RPR Racing's VLN #6 podium challenge stranded with hopeless tyres

A roller coaster race included brilliant catch up racing with personal best and deepest frustration over useless tyres.

2 August 2014

Friday

Just as we are all preparing for the weekend, the screens lit up with some disappointing news: Karl Mauer has resigned from the VLN management team, which made us all feel a bit down. Not only has he been a great friend to the team, for example procuring sub frames for the battered Clio during the 24hr; but more importantly, he has been consistently lobbying for higher driver standards and for imposing sanctions on those who don’t comply. He will be sorely missed, and it’s a shame that the VLN team couldn’t find some way to persuade Karl to stay, especially as he was one of the few on the VLN team who had real race experience. I’m sure we will continue to see Karl in the paddock, but we will miss his sage head on the board. On his theme of safety, 25 of the teams had met with the VLN management to discuss what needs to be done with the series. It's clear that the ever-increasing carnage cannot continue as it is; but the VLN management merely sit and listen. The pressure on them must have some effect soon: even the DMSB has now reacted with the Norschleife licence, which is designed to prevent inexperienced drivers racing in elite classes.

Continuing the disappointing theme, the crash in VLN2 is still not resolved, with Leonard proving to be as much of a gentleman off the circuit as he was on it; refusing to contribute even a penny to the cost of the accident; now claiming that he debriefed the team fully about the accident (a point of which his team manager appeared wholly unaware when we met him); that not only had he not left the circuit, but that he was in the room when the team met Evert van Doorn, his team manager, and Wolfgang Schuhbauer (contrary to everything they said at the time; and what Derrick Rowe said at VLN3); and that not only was the accident not his fault at all, but MC had turned in on him (which, in the sense that MC continued round the corner rather than leaping off the circuit out of his way, could be said. The lack of damage to the front of Leonard’s car speaks to a very different story). The whole approach could be summed as “there’s no video evidence, so you can’t prove anything”; and their position seems to change with every interaction. It looks as if other avenues will need to be pursued.

On a happier note, we found our truck next to the Stadavita truck, who we decided are our new best friends, or at least our prettiest new friends. Better still we can look for free, since they are very gorgeous. MC, having arrived in good time, snuck straight off to get stuck into the documentation, but arrived back incomplete, having learnt that at the Ring, documentation is not only an Olympic sport, but a team sport as well, so needed Carsten to help him. Julius was busying around the truck with Michel and Gerd; Tom strolled calmly into view on the phone as ever, also clearly delighted with our new neighbours. Another surprise awaited: Dag von Garrel had entered a BMW M235i in SP8 with a friend, and the team was running that car as well.

Soon the documentation was all complete; and the team was ready to go. We even have our own kettle now. The weather gods were smiling on us plentifully with blazing sunshine and near 30 degrees, and Einar texted that he had just left home and had applied his pedal firmly to the metal, hoping to arrive at 7pm; he has well over 500bhp at his disposal, so you’d hope he’s right there.

Einstein trickled slowly into the back of the pits with Julius at the wheel. Michel and he calmly checked over the final bits and pieces: the influence of Tom is creeping wider and wider in the team. Carsten appeared suited and booted and was strapped in, ready to go, well before the curtain raise at 1600hrs. What is going on here? Have we no respect for tradition? There’s the usual traffic jam to get out of the pits: nervous passengers milling around in ill-fitting race suits and Wallace & Grommit style helmets, trying to pretend that they aren’t scared witless waiting to go out. The Alzen mechanics are using up around 140% of the garage, so there is no possibility of getting out until they do; and then it all clears and Carsten is off. Couple of quick GP laps to warm the car through and he’s back, grinning all over. Einstein feels good, and despite the concerns about the gearbox, leading to our going back to Lightning’s box (which was about all that was recoverable from the poor wreck).

Carsten rolls out again with a more purposeful launch to head round the Nordschleife; while the team enjoy the fantastic sunshine. He’s back before our tans are quite complete, so tyres are checked and sent out again for three laps, so we can all work on our tans a bit more. He clearly didn’t understand his instructions, as he’s back in the pits in no time at all complaining that its hot: of course it is man, that’s the sun up there and we’re busy. The temperature gauge has been reading as high as 112 degrees, which is on the warm side even for a turbo. Carsten climbs out and long faces abound. Tom draws a diagram to explain the potential issue to MC, who is looking bewildered at all the technical German being spouted.

The Opel technical specialist is found and dragged to our errant Astra; and says that it's all normal. Unless it's above 115 consistently, nothing to worry about. MC, would you like to drive, says Carsten cautiously? MC appears to have no concerns that the Astra may blow up on him; so Tom cautions him to watch the temperature like a hawk and to come in immediately if he sees over 110 degrees. Off sets MC, blithely unconcerned about the potential bomb in front of him and calmly reports maximum temperature each lap, nothing over 105 degrees. He does want the tyre pressures checking as the Astra seems determined to leap off the circuit at all possible opportunities. After a quick inspection, Tom commands new tyres.

With fresh rubber, MC sets off down the pit lane and does a couple of swift laps. All seems to be well, nothing over 105 degrees and the car feels normal. Carsten is ready to leap in for one more lap, but a red flag draws proceedings to a close for the day. Carsten goes off to the Opel meeting, while MC is sent off to the English drivers’ briefing, which happily is still being given by Karl Mauer, where more traditions are being smashed – wrist bands are handed out before the briefing; and there is no 70s-style intervention car video. What is going on? As the team wander back from their meetings, Einar appears looking cool and in full holiday mode in a polo shirt to match Dag’s violently blue 599, although the two swear that they haven’t co-ordinated. Einar is promised a full download of Kissling’s car from the 24hr, so disappears a happy bunny clutching an enormous USB drive. It’s a gorgeous evening; and happily there isn’t too much to do, so a get together at Dag’s is planned.

Qualifying

Saturday dawns bright and hot. The forecast thunderstorm looks to be likely to arrive a little later in the day, nearer 6pm than 5pm, so it looks like we might miss it altogether and we have an extra 10 minutes of qualifying to compensate for not being able to park in the pit lane before it starts (the logic isn’t obvious there, but never mind!). The team assembles from various hotels and lodgings well before 8am and set to their various tasks. By 8.10, Carsten is still in a meeting which, given the Chinese Parliament had voted him first in the car, was a little worrying. Maybe some traditions are harder to kill than others.

Carsten heads out first and professes the car to be perfect after just one lap. Einar is ready and waiting, so the team strap him in, check the tyre pressures, wheel nuts and clean the screen: then he’s off. Einar has quite a clear lap after a barrel of understeer in Bitkurve, slowed a little for the Frikadelli Porsche’s light show in Fuchsrohre and posts a 9.39 on his first lap. Tom comes on the radio with “Box, box, box” as Einar streams along the main straight and so after a short lap round the GP circuit, Einar comes in. Tom had given MC a warning order in good time, so he is standing next to Tom in the pit lane as Einar overshoots a little in his enthusiasm. Fresh hot tyres go on and MC is off; a couple of GP laps later, he heads onto the Nordschleife to set a time. There’s a brief double yellow after ex Mühle, but a decent time looks within our grasp until on the main straight, there’s a cough and a splutter and the engine dies. MC pulls to the left, and the car picks up again: out of fuel. That’s no way to set a good lap time, boys. He coasts into the pits, naughtily nipping across the GP entry, and up to the box. Refuelled, off he sets again and it's hello Mr. Understeer. The car simply won’t turn in properly: the apex of Bitkurve sails by untroubled, 2m to the right and the concrete on the exit of Hatzenbach Bogen is thoroughly trampled. Sadly, a Citroen holds him up through Hatzenbach and Hocheichen and the Sexbomb 911 repeats the trick from Mut Kurve through to just after Karussel before seemingly waking up again and disappearing. It’s a frustrated and borderline choleric MC that climbs out of Einstein with an Understeer, understeer, understeer debrief, saying that the tyres are over pressure. By the time he’s calmed down a little, the issue appears to be that the car simply won’t turn in, so he’s had to compromise braking points to get the car in the same zip code as the apex. He’s not happy.

The team sets into a thorough analysis of the chassis and tyres, which Tom reassures MC were at the correct pressure. The chassis is correct, so Carsten heads off to Kissling to ask WTF is going on. It turns out the tyres are over pressure and should be 1.1 bar cold and no more than 1.85 bar hot in these temperatures. Of course, telling anyone before qualifying might be considered helpful, but that doesn’t seem to be in Hankook’s lexicon.

The Race

After what can only be described as a less than perfect qualifying session, we weren’t quite where we wanted to be on the grid. One minor ray of sunshine was that just behind us was the Sing SLK #404, so that would be one less problem to contend with, assuming Einar could beat him to the first corner. Einar had been given a very stern talk by Tom on warming the tyres up – or more particularly on what not to do with tyres that would be best described as just plain flat, at 1.1 bar, to start with, notwithstanding their having been in the warmers for some time before Einar headed out to the grid.

With a head full of how NOT to warm the tyres up, mindful of the new brake pads, and the Sing SLK close behind, Einar finds himself balked by a Golf at the start, so ends up dead last of a field of 15 Astras in the first corner. ET is further concerned by being stuck behind another Cayman, but it’s the Mathol Cayman this time, and plenty quick.

Towards the end of the first lap, having already seen the aftermath of two Astras “coming together”, Einar gets alongside #354 on the exit of Galgenkopf. As usual, other Astras seem to eat more spinach than Einstein, so the initial overspeed leads nowhere, so the team watch from the pit box as the RPR car basked in its 15 seconds of fame on the television, which was up to its usual poor standard, coming under Antoniusbuche bridge right alongside and inches from Astra #354, with neither car giving any quarter under the bridge, the other car clearly hoping that Einar would bottle. Well, no one in our pit box thought he would and there was a rousing cheer as #354 thought better of going round the outside of Einar in the right hander after the bump; and backed off. Another place gained.

The Cayman has pulled away some 50 meters and squeezes past the #343 Astra into Schwedenkreutz; concerned about being left behind Einar brakes a little less than usual and celebrates his first 200+kmh there! By Kallenhard, he’s right behind #343 and overtakes him with a classic inside move into Breidscheid for P10 in class.

Another lap looks to follow the pattern of the previous laps; 50 metres behind the Cayman up Kesselchen, on his bumper from Eschbach to Galgenkopf, and 50 metres behind at Tiergarten; although in Pflanzgarten 1, the Mathol Cayman gets a bit wide, too wide, on the grass, back on track, back on grass and ET squeezes by, so the Cayman is now too far behind to catch up on DH.

Next lap ET sees the H-class black Mercedes squeezes past the last of the group of four Astras ahead, #339, going up the hill, who then slows down a lot in the right-hander before Mutkurve, enough for him to sail past before the Mutkurve entry. Good game this, thinks Einar, I can use the Mercedes again, which then passes #342 into Steilstrecke and forces #363 to go wide into the scary part of Wippermann on the outside, not a fun place to be at all, and remind’s ET of the N24h quali; #363 and #342 stumble over each other, determined not to lose any advantage to the other, oblivious of ET’s lurking presence behind. Sneaking past #342 on top of Beetle Curve, ET ends up on the bumper of #363 out of Galgenkopf, but not getting any slipstreaming effect so just sit there until Tiergarten, wondering where the other teams get the spinach for their engines. We need some.

By lap 6, the tyres feel a bit tired, so ET has to give up on any actual racing and switches to gentle, gentle mode, leading to only one more overtake where another Astra seemingly moves out of ET’s way; then on Döttinger Höhe, Tom comes on the radio with the inevitable "box, box, box".

Einar had a good stint and had got the car up to 5th place in class. Gerd stood well out in the pit lane and held the pit board high over his head to make sure that Einar couldn’t miss the box. The team fall on the car, pulling Einar out, changing tyres, fuelling, cleaning the screen and belting Carsten back in again. Another sub two-minute stop is achieved; nice work boys; and Carsten is off. Einar is smiling all over his face; he’s got the car up to p5 in class and a couple of personal bests.

Carsten’s in a good mood, with a good pit stop and a good outlap under his belt; but promptly runs into a pile of double yellows; and what’s this? #339 powers straight past Carsten exiting a double yellow in Hatzenbach on his second lap; shouting won’t help Carsten, it really wont, although it does make for good TV.

Its busy out there, now, with the GT3 cars well mixed up in the field and the SP7 cars joining in the fun as well, so Carsten is doing well to stay out of trouble. Thirsty work this, he thinks and reaches for the drinks tube. Disney couldn’t make a better film of this: the end comes off the hose and dumps some water in his lap. Ne illegitimis carborundum, thinks Carsten again; and reaches for the bottle itself in another handy double yellow. Woooaahhh, why’s that Clio going past me? Green? What green flag, I’m busy with my water bottle: can’t you all wait? No, they don’t, but with a damp race suit, Carsten is off again.

It's an incident-filled stint; and Carsten is unlucky with the double yellows; each time he’s catching the group in front, they seem to spring up again to confound him. After the third time this happens, Carsten is back to his Latin epithets again (only one step down from full-blooded swearing in German). In a spot of momentary relief, Carsten slides past the Bliss Astra; but then the tyres are gone and it's conservation mode again. Is this racing or a tyre economy run?

He concentrates on not braking at Flugplatz; and braking less at Schwedenkreutz, with speeds rising through both of them; until in the 8th lap, the car feels like it's on marbles, so little grip is there left in the tyres. Back in the pit box, Tom and MC are watching the lap times falling away and wondering what’s happening on track. Tom gets on the radio and encourages Carsten to get his foot down – there’s a healthy 50 seconds to the 4th placed car; and a solid minute buffer to the chasing Astra – but there is no time for complacency. The familiar refrain comes back on the radio: the tyres are understeering badly now.

Carsten comes in hot but stops neatly on his mark: Gerd, what were you so nervous about? Fuelling seems to take an age and the boys are finished with the tyres and service long before the fuel nozzle is out; then Tom waves MC down the pitlane. MC comes out into reasonably clean space and gets stuck in to chasing down the 4th placed Astra – a podium is not out of the question at all here, given there is still a minute or so’s gap and MC can easily lap in the low 9.30s compared with the car in front, which seems to be stuck in the mid 9.40s.

There’s a double yellow on the exit of ex-Muehle on the first lap, but otherwise MC is in clear air, so able to get on with clean quick lapping. Tumbling down into Fuchsrohre, the warning lights are on, so he and the Wochenspiegel Porsche which had just over taken back off. There’s a huge crash at the crest, with over 10 cars waiting to get through, and an M3 – or rather what’s left of an M3 – virtually blocking the circuit. The cars creep past wholly on the kerb one by one; and find themselves nose to tail as they exit Adenau Forst and get the green flag.

What follows can only happen at the Nordschleife, with a gaggle of V3 and SP3 cars all jostling for position with the Wochenspiegel Porsche picking his way through and MC parked on his tail as much as is possible. A BMW Z4 GT3 carves its way through, and MC lets him past, but in doing to loses the tail of the Porsche, so is reduced to finding his own way past. There’s a blue Seat just a few metres ahead, which should be easy meat, just passing a Clio Cup; and the trio pull away from the pack of V3 cars. There’s little in it, in a straight line, but the Seat is weaker on the brakes and is more cautious in the corners. He’s giving no quarter, though and as Galgenkopf is the next corner, MC decides its safer to deal with the Seat down the straight. They exit nose to tail; and arrive at the bridge in the same position, with the Astra unable to pull alongside even. MC is a seasoned warrior though, so has pulled out from behind the Seat in an attempt to unsettle him down the compression; however, the tail of the Astra has different views and swings out a fraction as they go under the bridge: despite that, MC is still on the tail of the Seat as they enter the Hohenrain right left. Woooaaah, that barrier is mighty close, thinks MC on the exit, but pursues the Seat down the pit straight.

The next lap is an exercise in frustration, watching the Seat pull away a little more every corner; and seeing the Clio close up a little in each corner. By the end of the lap, its clear that the tyres are gone, just three laps in; so on Dottinge Hohe, MC radios in, reports the tyres state and asks how many laps to go? Tom reassures him that this should be the final lap, and asks if he can make it to the end on those tyres; so MC ploughs on. At the end of the lap, there is no sign of the chequered flag so MC bravely carries on for another lap. Unfortunately, there are four more laps, in which the Astra simply goes backwards, being unable to defend even against a Citroen Saxo.

When, at Schwalbenschwantz, MC needs all the exit kerb and some of the gravel, he radios in again asking how many laps left. There’s quite a pause, before Tom reverts with the answer: two more, just bring the car home. The less said about the next two laps, the better: any attempt to maintain race pace is met with increasingly determined efforts from the Astra to leave the circuit: and the chequered flag at the end of the penultimate lap had turned out a mistake from the marshalls, and the flag waving stops half way round the GP circuit. When the parc fermé entrance isn’t even manned, never mind about open, a disconsolate MC heads off for another lap.

At parc fermé, once the video card had been removed and the bonnet left open, MC heads for the team. He’s clearly very upset indeed; and no amount of the team’s kind words seem to offer any kind of succour. He stalks off with a face like thunder to talk to Stefan Kissling, with Carsten trailing one step behind, one to the left. He’s an articulate man; and the full force of that skill is applied to explaining to Stefan why he is so upset; and the extent of the inadequacy of the Hankook rubber. Jörg Schrott, the Director of Motorport from Opel joins Stefan and also gets both barrels. The conversation switches to German for a while as Carsten explains a little further; and shortly afterward Tom joins the group. Stefan offers to check the car over from top to toe before any further steps are taken; and asks for the data stick to check the data thoroughly.

The team is confident that there is nothing wrong with the car or its set up. They are an experienced crew, so why should there be? The issue is simple, the Hankook tyres appear unable to withstand any actual racing on them; not only do they cost more than customer Dunlops used by the BMW M235i Cup cars, the Astra can’t lap as fast on them; and the Dunlops last the whole race, rather than 3 laps. The issue is not confined to RPR, with even Mario complaining about a lack of consistency.

Its not good enough, chaps, it really isn’t. Maybe we go back to racing the Croc? Whatever happens, something needs to be done.

Big thanks to all track-side photographers for smashing action pictures, your watermarks have been preserved for proper identification and rights protection.

Special thanks to Marcel Duck (MD-Freizeitfotos.de) and Selda Schretzmann (HIGHSPEED-IMAGES.COM) for pictures without watermarks!