Starter Sensor Woes Cost Tracsport Third In Class At Silverstone
Maidstone resident Rick Pearson’s Le Mans Endurance Series campaign was dealt a cruel blow at Silverstone on Saturday when a problem with his Lola B2K/40’s starter motor in hour five of the 1000km race cost Pearson and his Tracsport team a comfortable third place in LMP2.
The Rick Pearson/John Gaw/John Ingram Lola was running in a competitive thirteenth position overall and with a twenty-minute cushion over nearest LMP2 challengers, Palmyr when John Gaw pitted for a driver change with just over half an hour left to run.
After buckling in team mate, John Ingram for a last minute race to the flag, the charge was halted when the car refused to fire up for the final stint. Diagnosing the problem as a starter sensor failure, the Tracsport mechanics threw themselves at the task and a mammoth effort saw Ingram rejoin the race less than two minutes before the chequered flag. Despite losing the better part of thirty minutes in the pits – and with it a guaranteed podium position- the Tracsport car finished fifth in class and twenty-sixth overall
. The third event in the 2004 Le Mans Endurance Series, the Silverstone 1000kms marked the first time in six years that an endurance race for Le Mans cars has been held at the Northamptonshire venue.
Stint 1: Driver: John
Ingram
Londoner John Ingram was first behind the wheel of the No Fear/Man Financial
Group/ DMIPI/Carlube- supported Tracsport Lola B2K/40. As at the Nürburgring
last time out, Ingram drove a faultless first stint, maintaining position
and posting lap times consistently within the 1m52s target.
Starting from sixth in class and eighteenth place overall, Ingram’s solid
start was threatened forty minutes in to the first hour when a fuel gauge
problem indicated that more fuel needed to be taken on board in order
to complete the allotted one-hour session. Knowing that there was sufficient
reserves to finish the stint, Ingram continued but then fell foul of the
large amounts of rubber clogging the circuit just off the racing line.
Ingram, a race winner in British Formula 3, reported that the rubber was
sticking to the tyres and giving the impression of having a puncture.
He rounded out his session with the same problem, before passing over
to Berkshire’s John Gaw at the sixty-minute mark.
Stint 2: Driver: John
Gaw
Having set the team’s fastest lap in Friday qualifying, Gaw thrilled the
14,000-strong partisan Silverstone crowd with more of the same in hour
two of the 1000km endurance spectacular. An unscheduled pit stop shortly
after taking over from Ingram cost the 2001 Caterham Academy winner around
two minutes.
With the rubber picked up offline affecting the handling of the Lola,
the Tracsport squad changed the front tyres before sending the number
27 car back out to join the race. Gaw was soon back on the pace despite
the resulting imbalance caused by the combination of old and new tyres.
Although the Tracsport car was losing time to oversteer out of the slower
corners such as Luffield, Gaw was fourth in class as the race approached
the two-hour mark.
Stint 3: Driver:
Rick Pearson
Man Financial Group employee Rick Pearson took over from Gaw three hours
in but was almost immediately called back to the pits by a black and orange
flag, shown for a broken right rear light cluster damaged during the previous
stint.
On tyres now well past their best, Pearson concentrated on maintaining
track position for the duration of his stint. With rival LMP2 cars including
the K2 Pilbeam hitting trouble as the race approached the half-way point,
the former Clio V6 driver was able to consolidate the Tracsport Lola’s
standing in LMP2.
Pearson, a Clio expert and former Caterham racer, also radioed the pits
during his stint to report problems caused by excess ‘marbles’ just off
the racing line. After moving over to let the faster LMP1 cars through,
the rubber picked up on the tyres caused vibrations within the car – a
problem that hampered both Ingram and Gaw during their time at the wheel.
Stint 4: Driver: John
Gaw
With fresh tyres now on the car, John Gaw followed Pearson’s stint. Gaw
posted a number of quick lap times which along with other cars falling
by the wayside, saw the number 27 Lola move up from eighteenth overall
to thirteenth place.
With fewer cars on the circuit, the earlier problem of ‘pick-up’ on the
tyres was no longer an issue, allowing Gaw to focus on maintaining third
in class behind LMP2 rivals J-B Bouvet/J-R Fournoux and class leaders
Gounon/Frei/Hancock.
Stint 5: Driver: John
Ingram
First in the car at the beginning of the 1000km event, Londoner John Ingram
was designated ‘finisher’ at Silverstone. After being forced to sit in
the pits while the starter sensor was repaired, Ingram powered the Lola
out of the garage with minutes to spare to claim fifth in class.
Quotes
Rick Pearson: “A
very promising weekend. It’s disheartening that we hit trouble so near
to the end of the race but I think we can take a lot of positives away
from round three. We showed a marked improvement in our qualifying position
despite only completing one of the two qualifying sessions on Friday.
We were
also running extremely well in the race without having to push too hard
and risk going off in the early stages.
“The bits of rubber off the racing line were a real problem and caused
the car to vibrate so hard my ear pieces actually fell out! Apart from
that, we didn’t have any problems until the starter sensor failed. Roll
on Spa!”
John Ingram: “A disappointing result from a promising weekend. We’re all devastated with the way things ended after running so strongly for five hours. Looking on the bright side, we’ve made a big step forward in terms of qualifying and race pace which is one of the things we set out to achieve here at Silverstone.”
John Gaw: “I thought
my first stint was awful, the worst time I’ve had in the car. I didn’t
realise the times were good until I came in to the pits. The amount of
rubber off the racing line was a real problem and caused a lot of vibration
but as fewer cars were on the circuit it became less of an issue.
“My second stint was absolutely perfect. The lap times were good and I
had no problems with the car. It’s a shame that we didn’t manage to hang
on for third after having such a big lead over the next placed LMP2 but
that’s racing and we’ll have another shot at the podium at Spa in four
weeks time.”
Tracsport are backed by No Fear, DMIPI, Man Financial Group and Carlube.