GruppeM - FIA GT Championship - Brno
FIA GT Championship Round 5

It turned out to be win number five for GruppeM at Brno, but once again it was the #66 Porsche of Emmanuel Collard and Tim Sugden that suffered the rare indignity of a DNF, after a coolant pipe on the engine failed some hour-and-a-half into the race. This left Marc Lieb and Mike Rockenfeller to inherit a comfortable lead in GT2 and thereby enjoy a relatively unruffled run to the flag, making it a 100% record of wins for Lieb at the Czech circuit.

After the frustration of losing their times in Saturday’s first qualifying session, and then being unable to come even close to that pace in the later, much hotter afternoon period, Collard and Sugden were in no mood to dawdle on Sunday morning. They announced their race intent with an impressive showing in morning warm-up. It was damp, which suited the Porsches well, but seventh quickest overall and more than a second and a half faster than their team-mates in the #66 restored some degree of confidence, and suggested that the race wasn’t over yet.

With the event scheduled for early afternoon, a little later than is usual at FIA GT meetings, the weather, and the track, had improved by the time the cars took up their positions on the grid, but the overcast skies and gathering clouds warned of changeable conditions ahead. No question for now, though, it was slicks all round. Tim Sugden in the #88 GruppeM Porsche found himself in unfamiliar territory for the start; staring at the tail of Shaun Balfe’s Mosler and a full two rows behind Marc Lieb in the #66. In his mind he was probably confident that the G2 Mosler could get the jump on Kaufmann in the Renauer GT2 Porsche alongside once the lights changed, but he would still have to negotiate a tricky route if he was to tag along with Marc and challenge for the lead.

As it turned out, things fell very neatly into place. Bearing down onto the first corner, there was sufficient jostling through the pack that a composed and resolute Suggy not only cleared Kaufmann with ease, but by the end of the lap had also outbraked Balfe to be ahead of the Mosler too. There was “a bit of an incident,” said Sugden later. “That allowed be to pass the two cars and catch up with Marc.” If the two GruppeM cars had come through the first two minutes with merit, the same could not be said of others. Up ahead there had been a general free-for-all between the GT1 pack leaders, with various Ferraris, Maseratis and the Corvette all squabbling amongst themselves over dominance of the black stuff, and three coming off decidedly the worse for wear, retiring on the spot. Kaufmann’s hopes of perhaps maintaining his qualifying challenge amid the GruppeM guys also saw a swift deflation, as the Renauer Porsche slipped from second in GT2 to sixteenth overall, falling behind the Ebimotors 996 in the process.

With the two GruppeM cars back in their habitual class-leading position, things started to take on a familiar look. There’s intense rivalry between the two pairings - of course there is - but it’s invariably fair and clean. When they can also work together to mutual advantage, they will do, and the effects can be impressive. Such was the case at Brno. Having clicked into place, with Lieb just a second in front of Sugden, the two cars set off like a pair of hounds after a hare, and the first of the GT1 cars ahead of them didn’t stand a chance.

Lap two, and the #8 Graham Nash Motorsport Saleen had been demoted three places – two courtesy of the GruppeM Porsches, and a third as Bertoloni, starting the #15 Maserati from the back after an engine change, swept through from last to eighth inside the first five minutes.

Having waved goodbye to the 'Maser', Lieb and Sugden kept up an impressive pace of their own for the next quarter hour. Their lap times were barely distinguishable, and the gap between them hung steady at a second or so.

“I had a lot of understeer for the first few laps,” admitted the Yorkshireman. “I lost a bit of ground with that, but then the car started to come back to me as the rear tyres went off a little, and I was quicker than Marc. I was catching him by two-tenths a lap and the car felt really good.” The GNM Saleen was a hundred metres adrift, but with a clear track ahead of them the GruppeMs were making good progress. In fact, both Porsches set their fastest times of the race on lap three, Lieb posting a 2:04.481, just a fraction quicker than Sugden’s 2:04.761. Later conditions would render anything better than this unlikely, even with lighter fuel loads, but to achieve such quick times so early in the race was indicative of just how well-prepared and evenly matched these cars are. By lap five they had a lead of some twenty seconds over the nearest GT2 challenger, and trailed three GT1 cars and a Mosler in their wake. Impressive stuff.

Set into a comfortable groove, the two red, white and pale blue cars ticked off the next twenty laps with metronomic regularity. The margin between them remained constant, and so did their pace. Time and again they crossed the beacon having completed yet another lap just tenths either side of 2:05. By lap twelve they’d started passing the tail-enders, and as Bouchut took the overall lead away from Philipp Peter on lap 14, they stood tenth and eleventh overall, almost a minute clear in GT2. The only fly in their ointment was Montermini in the #24 GT1 Rock Media Ferrari 575, who was making up for a disastrous first lap and steadily making his way back through the field. On lap twelve he passed Sugden, and then got ahead of Lieb next tour around. It didn’t appear to upset their rhythm, and made no difference to their class standing.

What had just been a darkening of the clouds became a light drizzle on lap 21. Within five minutes it was a heavy downpour. Like it or not – and the race was barely forty-five minutes gone, so somewhat early for a scheduled pitstop – there was sudden activity in the pitlane. Tyre-crews were standing at the ready, and at the end of lap 24 the first candidates for wet-weather gear started to arrive, headlights ablaze and wipers thrashing through the deluge. Tim Sugden in the #88 was the first GruppeM driver to arrive, and handed over to Emmanuel Collard while the team refueled the car, and then fitted full wets. “It was a quick decision,” said Sugden. “We went immediately for wets.” No sooner had he blasted out of the pitlane than Marc Lieb arrived, handing over the #66 to Mike Rockenfeller. The decision this time was to try intermediates, but which was the better option?

It was a quick stop, but not quick enough. Just one extra lap on slicks around a wet track and the advantage had swung hugely in Collard’s favour. After Sugden had just spent his entire stint breathing fumes from Lieb’s exhaust, his French co-driver now found himself not only ahead of Lieb, but leading the class by a whopping thirty seconds. With an hour of the race completed, and all except one car pitted, Collard was in an enviable position. Heavy rain had altered the situation entirely, and the GT2 Porsches were suddenly able to race on a pace that was every bit as quick, and frequently quicker, than the more powerful GT1 cars. There’s nothing more treacherous than a wet track and masses of torque, and while Ferraris and Maseratis were easing back and still slip-sliding around, Collard and Lieb were among the fastest things on track.

Not only was Collard leading, he was pulling away. On lap 31 he proved his point by slicing through the spray to overtake the Lister Storm, and while Lieb was being lapped for the first time by the leaders, the #88 was a rare sight nearly forty seconds in the far distance. The Le Mans pole-setter was clearly in his element, as was the GT2 Porsche. “Marc and Rocky had waited that extra lap and chose intermediates,” pointed out Sugden. “Then it rained even more, and we proved that full wets were the right choice. Manu was pulling away by two or three seconds a lap until we had a 44 second lead.” Perhaps full wets had been the way to go, at least at this stage in the race, as Mike Rockenfeller conceded. “It was really difficult on the intermediates,” he admitted. “We nearly thought I might have to come in again [for rain tyres] because there was such a lot of water on the track.” Meanwhile a second GT1 car fell to Collard’s charge in the shape of the Rock Media Ferrari, and then the Balfe Mosler suffered the indignity of being lapped. It was all going so well. With four or five seconds advantage with every lap completed, Collard was just eyeing up the Corvette for his next target - when his attention was drawn to a warning alarm. “It was the water pressure,” explained his co-driver. “We do get those from time to time, so at first he thought nothing of it, but then the engine started to get hotter and hotter. After three laps it was just too hot, and we had to pit.”

Coming round to complete lap 37, Collard had no choice. The water temperature was dangerously high, and pressing on could have done serious damage. He coasted the last few yards towards the GruppeM garage, and drove straight inside. Just when everything looked so promising, it was race-over for the #88. “A water pipe had broken,” explained Karen Coombes, assistant team manager at GruppeM. “The water temperature as he came in was horrendous. Manu drove straight in, thinking it was something we could fix, but it wasn’t.” It was another of those rare “never happened before” kind of failures. “There’s an aluminium pipe on top of the heat exchanger,” clarified Sugden. “There was no way we could fix that without removing engine.”

Attention returned to Marc Lieb in the #66. With Collard’s retirement, Lieb inherited a comfortable GT2 lead, and like his team-mate, was mixing it with the GT1 runners. His margin over the second-placed car in the class, the #86 GPC Ferrari 360, was more than a lap, and when he passed the Mosler on lap 41, his nearest challenger of any kind was more than two minutes behind him. Not only had Collard’s demise robbed the race of any kind of contest in GT2, it had also taken all the fun out of it for Lieb. No-one to chase and no-one to be wary of. It could have run the risk of becoming boring, but the German still found that there were trials to be faced and cars to be passed.

Soon after the #88 was pushed away into the garage, the rain began to ease. While the track remained wet, however, Lieb could make the most of the Porsche’s sure-footed handling. Now the intermediates were coming into their own. He lapped the #8 Saleen, again. He passed the #24 Ferrari, twice. He overtook the Lister Storm, and then got in front of the #17 Russian Age Racing Ferrari just before it pitted. He was positively flying along, and as the race entered its second hour, the #66 GruppeM Porsche stood a remarkable seventh overall.

With the first pitstop prompted by rain, the early race schedule had been thrown out of kilter, but everything would be drawn back into line by a short third stint. Rockenfeller pressed on as best he could, but the time was growing ripe for slick tyres once again. On lap 62, with barely half an hour still to run, he steered the GruppeM car back down the pitlane to a waiting Marc Lieb. Perhaps it was the lack of pressure, now that the second car was out of the running, or maybe it was simply in the heat of the moment, but this wasn’t one of GruppeM’s best pitstops. Slight confusion with a pair of tyres cost the #66 the best part of thirty seconds, but it was pretty academic either way. The class was well secure, although the delay did cost a couple of overall positions. Justin Keen was back in the Lister after pitting eight laps previously, and the #14 car had made up ground between times. When Lieb emerged on track, it was to see the black and white GT1 just disappearing round the corner ahead of him, but circumstances had changed. With everyone back on slicks and the surface drying, the GT1 cars were once more able to enforce their dominance, and there’d be no more giant-killing today for the Porsche teams.

The final twenty laps would be routine stuff for Lieb. His lead was insurmountable, provided nothing went wrong with the car and he made no mistakes. He enjoyed a few moments of personal satisfaction – passing the Mosler again being one, keeping pace with Bertolini in the Maserati for several laps being another - but in most other respects this was just a cruise to the flag. He took the finish ninth overall, four laps clear of the (then) second-placed GPC Ferrari #86 and Kaufmann third in the Renauer Porsche. Following scrutineering the Ferrari was disqualified from the result for failing to meet the ride height test, further bringing into question the accuracy of the measuring facilities at Brno, but elevating the #56 Vonka Racing Porsche to third.

The result perpetuates GruppeM’s clean sweep of class victories this season, and made it three wins from three races at Brno for a delighted Marc Lieb. “Yes, this was my third race here and my third win in the GT2 category,” he said, smiling enthusiastically. “We were a little bit lucky today,” he conceded. “The other car had problems, but Mike drove well on the intermediate tyres, and all I had to do was bring the car home.”

Mike was typically self-effacing. “I tried my best, but it was very difficult!” he said. “Marc came in when it started raining and suggested intermediate tyres. We couldn't compare whether intermediates or rain tyres were best as our sister car did not finish, but we are really happy with the result." Not so Tim Sugden and Emmanuel Collard. “I don’t mind losing if we are not fast enough,” said Sugden, “ but we were quick today. So, we need them to have some bad luck soon – I don’t mean more bad luck than us, just the same would do!”

Unfortunately, luck of either kind is rarely distributed evenly, it seems, but the future still remains open in the drivers' championship nonetheless. Lieb and Rockenfeller may lead on 46, but Collard and Sugden are still within striking distance on 31. The season is barely half-completed, and anything could happen as we head towards the Spa 24 Hours. A good run there could harvest a massive points tally, and an early retirement could cost dearly. Meanwhile GruppeM leads the team championship by a whopping sixty points, from Proton and Ebimotor.
Marcus Potts