Gruppe M - FIA GT Championship - Dubai
FIA GT Championship Round 10
Five All

In many respects it was business as usual for GruppeM in the heat of the Dubai desert, with another dominant performance from the factory-supported squad. Fastest throughout practice, followed by pole from newly-crowned co-champion Marc Lieb, set the scene for the characteristic ding-dong battle between the two evenly matched GruppeM Porsches for the race. Well, that’s how it all started out anyway. What wasn’t true to form was the fact that the #66 failed to finish for the first time this season, handing an easy win to Emmanuel Collard and Tim Sugden.

That makes it a perfectly-balanced five-all between the two cars in terms of straight wins, but with the #88 failing to reach the flag on more than one occasion, the title has already been decided in favour of Lieb and Rockenfeller. Their consistent finishing performance has also tended to net the Germans a heavier weight penalty, which they’ve carried from race to race all around the world. Despite this, they seem to have had the narrowest edge over their team-mates, although there’s no doubting that bad luck has befallen the Anglo-French pairing with unmerited frequency. Perhaps this was fate smiling on the flipside for a change, but it came too late to influence the championship.

Practice and Qualifying
Everything happens a little earlier in the Middle East, and first practice came along on Wednesday afternoon. Both GruppeM Porsches were on good form, with the #66 just a tad quicker, posting 2:03.628 to head its sister car by half a second. The Spyker – a welcome addition to the grid for these final fly-away races of the year – was next up, bringing fresh blood to the series and a new challenge for the Porsches, but still two seconds adrift. Third in this first session fell to the Spyker Squadron’s C8 on 2:04.616, narrowly edging GPC’s Ferrari 360 into fourth.

By Thursday morning the two GruppeM cars had found a couple of seconds each, with Marc Lieb just ducking under two-oh-two for the #66, with Emmanuel Collard four-tenths behind. Championship regulars GPC finished the day third, just ahead of the impressive Spyker, while a smattering of GT1 cars filled in the gaps either side. That paved the way for an interesting first session of qualifying early on the Thursday afternoon. At first, all the running was made by the Spyker C8, vying with the #86 GPC Ferrari 360 for top slot in GT2, but that was only until the two GruppeM cars appeared slightly late on track. Collard was the first to post a new quickest time for the class, managing a rapid 2:01.910 on his third flying lap. It proved to be his best time, but Marc Lieb had something in reserve. Having sat in second place for most of the session with a preliminary flyer of 2:02.558, Lieb pitted briefly for a few tweaks, and then re-emerged on track to post a 2:01.802. To put this in context, pole last season around the Dubai track, in similar conditions, was 2:02.946.

The second qualifying period rounded off a busy Thursday. While most of the grid, and especially those in GT1, found an extra few tenths to post improvements later in the afternoon, the two GruppeM cars opted instead to concentrate on race set-up. Even so, they were still comfortably quickest in GT2, although Chris Buncombe found space and pace for a quick lap towards the end of the session to set the JMB Racing Ferrari 360 Modena a somewhat unexpected third in class, nudging the Spyker into fourth. It was the young Englishman’s first run in the 360.

So, despite carrying the maximum weight penalty of 75 kilos, Marc Lieb had claimed pole once again. Perhaps it was something to do with his state of mind. Having won the championship, he and co-driver Mike Rockenfeller had nothing to lose and no pressure, and both declared that they were out to enjoy themselves as much as possible over the last two rounds. "Since winning the Championship in Zhuhai, we will drive for ourselves and enjoy the last two races,” declared Lieb in the post-qualifying press conference. “We want a good race and to have fun!” quipped his team-mate, Mike Rockenfeller, before Lieb took a more serious line. “It was actually far more difficult than it looked. With no support races this week, the track conditions are not easy. There’s always a little wind, and that brings sand onto the track all the time. It takes some time to clear that away at the beginning of each session, so the quicker times can sometimes come towards the end. I managed to get a good lap out of it early on, which surprised me, but then I was able to go faster later. I was happy to out-qualify Manu with the extra weight, so that felt good to me.” Collard was pleased to have been within a second, though. "We worked on the race set-up today, and we will have a good car,” he insisted, before going on to comment on the in-car conditions. “The temperatures are much better this year. I can breathe! Last year, I was cooking in the car!”

Race
Raceday in Dubai, as it will be at Bahrain, was Friday. A flurry of brisk wind in the early morning had whipped the sand into a light dusting across the entire track, but the ten o’clock warm-up cleared away the worst of it. A hazily shifting film had drifted back again by the time the race got under way at just before two local time, but it wasn’t going to cause any serious problems. With a handful of GT1 cars starting from the back of the grid, the race took a few laps to settle down, but there was excitement on the first lap when Emmanuel Collard made a blinding start and got through ahead of Marc Lieb, only to lose the advantage as they came round to complete the opener, letting the German back through and into first place again. However, with that exchange out of the way, it was soon evident that GT2 was once again a two-horse race. By the time the GT1 cars from the back had cleared a path through to their rightful places at the front, the GruppeM Porsches had a class lead of nearly four seconds, and it simply extended from that moment forth.

If that gap was extending, the space between Lieb’s tail and Collard’s nose was hardly changing at all. The Frenchman, fresh from his LMES win in Istanbul, was determined not to let the #66 move out of reach, and for the first eight or ten laps was actually the quicker of the two. Getting by, however, would never be easy, and running so close would eventually lead to problems for the #88. For the time being, though, it proved highly entertaining, and provided most of the mid-field action for the next twenty laps or more. Then, on lap 27, the GT2 leaders were in the process of being lapped by the race leaders. Bouchut in the #17 Aston Martin had got through safely, and was being followed four or five seconds down the road by Mike Hezemans in the #6 GL-PK Corvette. The Dutchman tucked in front of Lieb on the run down towards the hairpin, mid-way through the lap, and headed into the sharp right-hander. Coming out the other side, the Corvette suddenly faltered. Lieb, nimble through the twisty sections in his GT2 Porsche, was right on Hezemans’ tail as he prepared to accelerate out of the corner. “He just slowed down, I don’t know why!” exclaimed the GruppeM driver in surprise. “Maybe he couldn’t get into gear, I don’t know, but I had to back off quickly. Manu was right behind me, and he couldn’t lift off in time. He went into the back of me.” It was a glancing blow, and not particularly hard, but enough to send the chasing #88 Porsche spinning wide. Manu collected the car very quickly, but not before Lieb had pulled away and disappeared towards the next corner.

By this stage Bleekemolen was running third in GT2 in the Spyker, but the deficit was already enormous, and although Collard fell back from Lieb to the tune of six or seven seconds, his hold on position was never in doubt. Lieb was the first to pit, however, and handed over to Mike Rockenfeller at the end of lap 31, allowing Collard through into the lead. The exchange with Rockenfeller was typically smooth and trouble-free, as was Collard’s with Tim Sugden three laps later. At no time did GruppeM lose the class lead, and the race looked to be heading towards another comfortable one-two for the Porsche squad. That expectation, however, was upset on lap 38 when Rockenfeller’s car was seen to be losing fluid, and he headed back down the pitlane at the end of the next lap. “The water was dripping in front of my rear left wheel, so I had to stop straight away,” said Rocky. “It was making the car very difficult to drive, and the temperature was starting to go up.”

As they always do, without fail, the GruppeM mechanics, led by Steve Haggar, set-to and began pulling the back end of the Porsche to pieces, intent on finding and fixing the problem. They dragged the stricken Porsche backwards into the garage and delved deeper. Unfortunately, it soon became clear that this was no five-minute fix. “It was exactly the same problem that broke on the #88 car in Brno,” explained a disappointed Rockenfeller. “The heat-exchanger is mounted on the top of the engine, and you have to take the engine out to fix it.” Steve Bunkhall acknowledged that there was nothing more to be done. “It was a small thing really, but we simply couldn’t get close enough to fix it. They had to retire straight away. If we’d been in a twenty-four hour race, we’d have given it a go, but it’s an engine-out job, so that was that.”

The official retirement didn’t come through for another ten laps, by which time Sugden was a dot on the proverbial horizon, a full lap and a half clear of the Spyker, with the JMB Ferrari 360 the best part of two minutes further back. “It became a very straightforward race for us, to be honest,” said Tim Sugden. “We had been doing OK anyway, and although there had been a good battle between us and the #66, we’d been really close all the way. After they retired with that water pipe problem, the rest of the race became very easy for us. Nobody else was anywhere near our pace. It was just a case of being careful with the car and not making any mistakes.”

The gap did close up a fraction during the six-lap safety car period, required after the Vonka Porsche lost a rear wheel and had to be recovered, but Collard was able to re-establish and extend the lead, having swapped places with Sugden once again soon afterward racing resumed. He ran faultlessly to the flag in what must have become a somewhat lonely race, crossing the line two laps clear of the Spyker, with the JMB 360 retaining third. “It’s nice to win, of course,” said Tim Sugden, “but we didn’t really want to win like that. We prefer to win with a fight. On the other hand, we’ve lost enough races this year through bad luck, so I guess it’s OK to win one through good.” Lieb and Rockenfeller were disappointed not to be up there on the podium with them, but perhaps even more downhearted to have lost their excellent 100% finishing record. “It’s very disappointing,” admitted Marc Lieb. “That’s our first DNF of the year, and we were so competitive here this week. We were fastest in practice, and in qualifying, and I’m sure we could have won again today. The car was excellent throughout my stint and Doc (Steve Bunkhall) did an excellent job. The problem was just one of those things you can do nothing about.”

Rocky shrugged his agreement. “It happens. It’s motorsport. There’s nothing you can do about it,” he said. “I guess it was good that it happened at this point in the championship, and not earlier on, but I think we could have won the race quite easily today. There was certainly a good chance, so of course it’s disappointing, but we have already won the championship. We had some bad luck, but that’s only fair. The other car has had a lot of bad luck this season, so it balances out a little.”

Back in the garage Steve Bunkhall reflected on the race. “It was a real shame to finish that way,” he said. “Up to the point when the hose broke we were having a fantastic race. Marc and Manu were trading fastest times and never more than a second apart for thirty laps, and they were completely ‘on it’ all the way. Adam (DeBorre) and I were going to have to look at pitstop strategies to find a way through, and it could have gone either way,” he added, suggesting that this race could have been won or lost in the pits. “We’re especially disappointed that the #66 lost its 100% finishing record this season. Steve Haggar, who’s the chief mechanic on both cars, worked wonders this year, and it’s a tremendous record, so losing that is another regret.”

The squad now looks ahead to the second Middle East race in Bahrain, on Friday of this week (November 25). Sugden and Collard will be hoping for another win. “We’ll take a win anywhere we can get it!” said Sugden. “With Mike and Marc having won the Championship, and with five races won each, the only thing we can hold on to is that we want to win one more race than them." Mike Rockenfeller is determined it won’t end that way. “We had 25 kilos more than them this week, which suggests that our performance was good here in Dubai. Next week will be something else entirely. I know Bahrain a little, and I like the circuit. We will have only 30 kilos ballast, and they will have the 75. I think it’s the first time they will have more weight than us this year, so it will be interesting to see how well they cope. Maybe they won’t be able to keep up with us!”

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Marcus Potts