ALMS competition, followed by Frank
Biela. Capello’s win history is of course strengthened by the fact that he
stuck around and partnered with Tom Kristensen during McNish’s Wilderness
Years helping Toyota incinerate hundreds of millions on a Bernie-Kart that no
one seems to be able to make competitive.
This litany of Audi Sport heroes in the ALMS has led me to the conclusion
that while the R8 and R10 are truly brilliant cars, Audi Sport chief Dr.
Wolfgang Ullrich is also a great talent scout. These drivers all have a
cerebral approach to racing and have been able match speed with precision
and consistency. They also have a strong dedication to physical
conditioning and fitness which allows them to drive long distances in all
conditions, heat, rain, darkness, bumps, and traffic. What’s more they have
become a cohesive family who not only work together in the car at the track
but seem to share genuine bonds of respect and friendship over many years
of competition at the highest level. This is something exceptional in
motorsport.
I’ll leave it to somebody with an outside perspective, 2004 Indy Racing
League champion Tony Kanaan, to affirm my thoughts that sportscar racing
attracts some of the finest and most intelligent drivers in motorsport. The
Brazilian-Lebanese Kanaan and co-driver Frenchman Franck Montagny had
been brought in mid-season by Andretti-Green Racing to replace ChampCar
Retirees Bryan Herta and Christian Fittipaldi in the XM Radio-sponsored
Acura. After winning P2 and dicing with Simon Pagenaud in the DeFerran
Motorsports Acura to a close third-overall in the exciting final hour, Tony was
grinning from ear-to-ear. “I hope I can come back, having a team that has a
car… I don't think its fair to say you come here when you retire. There’s no
old guys here, it’s all just fast guys and experienced guys.”
David Soares
November 2008
|
