Gruppe M Nurburgring 1000 Kilometers LMES Round 4
September 3rd-4th 2005

Preview, Practice & Qualifying
With the withdrawal of the Tim Sugden / Jonathan Cocker entry following the sad demise of the team’s original Number Eighty-Eight Porsche at Silverstone last time out, GruppeM’s emphasis for Round 4 of the LMES shifted to the Noble Group’s entry, driven by Matthew Marsh and Darryl O’Young. The two Hong Kong-based drivers have been stirring up a considerable amount of interest within GT circles, following the announcement a couple of months back that the squad’s objective is to secure an entry for the Le Mans 24 Hours, and thereby become the first Chinese team to race in the French classic. Before that happens, they are keen to prove that they have the right credentials, so a few good runs in the LMES (and also, perhaps, the FIA GT Championship in the later fly-away rounds) is fundamental to their cause. On last weekend’s showing at the Nurburgring, when the pair ran a genuine fourth in class and topped out as high as second between driver changes, they’re clearly on the right tracks. A self-confessed misjudgement by Darryl cost them dearly, but he and Matthew were pragmatic enough to realise that their first LMES points finish was a step in the right direction.

Thanks to a special dispensation from the ACO, the Noble Group Porsche has been redesignated #88 for the remainder of the season – something that will have been met with smiles and nods of satisfaction back in Hong Kong, where the ‘two fat ladies’ are considered amongst the luckiest of numbers. The fact that the change has been approved also confirms that we’ve seen the last of Sugden and Cocker in the LMES this year, which must come as a bitter disappointment to both drivers, although especially to young Jonathan. He will be continuing his challenge in the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia, where he’s enjoyed a fair degree of success this season, but the chance to shine in such a major international series as the LMES had been a wonderful opportunity, now lost to last season’s British GT titleholder. Tim Sugden, meanwhile, will be concentrating on his FIA GT duties, and also his drives in America. Last weekend, while GruppeM was in Germany, Sugden was pedalling the J3 Racing Porsche 911 GT3-RSR with Justin Jackson in the ALMS race at Mosport, finishing 5th in class, 17th overall - which begs the question; what would he have done if matters had turned out differently? (It also prompts one to ask how come ALMS and LMES – two supposedly related species – can schedule races for the same weekend, but that’s another story.)

So GruppeM arrived at the Nurburgring via Oschersleben, having stayed a few days extra at their previous FIA venue to fettle the Noble Group Porsche, ahead of its LMES duties. A new engine was all that the car needed once the team had set up camp in the paddock, and Marsh and O’Young were on pretty good form throughout Friday’s practice sessions. For O’Young, this was his first experience of the Nurburgring, but Marsh is no stranger to the undulating German track, having raced in last year’s 24 Hours, driving a BMW M3 to second in class. He says that the Nurburgring Nordschleife is “the most incredible track that I have ever raced upon”, although somewhat incongruously, then suggests that he feels most at home at Snetterton. That aside, he settled down quite quickly last weekend, to the shorter track, and had the #88 running sixth quickest by the end of Friday with a best of 2:03.332, splitting the two Team LNT TVRs.

Saturday Qualifying saw more of the same from Marsh, who demonstrated continued improvement by coming through with a best lap of 2:02.736, to secure seventh in GT2. He was far from disappointed, but insists that qualifying is never part of his agenda anyway. “It’s all about being on the same page really,” he said. “I went three tenths faster than I’d ever done before, which was personally quite satisfying, but I don’t think it matters that much. OK, it’s nice to get pole, if that possibility is there, but it’s not relevant to us at the moment. I’m probably in a different mode to everyone about me, but my attitude is all geared towards a six-hour endurance race.”

The Race
GruppeM maintains a strict rulebook when it comes to taking turns, and there’s no favouritism one way or another. That applies in FIA GT as well as LMES, and with O’Young having enjoyed qualifying and first-stint honours at Silverstone three weeks ago, it was Matthew Marsh who not only qualified the #88 car at the Nurburgring, but also started the race. It was a solid and deliberately unspectacular beginning for the English-born Marsh.

Lining up on the seventeenth row, thirty-third overall, and with six hours of racing ahead of him, he was wise enough to know that there’s no point taking chances when those lights turn green. Too much can happen up ahead of you going into the first corner, and someone else’s mistake can all too easily become your own. Also on his mind were the three much faster cars starting not far behind him, from the back of the grid, including Hayanari Shimoda in the #15 Zytek and Silverstone’s GT1 winning MenX Ferrari. And so it was a level-headed Mash who completed the first lap unscathed in thirty-third place – exactly where he’d started.

With John Stack’s incident, plus another for a Courage, bringing out an immediate safety car, it was a couple of laps before the action really started. Once the race truly got underway, on lap three, Shimoda came whizzing by almost immediately in the other Zytek, closely followed by the MenX 550, leaving Marsh content to follow Markus Palttala in the Ice Pol Porsche. These two sidestepped neatly to allow the recovering Stack to gather up his skirts and come rushing by, followed closely by Wolfgang Kauffman, the German starting from the back-row in the A-Level Engineering twin-turbo 996 GT1. So Marsh would begin lap five from thirty-seventh, but comfortable in the knowledge that no-one had passed him who shouldn’t have. “My attitude is that there’s no point in being first into the first corner at the start of a long race,” insisted Marsh. “I was driving pretty conservatively, and keeping out of trouble as best I could.”

Over the next half a dozen laps he settled down into a calm rhythm that netted several worthy scalps, picking off the #68 JMB Racing Ferrari 575 on lap six, the Spyker on lap seven, and then gaining another position on lap nine, when Harold Primat pulled off into the pitlane with the woe-struck #18 Rollcentre Dallara. That brought the Noble Group Porsche up into thirty-fourth-place – a position it would then hold for the next eighteen laps. It was steady, dependable stuff from Marsh, who was setting the kind of regular laps (bracketed consistently around the 2:05 mark) that would keep Bleekemolen in the Spyker at heel without much difficulty, but also maintain a close leash on those ahead.

His guide throughout this period remained Markus Palttala in the #73 Porsche, and there was never much between the two. However, when Markus nipped through to take the #57 Belmondo Viper on lap twenty-seven, it must have come as something of a wake-up call for Marsh, because his pace suddenly increased. He too dispensed with Kurt Mollekens on the next lap, and then had his team-mate Luenberger in the second Viper a couple of laps later. The retirement of Patrick Pearce in the #82 Team LNT TVR came a few minutes later, and with the race little more than an hour old, GruppeM’s Noble Group Porsche was running a highly respectable seventh in GT2, thirtieth overall.

With the onset of the first round of pitstops, the picture in GT2 became slightly harder to follow. One of the first to stop was Xavier Pompidou in the #90 Sebah Porsche, but others would follow suit in rapid order, and as they did so the fuel-efficient Marsh would benefit – to the tune of second in GT2. That was where he peaked on lap thirty-nine, impressively hanging onto the tail of Fabio Babini in the class-leading GPC Ferrari 360, before diving into the pitlane to hand over to the waiting Darryl O’Young. “That was all down to Doc (Steve Bunkhall, chief race engineer on the #88). He did a good job, and we had an excellent strategy.”

It was a pitch-perfect stop, and had O’Young back out into the fray in thirty-third place, seventh in GT2. This may have been O’Young’s first racing venture onto the Nurburgring, but he wasn’t hanging about. His first flying lap, a 2:03.353, would prove to be the car’s fastest of the day, and fifth fastest outright in GT2. It would also be the first of several laps that all ducked under 2:05, and did much to establish the #88 as one of the fastest cars in its class during this second hour of the race. It also started to pay dividends on track too, with the yellow and white car, resplendent with its red bauhinia-flagged roof, picking up several places over the following five or six laps. That blinding lap alone netted two, and then Marsh’s long-time sparring partner, the Ice Pol Racing Porsche, succumbed a few minutes later.

By the time O’Young started lap forty-four he’d broken into the top thirty to be lying fourth in GT2, and entirely on merit. “We’d settled down into P4, and that felt quite nice,” said Marsh later. “To my mind, that’s where we felt we should be. If the race had gone to plan, we’d have been snapping at their heels for the rest of the race.”

The rise continued for the next twenty laps or more, with the #88 picking off some of the slower GT1 cars as well as ailing prototypes, until it stood a highly respectable twenty-fifth overall; still fourth in class but actually closing on the #81 Team LNT TVR. O’Young’s early pace, however, had been difficult to maintain, and the second round of driver changes was also creating some unpredictable traffic. On lap sixty he lost his first genuine place, as Franco Groppi in the Autorlando Porsche #76 – one of the stalwarts of the series and a regular front runner – came through to snatch the place, having been snapping at O’Young’s heels for the best part of half an hour. Four laps later and the recovering Scuderia Ecosse Ferrari, Nathan Kinch at the wheel, denied the Noble Porsche another GT2 slot. To lose ground to either car could never be considered an embarrassment and, subsequent results withstanding, neither would giving way to the rejuvenated Spyker, but that’s what happened to O’Young on lap sixty-five. What probably had the Canadian-born Chinese kicking himself, however, was when Christian Lefort in the Ice Pol Racing Porsche took advantage of the Spyker’s move to slip through as well.

In the space of three laps O’Young had lost as many places, and it’s possible that this has some bearing on what happened next. Having just given ground to one of the prototypes, O’Young was bearing down on the James Watt Automotive Porsche with Paul Daniels at the wheel. The #98 car was some way down the order, running near the back of the field and a degree or so slower than the GruppeM Noble Porsche, so O’Young had some justification in thinking that an overtaking move was on the cards. What he possibly hadn’t accounted for was the braking potential of the prototype he was following. Thinking to follow the faster car into the corner, he was drawn far deeper into his braking zone than he might typically have gone, and when he went for the brakes, he’d gone too far, too fast, too late.

“Unfortunately, I made a mistake,” admitted O’Young in a refreshingly candid moment. “I followed the prototype deep into the corner and misjudged my braking point. The fronts locked up and I slid wide into the other car. It was an error of judgement on my part, and I’m very sorry for the other guys. I broke a front damper, but I believe they broke some suspension components as well. It was very unfortunate.” In fact, having made contact, Darryl’s Porsche then went broadside into Daniels’, clashing heavily at the back as well, buckling the rear rim and adding a puncture to the #88’s list of injuries. Both cars were seriously damaged, and each limped sadly back to the pitlane. The fact they could do so at all was about the only factor in their favour, since neither would be back out on track again in under half an hour. In fact, the JWA Porsche would be sidelined for more than an hour, and while Simonsen and Daniels would complete another twenty-odd laps, it would be insufficient for a classified finish.

Once back at the garage, the GruppeM pit crew were straight into action. All credit has to go to the engineers and mechanics; their determination and ability is fast becoming the stuff of legend. Remember, these are the guys who straightened a Porsche chassis in the middle of the Spa 24 Hours by chaining the front of the car between a steel girder and a lorry, so fitting a new front upright should be a doddle. Right? Wrong! For reasons as yet unexplained, it wasn’t possible to fit a direct replacement for the damaged strut, so a substitute had to be found. The best fit turned out to be a Spax unit.

The incident had happened towards the end of Darryl’s scheduled stint anyway, so Matthew Marsh had been all suited up, helmet at the ready, by the time the car had limped down the pitlane. He’d then been sitting in the driver’s seat almost throughout the repair, but even that hadn’t been without incident, although he was able to see the funny side. “A fire extinguisher went off inside the car,” he said, actually laughing at the memory. “No, it was quite funny, really,” he insisted. “We had to take the thing out, and one of the guys had his finger over the end until Doc could come over with an allen key to switch it off. But then it went off again. It was a bit like having a live squirrel inside the car, and the stuff went everywhere – across the dash, all over the windscreen, but at least it gave us something to laugh about!”

So, after twenty-eight minutes of frantic and, at times, hilarious activity, twelve laps lost, Matthew Marsh rejoined the race, with a Moton damper on the front right, and a Spax unit on the front left. It made for some very entertaining handling! “With the change to the damper the whole dynamics were shot,” explained O’Young. “That caused the car to lock up into almost every corner under braking. We had to adapt our driving to suit the problems, and it made it a very tough car to drive. To be sure of stopping, you had to brake in a straight line into a corner, but that worked the front tyres a lot.”

Despite this, Marsh was able to drive around the problem, and after a couple of hesitant laps, he was soon back into the same groove that he’d left off an hour or more earlier, clocking off lap after lap in the two-oh-sixes and sevens. “The car was a challenge!” he admitted. “The damper settings were a complete guess and the car felt very odd, but I suppose it all added to the enjoyment of the weekend!” Even if the podium was now a distant dream, at least a finish and some points were still on the table. He completed another 42 laps before handing the car back to Darryl for the final stint. A quick splash-and-dash a dozen laps from the end saw GruppeM’s #88 take 28th position on the very last lap, eighth in GT2.

Clearly the result could have been very different for Marsh and O’Young, but they didn’t appear unduly disappointed. “We’re very happy that we’ve got some kind of result. We got to the end, so that’s something to celebrate. I know we had a good shot at the podium this time, and we were running decent times, so it could have gone a lot better, but overall the team’s quite happy to score our first point. It’s been a tough year for the whole team this year, and it can only get better from here.”

Steve Bunkhall recognised their achievement. “Up until the accident it had all been fairly straightforward. The car was running well, and the pace was OK. We couldn’t have stayed with the Sebah Porsche or the Ferraris, but if we could have kept it going we’d have had a good chance at the end. Maybe P3 or even P2 was on the cards, I don’t know, but they were very unfortunate and it’s a disappointing end. We’ll just have to put this down to experience.” O’Young sheepishly agreed. “I’ll take this as a big lesson to be more careful with my overtaking,” he said.

The next scheduled outing for the Hong Kong team is in the final round of the LMES at Istanbul in early November, but Marsh admitted that there are hopes of another race in the meantime. “We’re also looking to do the FIA GT race at Zhuhai,” he said. “It’s like our home track, so I think it’s what we should be doing.” There are some logistical and financial issues to be sorted out before that can happen though, but it would be further valuable experience for this likeable pair. For the rest of the team, however, Istanbul already looms. They’ll be in Turkey in ten days’ time, preparing for round eight of the FIA GT Championship.
Marcus Potts