GruppeM – Oulton Park - July 18th

Straightforward Victory

The common accord in the GruppeM Racing garage after Round 10 of the British GT Championship was that victory had been a very “straightforward” affair, and after the intensity of Saturday’s battle through the ranks, win number four fell easily to Jonathan Cocker and his new driving partner Warren Hughes. It truth it was made considerably easier when huge chunks of time were gifted their way by some uncharacteristic errors by their rivals, but even discounting this, a calculated start by Hughes, followed by a mature and restrained finish by Cocker, had probably done enough anyway.

The team had been working through into the small hours to repair the damage done to the Porsche on Saturday, which had extended to the subframe and thereby demanded some pretty nifty tweaks of suspension geometry and set-up to correct. Sadly, the repairs did little for the aesthetics of the car, which had to sport a grey-primered front valence for Sunday’s race, but as Kenny Chen, the team owner at GruppeM Racing said, what were they to do?

Cause for greater concern, however, was the need to fit the parts at all. “We had to use some of the spares we’d prepared for Spa, which was a little disappointing,” Kenny admitted, conscious perhaps of the need to replenish the spare-parts bin before the end of the month. After the rebuild the team was one of several that was allowed to take its car out for a test run round the track. “The car wasn’t warmed up, so I took it really gently, but it felt fine,” said Jonathan Cocker, given the duty. “Everything’s pointing in the right direction again, so that’s an improvement on yesterday!” Straight forward, then?

After Saturday’s thrill-a-minute race, Sunday’s was almost mundane by comparison, a view heightened by the helicopter incident that briefly delayed the start. Thankfully the solo occupant was unhurt when he was forced to ditch his aircraft after the cockpit filled with smoke, but his antics certainly drew the spectators, and a good crowd filled the embankment inside Old Hall for the start of the GT race.

There was no repeat of the mayhem that had accompanied Saturday’s start, and pole-setter Andrew Kirkaldy swept through the first corner with Warren Hughes tight on his tail. “I made a good start,” said Hughes, “and if it had been more of a sprint I might have stuck with him on the outside of Old Hall, but I had decided to go cautiously for the first few laps. It’s the first time I’d been out in the car on cold tyres and I wasn’t sure how it might behave.” He also knew, as the team had discussed beforehand, that his mission was simply to stick as closely to the red Ferrari as he could. There was no need to take risks, and provided Kirkaldy remained within sight, Cocker would be well set for the second half of the race.

Over the opening laps Hughes did fall back a little, but once the Porsche’s tyres were up to temperature he started to match the Scot lap for lap. “I maintained a good pace, aware of what the gap was, and kept him within sight all the way. This is more of a Ferrari track, and I realised early on that I wasn’t going to be able to challenge him like-for-like.” The gap stabilized at around five seconds, fluctuating only a little until they began to encounter the tail-end traffic. This coincided with the only error Hughes made all weekend, when he missed the second element of the Knickerbrook Chicane and took to the grass to avoid the tyres. “I made a small mistake,” he acknowledged, smiling. “The rear brakes locked and I went straight on. It was just the brakes grabbing, nothing else, and I adjusted the bias after that.” It cost him a second or so, but only then did the Ferrari seem to extend its lead, but thirteen seconds was never going to be enough to safeguard that position, which was the gap when Kirkaldy pitted on lap twenty to hand over to Nathan Kinch. With the additional twenty-second penalty the Scuderia Ecosse duo incur for their high-status pairing, a good change-over by Hughes and Cocker would automatically have given the GruppeM car a minimum five second lead.

As it turned out the margin was going to be significantly more. Kirkaldy had been having clutch problems from early in the race and Nathan Kinch found the Ferrari a handful on the restart. The team elected to assist him with a push, but had to negotiate the #76 Porsche first. The JWR car had inadvertently blocked the Ferrari’s exit when it pulled in just ahead to complete its own driver swap. Unfortunately for Scuderia Ecosse, too many hands jumped forward to ‘man the pumps’, and an eagle-eyed pitlane marshal spotted the mistake. Five laps later Kinch would be back in to complete a drive-through penalty, extending GruppeM’s lead, which already stood at more than thirty seconds, to forty-five.

By comparison, Warren Hughes’ hand-over to Jonathan Cocker on the following lap, number twenty-one, was exemplary. “We had no issues,” said Hughes. “The team was very smooth and well drilled. In fact, just like my race, it was easy and equally straightforward.”

The former Touring Car driver had enjoyed one lap as leader before passing on the baton to Cocker, who emerged with a comfortable half-minute advantage. As described, that would subsequently grow by a further fifteen seconds, and relieve the youngster of any real pressure for the duration of his race. “It’s nice to have a straightforward race like that,” he said, using that ubiquitous word again. “Basically, I just had to hang on to the lead, put in some good laps, and keep out of trouble. Warren did a brilliant job, considering he only got in the car for the first time on Thursday.” Cocker had only one moment’s concern, when he came up to lap the same red Cup-class Ferrari that had caused him grief on Saturday. Heading down into Old Hall, Cocker clearly had the advantage and the line, and was about to move through when he sensed the other car cutting back across him, just as it had the day before. “What do you do?” he asked. “I’m not so stupid that I was going to let him have me off the track again, so I braked and held back.” Cocker then had to go round behind the Ferrari, taking the outside line and clipping the grass. “I picked up a lot of rubbish on the tyres because of that, and they never really cleared before the end of the race. The car felt slow towards the end because of that, but we still got the result.”

To his credit, Kinch had sliced almost twenty seconds out of Cocker’s advantage by the time the flag fell on thirty-five laps, but the GruppeM win was never under threat. “Jonny had a good lead and didn’t need to push,” said Kenny Chen, his delight marred only slightly when one of the other drivers came over to voice some unnecessary remarks after the race. “It’s a pity,” he said, dismissing the poor sportsmanship with a shrug of resignation. “We’ve seen today that when the cars are in a similar condition, and with the same ballast, our performance is now better than the Ferrari. You can check the data, but I think that’s true.” Certainly the RSR is now the quickest car on the track, having topped out on both speed traps at Oulton Park, and the team is now getting on well with addressing the damper and handling problems that dogged their early races.

The team now has a break of almost a month before their next British GT outing, at Silverstone for the “SportscarFest” that is both BGT and LMES – quite an occasion. In the meantime GruppeM Racing has the major challenge of the Spa 24 Hours to consider, and after Oulton Park there was much speculation about whether Warren Hughes had a role to play there as well. “I’ve been very impressed with Warren,” admitted Kenny Chen. “His first time in the car was only on Thursday, and yet he was always within a second of Kirkaldy. Yes, I’m certainly impressed.” Hughes had clearly enjoyed his time with the squad. “GruppeM have made me feel so welcome, it’s been great. The car’s very well sorted, they’re a good bunch to work with, and it’s been a pleasure. I hope I can do it again!” What would GruppeM regular Tim Sugden think about that? “I’m sure Tim would have something to say. He’s got something to say about most things!”

At the end of the day it’s Kenny Chen who makes the decisions, and he wanted a little more time to consider the possibilities. “Tim Sugden, Tim Mullen, and Jonny are confirmed for Spa, but we may need a fourth driver, and Warren would be perfect. For us to have a good result at Spa, we need very competent drivers to bring the car home. Jonny has talent, but we also need experience, and it’s very likely now that we will ask Warren to drive.” Watch dsc for the announcement!