Team
NASAMAX The story of the first of the two two-hour qualifying sessions on Wednesday night was one of frustration for Team NASAMAX, but with a distinct light at the end of the tunnel. The session began with the Reynard sitting in the garage, Robbie Stirling at the wheel, as the Cosworth engineers made a last minute change to the wiring. This only delayed the Canadian for fifteen minutes, during which Werner Lupberger explained the driving plan: “Robbie will do one installation lap, come back in and then do four more laps. I’ll then go out for five laps, basically to get used to the car, before Romain also does five laps. The plan for the rest of the evening will depend on how we get on.”
The checks at the end of that first lap revealed nothing of concern and the Canadian was back on track within three minutes - leaving behind the unique aroma of the bio-ethanol fuel (much to the relief of those in the back of the pit who were experiencing the circuit’s own unique odour emanating from a nearby drain.).
While on this lap, Robbie reported to John McNeil a problem with the flat shift from fifth to sixth gears. John calmly advised Robbie to return to the pits for an initial investigation. It was heading
towards eight o’clock when Robbie first appeared on the timing
screens, a 4:06.812. This became a 4:05.764 on the next lap and
remained the fastest of his short stint, the driver at this stage
being still very much in shakedown mode. As Robbie circulated, Werner
was going through his stretching routine in preparation for his
go.
Werner Lupberger immediately felt comfortable in the car, and was able to reduce the time to 4:02.811 on his first timed lap. Unfortunately, he was also experiencing the gear-shift problem that Robbie had reported and the car was forced to pit at the end of the next lap. “It was getting more and more difficult to change from fifth to sixth, and eventually when I got to sixth there was nothing there,” explained Werner. The fault was quickly identified as a damaged dogwheel, and the team decided to use the rest of the session to do a proper repair. The cause of the damage was soon traced to a problem with the software controlling the timing of the flat shifting mechanism and this was easily resolved. However, the team also noticed an unrelated problem in that the thread on a bolt at the car’s jacking point had stripped (causing a slight flexing) and the work involved in repairing this ate deeply into the second session. By the time a frustrated Romain Dumas was sitting in the car, the clock had ticked past 11.00 and there was now less than an hour left.
On his installation lap, the French driver reported no problems with the shifting, and said the car felt good. He pitted to request a small adjustment to the anti-roll bar and a set of Michelin qualifiers. Unfortunately, at this precise moment, the #23 Pilbeam dumped all its oil on the circuit, necessitating a red flag. Twenty more minutes were thus lost. “By the time we sent Romain out again, the twilight was gone and he reported that he couldn’t see anything out there. We decided that there was no point trying for a time because of all the oil at Indianapolis, and so put Werner back in for some more seat time,” reported John McNeil. In the ten minutes available to him, Werner was able to shave another second from the time and the car finished in 27th place with a 4:01.666. Werner was enthused: ”I found another second on an oily track while having to slow three times for yellows, and we weren’t even looking for a qualifying or race set-up. Because of all the delays earlier, we’re still just settling in to the car. There is a lot of time still to come!” A positive note to end on and the team have another four hours in which to find that time. The first priority will be to ensure that all three drivers are qualified, then we may see how much time there is still to be found.
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