Gruppe M - Spa 24 Hours – The Race

[Hours 1-2] [Hours 2-4] [Hours 4-6] [Hours 6-8] [Hours 8-10] [Hours 10-11] [Hours 11-12] [Hours 13-14]

Race Morning
Everything was so laid-back in the GruppeM garage on Saturday morning that the place was deserted. Having completed their own version of a pre-race warm-up in Friday’s qualifying, there was no need for anyone to rise with the sparrows, and it was after ten before the crew began to arrive.

The first task was to establish the starting driver line-up. This was confirmed, as suspected, to be Tim Sugden (left), followed by Warren Hughes, Jonathan Cocker and then Tim Mullen. Actually, Steve Bunkhall is so ahead of the game that the driver schedule for the entire race is already planned out. With his specialist sphere being ‘Racecar Performance Analysis’, such attention to detail is hardly surprising. (He explains this term as being “the use of computer based data-acquisition and lap-simulation tools to help develop the design and improve the performance of racing cars.”) Having moved from a career in the MoD to Lola in the 1980s, where he worked for five years on Group C racecars among others, Steve spent the next ten being closely involved in a whole variety of top-level motorsport projects, including Opel’s Super Touring venture in Germany, F3000, BMW Competition and Nissan. He has recently been appointed to lead the Motorsport Industry Association’s “Energy Efficient Motorsport” project. (Check this out at www.the-mia.com). “We have a very straightforward strategy for the race,” he insists. “The drivers will do thirty-two lap stints. They’ll do single stints in the main, with just Tim [Sugden] and Warren driving doubles in the night, when it’s cooler. That’s it, really. Just go as fast as we can and be as efficient as possible in the pits. You can bust a gut trying to find a second here or there on track, and then lose it all in the pits, and we don’t want to play that game.”

Kenny Chen, cheerful as ever, is the focus for the team’s calm approach. “There’s no point in being nervous,” he says. “We can all cool down now and get ready for the race. There’s no reason for pressure. Everybody’s feeling relaxed, and that’s the way it should be.”

For the next few hours that’s exactly the way things stayed. The pitlane filled with people, and crowds of so-called VIPs mingled with the public, everyone straining their necks to catch a glimpse of the next tantalising view. With just over an hour to go the drivers were paraded down the pitlane and around the circuit in a convoy of Saab convertibles, although GruppeM’s Tim Mullen missed that treat. While the other three were togged up in their suits, sweating in the heat, he was dozing. Well, a few extra minutes’ shut-eye could be vital later!

Finally, at twenty past three, the officials stepped in to clear the pitlane. The team grasped a hurried moment to pose for an informal group photo before Tim Sugden climbed into the cockpit and the serious business could begin. There was chaos on the grid, of course. Clearing the pitlane had merely thrust the milling crowds out onto the racetrack, and drivers were forced to thread a tortuous route through the masses before reaching their allotted slots. GruppeM’s position was busier than most, thanks largely to the proximity of the Cirtek Porsche #73. A late discovery of pace in Friday qualifying had slotted the blue and white car in just behind the GruppeM Porsche, so it would start alongside, but the first stint driver would be the Russian Nikolai Fomenko – here to star in a new movie.

With shades of Michel Vailliant at Le Mans two years ago, film crews were much in evidence, and the car would carry the added penalty of a 50-kilo camera in the passenger seat. Shouts of “Don’t look in the camera!” vied with the burble of racecars amid the general noise and commotion. Those clustered around the GruppeM Porsche tried to look nonchalant, caught in the background if an unfolding drama as Russian driver, love interest, and chief rival played out their roles nearby. Not before time the stewards cleared the track, and Tim Sugden could pull on his helmet and climb back into the office.

The Race - Hours 1-2
At five before four the “Leading Car”, a brand new Maserati complete with full complement of passengers, not a single helmet between them, and no roof lights of any description, headed away through Eau Rouge, followed by forty-one racecars. It seemed a torturously slow lap, but as the official clock snicked over onto four o’clock, so the Maserati peeled off into the pitlane. Fabrizio Gollin in the pole-sitting Ferrari 550 was painfully slow as he edged down the famous slope towards the lighting gantry, bunching up the entire field behind him, before flooring the pedal as the lights turned green. The red Ferrari powered the way up through the Raidillon, but would lose the lead before Les Combes to Alzen in the Vitafone Saleen.

Midway through the pack Tim Sugden made an excellent start for GruppeM, taking advantage of a mistake by the #62 Giesse Ferrari 360 to move into fourth in N-GT. “It was all very normal,” he insisted, modestly. “I just managed to make something of it, that was all.” Ahead of him the three Freisinger Porsches were enjoying a class one-two-three, but it wouldn’t last long. While Tim was fending off the ever more intense pressure from the recovering Christian Pesactori in the Giesse Ferrari, Timo Berhard made a mistake in the #77 Yukos Porsche at ‘Double Gauche’, allowing both through. “He had to drive right through the gravel and out the other side,” confirmed Sugden. “Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to do him much long-term harm.” Equally unfortunate was the fact that Pescatori got ahead amid the confusion, and began to pull clear.

Things in N-GT stabilised over the next few laps, with the #50 car leading its team-mate, the #99, by a short nose. The gap to the #62 Ferrari had grown to several seconds, and the margin between that car and Tim Sugden stood at just over second. “It all seemed to settle down very quickly,” said Sugden. “It became a case of just trying to manage the tyres as best I could. The car seemed to have more understeer than yesterday, which was unexpected.” Tight on his tail, however, was the recovering #77 Porsche, and adding spice to the mixture was the #4 Konrad Saleen, slicing through from the back row. On lap six Berhard in the #77 got back ahead of Sugden, and the Yorkshireman found his mirrors now filled with black Ferrari as the JMB Racing 575 started to find fresh pace.

On lap eight this status quo was about to be violently upset. As the N-GT battle emerged from Eau Rouge and headed up the hill towards Raidillon, Sugden was a few tenths behind Berhard. Some fifty yards to the fore of them both was Pescatori in the Giesse Ferrari, gunning up the hill in hot pursuit of Maassen in the #99, the yellow and green Porsche still within his sights along the Kemmel Straight. Exiting the Raidillon the Ferrari’s right rear tyre blew, and then erupted a few seconds later. The car was thrown violently to the left, spinning wildly before hitting the Armco, and then bouncing back across the track before hitting the barriers on the other side. It was a near thing, but as the Ferrari spun left, Sugden kinked right, just clearing the out-of-control Pescatori as the hapless Italian careered across behind him. “I was very lucky not to get hit,” admitted Sugden later. “We were heading up the straight really quickly, and I saw his right rear explode. He just kept going, and then the car swapped ends on him. It was a big crash.”

The safety car was immediately deployed, catching Kutemann in the #18 JMB Ferrari briefly on the hop. His overtaking manoeuvre on Tim Sugden on the exit of La Source under waved yellows was spotted by the marshals, and reported, but he’d eased back again by the time they came round to complete lap nine. Many teams opted for an instant pitstop, including both the works BMW M3s, who very nearly caused a multiple pile-up all of their own as they fought to be away again. Tim Sugden waited a couple of tours before following the #50 Freisinger car down the pitlane to complete a rapid stop for fuel. It would effectively turn his planned single-stint into a double.

Even after this stop, the slow pace of the safety car, circulating at a steady 4:40 laptime, ensured that no positions were lost, and N-GT resumed unchanged with #77 leading, yet to stop, #50 second, followed by the #99 and then GruppeM in fourth.

Once racing resumed Tim found his battle with the #18 Ferrari 575 – a GT category runner – was still on-going, but faced by a significant horsepower disadvantage even Tim’s enormous experience and skill couldn’t hold off such intense pressure for ever. The inevitable pass inevitably came, but once faced by the Ferrari’s rear, Tim held on tenaciously for the best part of an hour.

GruppeM’s progress took on a serene calm as Tim reeled off lap after lap of consistent running, typically in the low two-twenty-sevens. Ten minutes short of the two-hour mark, however, that composed progress was rudely interrupted by the #14 Lister, battling for sixteenth overall through turn twelve. “We were going into the right-left, and he dived down the inside. Maybe he misjudged it, or perhaps he thought I was giving him more room, I don’t know.” Either way, it was a heavy impact, as confirmed later by Paul Dyas, the Dunlop rep assigned to help GruppeM this week, when he examined the wheels later.

Tim wasn’t aware at first just how serious the damage was, but a lap later the front right suddenly deflated, and he had no choice but to coax the Porsche gently back to the pitlane. The team was ready. They’d been ready for some while, to be honest, but they were swiftly into action the moment the Porsche shuddered to a halt. Fuel first, then fresh boots all round and a change of drivers. Warren Hughes was in and away in a matter of seconds, leaving the crew to ponder over the condition of the front right wheel and, as it turned out, the rear right as well. Both rims were damaged, and the tyre at the front had split all around the inner edge.

Fortunately, the incident hadn’t cost the team any places in the class, and Warren was rapidly back up to pace, although he radioed in with the news that the car, which had previously suffered from understeer, was now tending towards oversteer. Clearly the impact had readjusted the tracking at the front, but the decision was to press on and drive through or round the problem. “It depends if we think the time spent [adjusting the tracking] would balance out the time lost,” said Steve Bunkhall. “We’ll just have to wait and see how things develop.

With the first two hours of the race completed. Warren Hughes passed the #75 Seikel Motorsport Porsche, which had slipped ahead during the pitstop, to reclaim fourth in class. The outright leader, the #5 Vitafone, had completed 52 laps, just three more than the GruppeM car. “I’m still feeling confident,” declared Kenny Chen. “If we can maintain the pace we’re doing and keep out of trouble, we can do well. The drivers have been very consistent so far, and to be so close behind the factory cars is very encouraging. We’ll see what happens, but there’s still twenty-two hours to go!”

Hours 2-4
Warren’s stint went exceptionally smoothly, considering the way Tim’s had ended. Passing the #75 Seikel Porsche had not only given back that fourth place in N-GT, but also seventeenth overall. Within half an hour, by dint of steady and consistent lapping, he’d converted that into 15th, and when both the #99 Yukos Porsche and the Seikel car went off together at Pouhon, he was suddenly gaining places hand over foot. The warning five minutes earlier of “oil on the track at turn 10” had obviously been accurate, but seeing GruppeM’s standing overall rise to twelfth, and then third in N-GT was something few would have predicted so soon after having two wheels comprehensively warped by a passing Storm.

The progress didn’t stop there, and problems for the #143 BMW M3 GTR at just before seven o’clock gifted Warren into the top ten. It was a significant milestone, albeit a brief one, for the M3’s problems were not terminal. After a brief pitstop the works BMW effort was back on the rails again, and ousting Warren from his newly acquired heights. It was to be his last significant moment from a highly profitable stint, and the #88 car was back down the pitlane, perfectly on cue, at ten past the hour.

“The car’s a little bit difficult after Tim’s coming-together with the Lister,” was Warren’s opinion. “There’s a tricky change from oversteer on corner entry and at high speed into severe understeer mid corner. I think the steering and rear toes are out by a long way, but it’s not a big issue. The car’s still pretty consistent once you’ve worked out how to drive it!” His times would certainly tend to support this. “Yes I was still down into the two-twenty-nines, so in that respect it’s quite good.” The concern that tyre wear would be adversely affected appears to have been unfounded. “Strangely enough,” he countered, “the tyre-wear is almost better now than it was before! The misalignment may actually have helped the fronts last longer, but it’s still difficult to drive,” he insisted.

Refuelled, re-booted and with Jonathan Cocker now strapped into the driving seat, the GruppeM Porsche was rapidly back on duty, and just in time for the youngster to witness the first major retirement of the race. The long-time leader, the Vitaphone Racing Saleen, had been seen weaving from side to side through Stavelot. Soon afterwards it stuttered to an untimely halt. Fuel – or lack of it - was the evident problem, later officially attributed to a failed pump. With several laps in hand, it was some time before Jonathan was able to unlap himself on the stranded Saleen frequently enough to inherit another place, but when he did so, at half past seven, it was to move into the top ten once again.

Maintaining what was starting to resemble a team tradition, Jonathan set about lapping consistently and reliably. Perhaps his times weren’t quite as quick as Tim and Warren, but they weren’t far short.

Just before eight pm, the #50 Freisinger Porsche suffered a minor off that subsequently dislodged the car’s front valence, necessitating an enforced pitstop for the panel to be replaced. This promoted the #77 sister car to the class lead, and allowed Jonathan to claw back two laps on the pitbound Porsche. No threat to his class position, but the #18 Ferrari had been a constant thorn in the flesh since the opening laps and had been dogging Jonathan throughout his stint. That distraction disappeared as the fourth hour clocked by when the car pitted with a problem that would eventually see it drop way out of contention. Almost simultaneously, the #28 Graham Nash Saleen also encountered the first of a succession of ailments that would also eventually see it fall by the wayside, and Jonathan Cocker was suddenly into ninth place.

Hours 4-6
The rest of Jonathan’s stint was relatively uneventful, and at twenty-five to nine he headed back to the pitlane for his scheduled hand-over to Tim Mullen. He was feeling moderately pleased with himself. “I went massively quicker than I’d done in qualifying,” he announced. “I was consistent around the thirty-twos or thirty-threes, and that felt good. Hopefully, in my next stint, I can maintain that kind of improvement.” He admitted to just one worrying moment. “I had that black Lister right behind me, and he was flash, flash, flash on the headlights. I was thinking about what had happened to Tim, so I backed right off down the straight and gave him plenty of room, but he still went for me into the corner. If I’d not eased off he’d have wiped me out, I’m sure.”

Tim Mullen was to be blessed with quite the most straightforward stint of any, starting ninth, ending ninth, and completing exactly one hour and twenty minutes at the wheel. “Everything went well,” declared the Ulsterman. “No contact, no incidents, no dramas.” He was in full agreement with Warren, however. “The car’s definitely a bit skew-wiff,” he said. “Oversteer to start with, and then tending to stronger understeer towards the end of the stint. I also had a bit of vibration at the end, although that could have been pickup.” He’d not be alone in commenting on the amount of spent rubber on the circuit, and several cars have suffered damage as a result, including the #7 Saleen, which collected a piece the size of a small melon.

Hours 6-8
The exchange with Tim Sugden at five-to-ten was typically smooth. “The guys are pretty good on their stops,” observed Mullen. “Actually, it’s a great little team!” This is no faint praise from a driver who spends most weekends racing a Ferrari in direct competition with GruppeM. That, however, is British GT. This is Spa 24 Hours, and rivals one week can be team-mates the next. Tim Sugden had picked up the GruppeM baton where Mullen had left it, and was gaining more ground at the expense of others. Alternator problems for the #7 RML Saleen, so long running fourth overall, had dropped the GT car way down the order, elevating the #88 Porsche eighth overall.

Seven hours into the race and Tim Sugden was still at the wheel, eighth overall and third in N-GT. Leading the class on 164 laps was the #77 Yukos-sponsored Porsche, just a single lap ahead of the similar #50 car, with the GruppeM entry close behind on 161. A massive firework display heralded the approaching end of the day, but it’s doubtful the drivers even noticed its happening. The crowds, however, stopped in their tracks to watch the colours spreading through the night sky, the thump of the mortars drumming into the ground as the largest cascades were thrown high into the air. The final bloom had just faded when Tim Sugden burbled his way down the pitlane for his next scheduled pitstop. It was quarter past eleven, and he’d be out again moments later to begin his second consecutive stint.

Tim’s reward was to come forty minutes later, when the #1 BMS Scuderia Italia Ferrari 550 pitted following a disagreement with a sizeable lump of debris. Stefano Livio had been pitched sideways into the barriers, the car sustaining extensive frontal damage and requiring around half an hour’s remedial work. Livio’s misfortune was Sugden’s gain, and the GruppeM Porsche entered Sunday, eight hours completed, seventh overall and a comfortable third in N-GT.

Hours 8-10
Half an hour into the new day and things continued to look promising for the #88 Porsche. A lengthy stop for the #10 Zwaan Viper had allowed Tim Sugden to close within a single lap of the sixth-placed car, and when he pitted six minutes later to hand over to Warren Hughes, another rapid change-over by the GruppeM crew ensured that the net benefits held good. It would take Warren another hour to make it stick, but when the Viper pitted for another regular refuelling stop at half-past one he slipped neatly into sixth place, and held it when the Viper was delayed by the need to fit a fresh battery.

Out at the head of N-GT the #77 Freisinger car continued to enjoy a comfortable cushion over the #50 car in second, and that margin was generously extended on lap 216 when the #50 took to the gravel at Rivage. It was a comprehensive ‘off’, and although the car was back on track soon enough, a visit to the pitlane for a brush up and clean added to the overall delay. At the opposite end of the field, eight cars were confirmed as retirements, although a handful of others were clearly never going to move again in this race.

As the clocks prepared to click over onto two o’clock, Warren headed back into the pitlane for a scheduled refuelling stop. With the track temperatures much cooler, and the inexplicable improvement in tyre wear brought about by the realignment of the front geometry, it was decided to double-stint the tyres. With Warren also double-stinting, this was one of GruppeM’s best stops, and the red car was soon sweeping back up the hill towards Raidillon. Quick as this was, the Zwaan Viper had been circulating well since it’s delay, and was just fifteen seconds behind Warren on the track. By the end of their first flying lap, that gap had narrowed to 11.4 seconds. On the next it stood at just 5.5. When they came through on their third lap together, Warren led the Viper my a mere 1.2 seconds. He held it off for another half-lap before sheer brute force deprived the nimble Porsche of another hard-earned place.

Hours 10-11
Ten hours into the race and Kenny Chen could feel satisfied by the team’s performance. Seventh overall and third in N-GT was probably better than most would have predicted for the 24 Hour debutants. Unfortunately, just around the corner - and that corner was Rivage – lay the first real problem the team would have to face. As he came down the hill and prepared to snick through the gears for the tight right-hander, Warren felt the gearbox tighten. Next second the rear wheels locked solid and he was sent spinning unceremoniously across the track. “I was going down through the gears into the hairpin,” he explained. “Your approach is usually in fourth, and then you drop down two. I did that, as usual, but this time the rear wheels locked solid and I spun. The display showed second, but I knew as soon as tried to pull away that it was first.” Luckily he had avoided making contact with anything solid, but it was an awkward crawl back to the pits from the far side of the track, and it must have seemed like an eternity to Warren. “The box had started to feel a little tight on downchanges right before this happened,” he added later. “There was nothing I could do about it. It was just one of those mechanical gremlins.”

At 02:14 he arrived outside the GruppeM garage, where the crew leaped to work as usual, refuelling the car before raising it on the jacks. That wasn’t high enough to allow them a clear route to the gearbox, so higher it went. With fuel from the tank overflow spilling across the pitlane as the car wallowed on the jacks, there was increasing concern from the marshals. Finally, accepting that fixing the problem was likely to be impossible on the pit apron, the car was dropped off its jacks and wheeled back into the garage, where the full crew could work unhindered by lack of light and equipment. At 02:33, a quarter of an hour after it arrived, the car was eased back out into the night once more, and with Tim Mullen now at the wheel, rejoined the race. “The gearbox was jammed in first gear,” came the explanation for the stop. “We had to release it with pliers.” Warren was understandably upset. “I feel quite gutted,” he said. “Everything was going really well.”

The delay had dropped the car back down to ninth overall, well down on the #99 Freisinger car and onto the same lap as the #71, shared this weekend by Mike Jordan and the Jones twins, David and Godfrey. The margin was a mere 18 seconds, and with a dodgy gearbox it wasn’t clear at first if Tim Mullen would be able to outpace the JWR car. After a couple of laps, however, it became reassuringly clear that he was able to circulate a good two or three seconds a lap faster. Over the next twenty minutes he settled down to a steady rhythm, setting a succession of laps in the low thirties. It was enough to extend the lead over the #71 from twenty seconds to over forty, but couldn’t match the pace of the #99, which continued to pull clear despite a pitstop. Tim’s pace was particularly gratifying because it was being achieved with a reduced selection of gears, since the instruction had been radioed out to him to avoid using second and first. “He’s running OK, “ assured Warren, “but we think second could be a problem again, so Tim’s not using it now.” Around a high-speed track like Spa, that shouldn’t be a great hindrance.

At three o’clock in the morning the #75 Seikel Porsche moved ahead of the #71 JWR car to be running forty seconds behind GruppeM in tenth place. The gap was fluctuating a little, but in the main holding steady at just over half a minute.

Hours 11-12
For the next half an hour Tim Mullen’s progress bore all the hallmarks of ‘business as usual’ in the GruppeM cockpit. His lap times were consistently around the low to mid-thirties, and when the #142 BMW encountered more problems and was hauled back into its garage for half an hour, he sailed back through into eighth overall. This coincided, more or less, with the next in a further series of mishaps for the #7 RML Saleen. Occupying the neighbouring garages had made it inevitable that the two teams would follow each other’s progress, and when the Saleen stopped out on the track near Blanchimont there was shared concern. This time the RML car would not be rejoining the race, and the oil it had deposited meant another safety car period while the surface was treated and several cars were retrieved from dangerous positions. The #88 GruppeM Porsche was one of several to head into the pitlane while the opportunity existed; refuelling and fitting fresh tyres.

This safety car period lasted for six laps, and took the race beyond the half way mark. No sooner had the lights gone out on the top of the safety car than the Freisinger team made a rare error, bringing the #99 car back into the pitlane for another stop just as the rest of the field got back up to racing speed. The miscalculation worked very much to GruppeM’s advantage, allowing Tim Mullen to drive unchallenged into third in N-GT, seventh overall.

Sadly, any chance Mullen had of maintaining some kind of an advantage over the #99, which returned to the track about 35 seconds down, disappeared with another safety car period at half past four, prompted by spins from the #17 Ferrari and the #27 Creation Lister. Bunched up by the pace car, the #88’s place was lost when the team decided to take advantage of the pause in racing to dive into the pits for a top-up, although some compensation came a few minutes later with the demise of the #143 BMW. This retirement from fifth overall subsequently rewarded Mullen with seventh. The highly-favoured works M3s had been fêted as favourites for an outright win here this weekend, but that was looking a slim chance now.

Five minutes after the first pitstop Mullen was trundling down the pitlane once again. The team had decided that this safety car period would last long enough to cover a replacement set of brake pads, and so it proved. In fact, the team made full use of the time, topping up the oil and adjusting Tim’s wing-mirrors. They’d been nudged out of true during the hectic pitstop two hours previously, and he’d never had a good view behind him since.

Hours 13-14
Four forty-five and Tim Mullen was back in action again, just as racing resumed. It was excellent timing, and the entire operation had not cost the team a single position. Still seventh overall, fourth in N-GT, the GruppeM car was now twenty-six seconds down on the #99, but more than two minutes clear of the #75. Spirits in the garage were rising a little, and even when Tim stopped briefly at the Bus Stop at five-to-five, stuck in neutral, there was a feeling that this was just a minor blip that could be beaten. As if to confirm this view, Mullen was soon moving strongly again and setting the car’s first sub-two-thirty lap for several hours.

The Ulsterman had been in the car for very nearly three hours, and that’s a driver’s limit here at Spa. At twenty-past five, ready or not, he was called in to hand over to Warren Hughes. Not only had Tim driven the longest stint of the race, but he’d double-stinted the tyres too. It was quite a performance.

Warren’s return to the car coincided with another milestone as 300 laps came up on the GruppeM timing screen. More significant than the sheer distance covered, perhaps, was the fact that the #99 works Porsche was just one lap ahead and a podium position not beyond the realms of possibility. Well, that was true at 05:38. Five minutes later all those hopes were dashed when Warren radioed in to say that the gearbox had seized once again, duplicating his experience of more than three hours previously almost exactly, even down to the same corner; Rivage. With a further cruel twist of fate, the #99 headed into the pitlane almost simultaneously with the first of what would be several lengthy stops. Over on the other side of the circuit, Warren was struggling to find a way to get the car moving again. Perhaps if he could get the Porsche back to the pitlane the selection problem could be fixed, but with each successive lap that hope faded.

For nearly ten minutes Warren tried everything he could think of to try and release the back wheels, but without success. At ten-to-six a finger drew across the throat of Steve Bunkhall in the time-honoured signal. GruppeM’s 2004 Spa 24 Hours was over.

Official confirmation wouldn’t come through for another couple of hours, by which time the team had packed away much of their equipment and collectively were thinking about the journey home. Kenny Chen’s attitude had also mellowed from a resigned “Shit happens!” to a far more cheerful, even positive “we’ve shown everyone what we can do. It’s been a good performance, and I’m proud of what we’ve achieved. I really did believe we had a chance, you know, but you can never be certain in a twenty-four hour race. It has been good.” There was indeed much to celebrate in GruppeM’s showing at Spa, not least being the highly professional attitude of everyone within the team. It was particularly impressive to witness their disciplined routine in the pitlane, putting other regular endurance teams to shame with their slick handling of refuelling and tyre changes. Remember, this is a British GT team that rarely has to change tyres mid-race and isn’t allowed to refuel.

Steve, known as ‘Doc’ to everyone in the team, summed it up well. “The guys have done really well. I know they’re disappointed, we all are, but we’re pleased as well. To have been ‘best of the rest’ for so long is some achievement. With hindsight, the quiet confidence we felt yesterday morning was fully justified, but even then, as we’ve proved, you can get caught out. As it is, there’s nothing we could have done to prevent this happening, so no regrets on that score.” He was keen to credit the drivers for their efforts. “They all did great, didn’t they? I have to say, though, Tim Mullen’s three hours in the middle of the night was something special, but they all gave their best, and they did us proud.” His final thoughts? “Good luck to JWR! Go out there and score a finish for the Brits! It should have been us, of course, but I guess this means we’ll have to come back again next year.”

Everyone here at dailysportscar sincerely hopes they will. We also hope that the team’s efforts this weekend don’t go unnoticed. GruppeM has aspirations to compete at international level, and plans have already been announced for the squad to contest further rounds of the FIA GT Championship towards the end of this year. The priority for now is to secure their hold on the British GT title, with the next races at Silverstone in a fortnight’s time, but come September they may be in a position to broaden their horizons. Rest assured, GruppeM Racing is a name that’s sure to feature prominently in the seasons ahead.