GruppeM – Donington Park – June 27th

Top Result!

The victor’s podium at any race meeting is typically a scene of unbridled celebration, of course it is, but there can’t have been many occasions of late when this has been demonstrated with such genuine delight and sincerity as occurred at Donington Park last weekend. The look of elation across the face of Kenny Chen, owner of GruppeM Racing, as he held aloft his drivers’ two trophies at the end of the three-hour FIA GT race was one of heartfelt satisfaction and pride. He had every good reason to feel pleased: not only had GruppeM Racing achieved a podium finish on its international debut, but young Jonathan Cocker had ensured that his name - and the team’s - would remain in the record books for many years to come.

At seventeen, Jonathan Cocker became the youngest driver ever to race in an FIA-sanctioned event at senior level. If his mere participation in the FIA GT race was noteworthy, then the fact that he went on to end the day on the podium made it especially significant. Kenny Chen, even though he was so evidently delighted for his team’s sake, appeared to find even more to please him in Jonathan’s achievement. “Jonny is the youngest driver ever in the FIA GT Championship, and certainly the youngest on the podium, and in his first FIA GT race as well. This is a fantastic day for him; the best.”

The decision to put Jonathan into the car had come relatively late. “I didn’t know I was definitely in the car until Wednesday,” admitted Cocker, “but I’m so glad I got the drive - and I think Kenny is too. It’s great to have such an opportunity to compete at this kind of level. It’s been fantastic.” For some while after the race was over, Jonathan seemed to be walking in a daze, a permanent grin etched across his features. Time and again the questions came back to his age. “Yes, I’ve been told I’m youngest driver and the youngest ever to get on the podium, loads of stuff like that. It’s amazing,” he said. With a certain degree of controversy having hit the winners in the class, Cocker’s was the “good news” story that everyone wanted to hear.

It had all begun three hours or more beforehand, with Jonathan’s co-driver Tim Mullen strapped into the driver’s seat of the GruppeM Porsche 996 GT3-RSR for the start of Round 6 of the 2004 FIA GT Championship. Tim had qualified the car a very respectable – and slightly unlucky - fifth in N-GT, twentieth overall in the 28-car grid, but the conditions then had been damp. During Sunday morning warm-up, the Irishman had been able to go more than ten seconds quicker on a dry track, and this may have been the first pointer to how the race itself might pan out. It’s not always considered wise to examine warm-up times too closely, but on this occasion they offered the best indication available as to how the track would behave in the dry, and GruppeM emerged third in N-GT. On the grid, however, Tim Mullen would have four cars ahead of him, including two fellow British GT competitors; regular team-mate Andrew Kirkaldy in the Scuderia Ecosse Ferrari 360, and Mike Jordan in the John Guest-sponsored Porsche. Was Mullen concerned about competing head-to-head with Kirkaldy? “Well, when you’re a professional driver, if someone else offers you something in a different championship, it’s not like you’re racing against your usual team. It shouldn’t matter if you’re racing with your best mate or the team you usually compete against, you just go out there and do the best you can.” Within minutes this philosophy would be put to the sternest test.

Under a sky of broken clouds that allowed periods of bright sunshine, the cars took up their positions along Wheatcroft Straight, the final few tucked under the exit of Goddards. A crowd of around 30,000 had gathered to watch, although yet more were still trying to reach the circuit. The queues, which stretched out for miles into the surrounding countryside, would still not have cleared some while after the race had begun: it’s amazing what a bit of local publicity, and active promotion, can achieve. The rolling start, when it came at 11:13, was clean and trouble-free, the whole field streaming through Redgate without incident. With two of the GT cars starting from the back of the grid, Tim Mullen was eighteenth overall at the start of the lap, and eighteenth at the end, but the detail had changed.

In the first few moments of the race, Tim had tangled with Kirkaldy, proving that mates one weekend can indeed be rivals the next, but both suffered the consequences. Initially Kirkaldy held his ground, and looked to have the position secure, but as they swept out of Goddards to complete the opening lap, Tim Mullen carried his pace out of the corner just a tad better, and the GruppeM racer crossed the line a few hundredths to the fore. While they’d been scrapping, however, the GPC Giesse Ferrari had passed them both and was chasing after Mike Jordan, while the two Freisinger Porsches were comfortably leading the class, Ortelli heading Luhr by two-tenths.

With Bobbi pulling clear of Seiler for the overall lead, Mullen suddenly had his rear-view mirrors full of Vitaphone Saleen. Starting from the back of the grid, Bartels was slicing through the tailenders at a rate of knots. He caught and passed the red, white and blue Porsche at the end of lap two, demoting Mullen to nineteenth but, once gone, allowing him to concentrate on his own race. At this stage his thoughts were on the #62 GPC Ferrari ahead of him, which had started to pull out a slender advantage, and the #77 Freisinger Yukos 996 directly behind. Lucas Luhr, meanwhile, had taken the class lead from Ortelli.

Over the next handful of laps, Tim settled down to a steady pace that maintained the status quo in N-GT. When Seiler spun the Konrad Saleen out of third, it coincided with Safano Livio coming by the GruppeM RSR in the late-starting Care Racing 550. That left Tim still holding nineteenth overall, but now closing on Jordan in the JWR Porsche. The white car was suffering from a suspect damper, and Jordan’s pace had slipped enough to allow de Simone through in the GPC Ferrari for third in class. Jordan’s lap times weren’t hugely slower than before, but sufficient for the Irishman to close to within half a second by the end of lap seven. By the end of the next lap he’d swept through to claim eighteenth overall, fourth in N-GT, but if Jordan tried to retain a challenge it was short-lived. Alexei Vasiliev in the #77 Yukos Porsche was rapidly onto his tail, and Jordan was two slots down by the end of the ninth.

With Vasiliev now on his tail, Tim had his hands full over the next few laps just keeping the Russian at bay. This allowed de Simone to pull well clear, and the usual FIA GT one-two-three of Freisinger-Freisinger-GPC looked on the cards for round six. On the twelfth lap Vasiliev saw an opening and he dived through, but Tim was immediately back under the Russian’s rear wing, and plugging away for a repost.

He would hang in there doggedly for the remainder of his stint, never allowing the Yukos Porsche out of his sight, closing to within a tenth or so one lap, then falling back in traffic the next. That traffic was to have a significant bearing on the result in N-GT, and the first signs of that influence were to come twenty-five minutes into the race when race leader Karl Wendlinger caught up with the chief protagonists in N-GT. He arrived on Tim Mullen’s ‘tail’ at the start of lap eighteen, and made no bones about his intent. With barely a second thought he barged through on the run down towards the Old Hairpin. It was a close call, and all credit to our man for getting out of the way as quickly as he did, but it cost the GruppeM driver his challenge on Vasiliev, and he’d never again be quite close enough to exploit an on-track opportunity. If Tim was aggrieved by the brutality of Wendlinger’s pass, de Simone in the GPC Ferrari would fare worse. Tapped into a spin by the #17 JMB 575 at Coppice, the 360 would lose four laps being recovered from the gravel and then making repairs in the pits.

With the GT cars starting their first round of pitstops, Tim, now fourth in N-GT, steadily continued his move up the timing screens. Having fallen back four seconds on Vasiliev after the incident with Wendlinger, he steadily began to narrow the gap once more, and by lap thirty-eight was within striking distance once again, although had the added distraction of Nigel Greensall in the RSR Tuscan to consider. The TVR had been making good progress through the field, although this was probably as good as it was going to get for the bronze car.

With just under an hour completed, Vasiliev pitted the #77 Yukos Porsche to hand over to Fomenko. Tim Mullen pressed on, clearly enjoying being third in class, thirteenth overall, and completed two of his quickest laps before handing over to Jonathan Cocker on lap forty-one. It was a remarkably slick exchange, combining good pitwork with excellent timing, and the GruppeM Racing Porsche emerged on track ahead of its Russian rivals. “We had a really good stop,” agreed Jonathan Cocker. “It went so smoothly, and we got out again very fast. We’ve been practising a lot, and this shows it was worth it.”

He’d also been concentrating hard to make sure he made a clean get-away too. “You’re not allowed to re-start the car until the wheels touch the ground again,” he explained. “I was on the starter the moment it began to go down. I spun the wheels, which may have looked good on the cameras, but that’s better than stalling it. I wanted to make sure that wasn’t going to happen!” For the time being Mike Jordan, yet to stop for the hand-over to David Warnock, was shown as third in N-GT, but it would only be a matter of time before Jonathan resumed that position. It happened on lap forty-seven.

He settled down to the routine very quickly. “We had scrubbed tyres, and initially they felt a bit strange, but it meant you could push almost straight away. I’m not used to that,” he said. He also discovered, right at the start, that the car wasn’t exactly how he remembered it. “Tim had a knock early in the race, and the steering wheel wasn’t straight any more. As I turned for the Craner Curves the car went too far sideways. I adapted to that soon enough, and it was pretty straightforward from then on, but driving down Starkeys with the wheel at an angle felt pretty strange.”

As one of the quickest cars on the track in the British GT Championship, Jonathan’s not exactly used to having to watch so closely for faster traffic in his mirrors. “Some of the GTS drivers do take ridiculous risks,” he said. “They lunge at you and you have to get out of the way as quick as you can. That usually means running onto the dirty part of the track, so the tyres pick up loads of crap. Then it takes an age to clean them up again.”

He seemed to cope well enough, however, and set about extending his advantage over Fomenko, although this was made considerably easier by the Russian’s succession of spins.

With that threat gone, Jonathan’s prospects became far more straightforward. With no immediate pressure from behind, and with Maassen and Collard too far ahead to be considered, his race might even have become tedious, but he still found partners to spar with. The #62 GPC Ferrari offered some entertainment for a while, recovering from three laps down, but Jonathan was well aware of the situation, and wisely didn’t attempt to defend his line, as a charging Pescatori came through at Fogarty’s on lap fifty. At this stage he was already seventeen seconds clear of Fomenko (yet to suffer his final spin) and mixing it with the likes of Jamie Campbell-Walter in the Creation Lister.

The first to benefit from Fomenko’s succession of visits to the beach was Nathan Kinch in the Scuderia Ecosse 360, who caught and passed the Russian for fourth in class some sixty laps into the race. The gap between GruppeM Porsche and Scuderia Ecosse Ferrari stood at 26 seconds, and there it stayed for the remainder of Jonathan’s stint. Elsewhere on the track the #154 Synergy TVR’s run had come to an unfortunate end when the #9 Zwaan Viper t-boned the innocent Tuscan at the foot of the Craner Curves, the Viper driver - clearly very confused - claiming he had no brakes and blaming the “Morgan” for getting in the way! Hopefully he now knows the difference.

When Fomenko spun for the third time on the leader’s sixty-ninth lap, this time at the Melbourne Loop, it was the end for the #77 car, and it retired soon afterwards. Five laps later Kinch pitted, twenty-three seconds down the track from Cocker, and handed the Ferrari back to Kirkaldy. Eight minutes later, and with the two-hour mark showing on the clock, Tim Mullen was back at the wheel of the GruppeM Racing Porsche, although the pitstop didn’t go quite so perfectly this time. Pulling down on the straps to tighten the belts Tim yanked the earplug clean out of his right ear. For the next hour he’d be deafened by the noise of the engine in that ear while trying desperately to hear the team’s instructions over the radio through the other.

By the time the second series of pitstops had been completed, Tim was lying seventeenth overall, still 3rd in class, but some 28 seconds ahead of Kirkaldy. If the 360 was some way back, Tim Mullen had others nearer to hand who offered some close on-track action, even if no positions were at stake. Mike Jordan, two laps behind by this stage, kept him on his toes for several minutes, but it was the margin back to Kirkaldy that mattered, and that wasn’t changing at all. In fact, when Kirkaldy took to the dirty at Fogarty’s on lap 98, the gap extended to nearer 30 seconds. With half an hour of the race remaining, and no realistic chance of catching either of the two Freisinger cars, the pressure on Tim was easing, and he could afford to treat the car a little more gently for the remainder of the race.

Over the closing stages Kirkaldy did start to make inroads on the Porsche’s advantage, but it was nothing the Irishman couldn’t handle. Driving well within himself, he cruised the final dozen or so laps, crossing the line five laps behind the high drama that was the GT winner’s final moments. Alzen in the Vitaphone Saleen was over ten seconds clear of Wendlinger, having taken the lead with two laps to go, and had victory so much in the bag that he could afford to be magnanimous. Over the final forty minutes Thomas Erdos had been consistently the fastest man on the track, albeit two laps down, and Alzen was happy to let the RML Saleen through at Fogarty’s to claw at least one of those back for the scoresheet. Unfortunately for the Vitaphone driver, Lucas Luhr in the second of the two Freisinger N-GT Porsches assumed the gap was also open for him, and went for a late lunge. He speared the Saleen in the left rear, breaking the wishbone, and left Alzen to crab slowly through the Melbourne Loop and lose the lead at Goddards. Wendlinger, whose role throughout had been somewhat less than glorious, swept across the line to take the chequered flag, but his team’s rejoicing was decidedly premature. Within the hour the win had been handed back to Alzen after Wendlinger failed to take the car straight to Parc Fermé, and thereby incurred the wrath of the stewards – and a five minute penalty.

If some of the spoils in N-GT were Luhr’s, who finished second in class, the victor was Ortelli, who took his third consecutive Donington Park win. Taking the final step on the podium, and still more than 11 seconds clear of Kirkaldy despite easing right down at the end, was a jubilant Tim Mullen for GruppeM, joined there by Jonathan Cocker. “That was such a good result!” exclaimed Cocker. “It all fell into place perfectly. That was the longest stint I’ve ever driven,” he added, “ and I was actually quite relieved to get out, it was so hot, but to be there on the podium, well, it just feels fantastic!”

Anyone watching as the team trophy was presented to the Freisinger manager might have been forgiven for thinking the true winner was GruppeM, for a delighted Kenny Chen had joined his drivers up on the platform, where he was only too pleased to relieve Mullen and Cocker of their silverware and hold the cups aloft with triumph.

“I feel so rewarded,” he admitted later. “All the effort now seems worthwhile. The team has worked so hard to achieve this, yet nobody believed we could do it! They said top five or six, perhaps, would be doing well, yet we finished our first FIA GT race on the podium.” Together with a number of other entrants, GruppeM Racing had been encouraged to take part by SRO in order to highlight the quality of the British domestic championship. “It was felt that we had the potential to fight at international level,” explained Kenny. “Not only could we demonstrate that a new team can still come here and run well against the top factory teams, but it also shows that the British GT teams are almost as strong as many of the international teams.”

The car had arrived at Donington still in British GT trim, and the team had worked hard throughout to achieve a set-up that better suited Donington and the FIA race. “This weekend we’ve shown that GruppeM, the team, has always been strong,” he said. “This is the same crew we’ve had all year and we’ve been able to demonstrate what we can do for ourselves. From Wednesday we’ve been working on the car, and making improvements, and it has been a good opportunity for us to be able to study how the team can work together. Tim will be racing with us again at Spa next month,” said Kenny, “so this has been good practice for us. It’s also the first time Tim’s ever raced a Porsche; perhaps he likes it better than the Ferrari now!”

Mullen wouldn’t exactly go that far, but he did admit that he enjoyed driving the Porsche. Well, after an FIA GT podium, it would be strange if he said otherwise. “It’s very different from the Ferrari,” he insisted. “The Porsche is pretty good in the wet, but the Ferrari seems more balanced in the high speed corners.” Oh well, loyal to the last! “The team’s come together strongly this weekend,” he added, “and Kenny’s set things up really well. It’s getting good! The guys are still learning the car and making improvements, but to have ended up on an FIA podium at the first attempt is pretty good going.”

“I’m very happy now,” smiled Kenny Chen in conclusion. “We’ve shown what we can do, and this has been the best possible rehearsal for the Spa.” The same squad of drivers, including Tim Sugden, will be reunited next month for GruppeM’s participation in the Spa 24 Hours. “I’m really looking forward to Spa now,” said Jonathan Cocker. “It’ll be a bit like this race, I guess, but then a whole lot more!”