Lammers On Racing Against The Audi At Spa
Jan and his team who put together the www.janlammers.com website do work harder than most. If you click the link you can read about the Racing for Holland team’s testing on the Bugatti Circuit this week (and a story of two wins in a day, plus a frightening landing in fog between them, and much more), and also these remarks from the man himself, on the prospect of chasing the Team Goh Audi at Spa next week.

“Racing at Spa is always great and obviously we hope to be able to seal the 2003 FIA championship titles there. The prospect of an Audi R8 being allowed in for one race, however, is not a very attractive one. We are the only team to have competed in all FIA sportscar races since its inception, with two cars since Dijon last year.

“After having been this loyal and committed to the championship, it is a shame that now an Audi R8 weighing less than our penalized car, fitted with Michelins and supported by the factory one way or the other, can come in and steal the show that they have refused to attend for two years. What will happen is that if they win everyone can say: “an R8 would have won that championship” or “that Dome may be quick, but look what happens if it is up against an Audi”.

“Don’t get me wrong: I would have loved to race any R8 in any FIA race at any track, as long as they would have sold their cars for the fixed price Dome and all other constructors had to offer theirs for, and as long as it would have to run on Dunlops or Goodyears as we all do. That is not the case now, so we are faced with trying to happily secure the title while they can make us look like fools. It is a no win situation: if we complain we look like losers as much as we do if we don’t say a thing.

“Some people may have thought we were whingeing when we found it important to explain the differences in power and weight between a car like the DBA (815 kg) and ours (965 kg, 60 bhp more), particularly at tracks like Oschersleben and Donington. But we are not bad losers. God knows I love competition, but you cannot fight the laws of physics. The general public doesn’t know about 675, 900 or success ballast, especially if no one tells them. After Donington, all that the English Autosport magazine was talking about for example, was how fast the DBA was and how dominant. And now we all go to Spa and most people are telling me how great it is to race against the Audi. The truth is, we can’t race an ex-works R8 that weighs 940 kg and that has Michelins, which no one else is allowed to use. We can at Le Mans, or at least we can give it a fair chance, but this is a joke.”

Perhaps you'd like to debate this one on our forum.