Gruppe M - Spa 24 Hours - Thursday Free Practice

Jonathan Cocker was the first of GruppeM Racing’s drivers to set out onto the circuit at the beginning of Thursday’s opening Free Practice session. As the only one of the four never to have raced the Spa-Francorchamps circuit before, it was felt he needed to gain as much experience as time would allow. Twenty-five minutes later he climbed out of the car, five full laps completed and a broad grin across his young features.

“That’s totally fantastic,” he enthused. “Really brilliant! Eau Rouge is so quick!” The grin was taking some time to subside.

“You need a lot of confidence round here, that’s for certain. A simulator gives you a rough idea of what’s coming, of course, but it’s nothing like the real thing.” Jonathan seemed so awestruck by the experience that he was almost at a loss for words.

The discussion moved onto more mundane matters. “I was just running in a new crown wheel and pinion for the gearbox,” he explained.

“I was taking it steady for the first few laps for that reason, and also while I learned where I was meant to be going. I’d talked about the track with the other drivers before today, but there’s nothing better than actually getting out there. My last lap was a little quicker, but I’m still a long way off. It’s just time round the circuit I need at the moment.”

With the car warmed up Tim Sugden stepped aboard, but was back in again after only a couple of laps with a dashboard problem. “It’s only a minor issue,” he insisted. “The display just keeps freezing. We can live with that for now, and get it sorted out later.” He headed back out once again, but was soon burbling back down the narrow pitlane once more, this time asking for the team to attend to a brake imbalance. “We’ve changed a lot on the car since the last outing,” he explained later. “We’ve recently started running a monobloc calliper system, but for a twenty-four hour race we’ve decided to revert to the standard callipers at the rear. That’s created an imbalance, which we’re going to have to address.” Accepting that this was something else that would have to wait for the period between sessions, he returned to the track. There was enough time left to get the tyres and brakes back up to temperature and go for one quick lap. It turned out to be a 2:29.176, and good enough for sixth in class, 23rd overall.

“That went very well,” said Kenny Chen, team owner at GruppeM Racing. “Tim’s been trying to get a feel for the new brakes, playing around with the bias, and we’ve also been working on the general set-up, including some new settings for the rear wing. Right at the end, when he actually started to push, he dropped down by six seconds. That’s very encouraging, and I’m confident we can get down to a two twenty-six.” That’s a relatively conservative ambition, but reflects the team’s steady determination to go out for a good finish, no heroics, and be there at the end. “I have a good feeling for the weekend,” added Kenny, smiling up at the clear blue skies. “We’re keeping our fingers crossed, but I’m not asking too much.” Kenny’s background means he looks for omens, and felt he’d found a good one in the numbering system for some of the Porsches in the class. “99, 77 and 66,” he pointed out, were in that order in Free Practice, with only the GruppeM car, number 88, not in its rightful place. Perhaps qualifying might see that put to rights.

Tim Sugden, whose feedback forms the foundation for much of what the team develops on the car, was feeling positive after the first session, and was confident that the main issues could be rapidly fixed. “The car feels as though it’s inherently good,” he said. “What we’re facing are the typical things you expect to have to deal with ahead of a twenty-four hour race. We’ve got such a good set of guys here that it’s all happening very quickly.” Indeed, within ten minutes of the practice ending a new dashboard had been fitted and a replacement master cylinder for the rear brakes was already being filled with fresh fluid.

Tim has a huge amount of experience, especially in Porsches, and was a class (and overall!) leader here last year with EMKA. Since then, however, the circuit has undergone a number of changes, and some of these have affected the way the cars behave around the track. “A large proportion of the track has been resurfaced,” he pointed out. “This has meant a huge differential in grip between the old surface and the new. There’s shitloads more grip around the new section, but then you come to the older part and, whooop!” He makes a gesture with his hips that clarifies this action far better than words could manage, and the mental picture of an oversteering Porsche comes vividly to mind. Then there’s the re-profiled Bus Stop. “That’s definitely made it more difficult to overtake,” he insists, “It used to be an obvious place to get by, and the changes have taken away one of the easy places where slower cars could allow the faster ones through. That was important in a long race, and will certainly make it awkward for everyone this weekend. It used to be so straightforward. Now, by the very nature of the corner, even the slower cars are effectively in the middle of the track, at a crucial place.” It will be interesting to see if this observation proves true in practice.

Mention of which brings us back to the second session on Thursday. Warren Hughes was eager to get out there and try his hand at a Porsche through Eau Rouge, and sat patiently at the head of the pitlane queue waiting for the green light. He completed a trouble-free first half to the period. “It was just a case of getting dialled into the circuit for the first few laps,” he explained. Having only raced a Porsche twice, once several years ago at Snetterton co-driving with John Clelland, and then at Oulton Park just a week ago, he’d have been forgiven for taking a little longer to become comfortable in such a new environment, but within three laps Hughes was right on the pace. His best, a 1:28.923, suggested that some of the problems that Tim Sugden had encountered earlier in the day had been resolved, but there was more to do yet. “The balance still isn’t quite how we’d want it,” Hughes suggested later, “and there’s still an issue with the brakes.”

Next up was Tim Mullen, but he’d get no further than the pitlane exit before opting to return straight back to the garage. “As I turned the wheel right at the top of the hill, nothing happened!” he said. “I radioed in to say that something was wrong, and cruised round gently and straight back in again.” It turned out to be a loose retaining pin on a rear wishbone. “That cost us a fair bit of time,” pointed out Mullen. “I only managed a couple of laps towards the end, before coming back in to give Jonathan one last lap, but I don’t think any of us has done our quickest times yet, not by a long way.” He agreed with the others about the nature of the car’s fine-tuning requirements. “The car is understeering too much, particularly on the exit of the faster corners, but I’m sure we can iron that out.”

Tim Mullen is hoping for a better run here at Spa than he experienced in the 24 Hours last year, when he shared one of the Veloqx Ferrari 360s. On that occasion the car retired after about six hours with a recurrent alternator problem. This year he’s in a different car with a different team, and GruppeM certainly looks up to the task. The set-up in the garage, and the whole air of professionalism that pervades the squad, suggests that Kenny Chen and his men are not here to make up the numbers. “We have a very strong driver line-up,” insists Kenny Chen. “Warren proved what he is capable of at Oulton Park, and Tim Mullen’s performance at Donington Park was very impressive. Jonathan may not have raced here before, but he learns very quickly and has enormous talent. Now that we’ve got Tim Sugden back in the car (after he missed both the Donington FIA and Oulton Park BGT meetings due to his ALMS commitments) I’m feeling very confident. We can only do our best, as usual, but let’s see what happens.”