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Zhuhai 500 kilometres |
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| The Hong Kong Le Mans team's final race of 2005 was a good one. Matthew and Darryl believed they had a good shot at a podium finish and came close to achieving that ambition. Ultimately they had to settle for fourth place but all of the other objectives were acheived. |
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| Being just a one-hour ferry ride from Hong Kong, Zhuhai is the team's local circuit and therefore the perfect venue for our many friends and supporters to experience the project close-up: more than 50 guests attended the race on Sunday. Darryl and Matthew were also the focus of much media attention - being the only local entry in the event. |
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| GruppeM Racing have run the Hong Kong car in this year's Le Mans Endurance Series. The team's primary campaign was the FIA GT Championship and their two factory-supported Porsche RSRs have dominated the GT2 category. At Zhuhai the Hong Kong car was added to the FIA GT squad requiring some complicated logistics for the team. |
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With race numbers 66 and 88 reserved for the FIA GT cars, the Hong Kong car took number 68 for the Zhuhai race. |
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| With Steve Bunkhall engineering the number 66 Lieb/Rockenfeller FIA GT car the Hong entry was run at Zhuhai by Eddie Hinckley. Likewise, with Karl Patman and Paul Stephens occupied on 66, our car enjoyed the attention of Viv Cowley and Ian Jones. |
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| Perhaps the most significant change for the weekend was the switch to Michelin tyres - as used by the GruppeM team in FIA GT. Darryl (above with Michelin's Regis Jeandenand) and Matthew are very familiar with the Michelin' s Asia team and were delighted with the performance of their tyres in Zhuhai: "It's another world," said Matthew. "The Michelin tyres remain incredibly consistent throughout a long stint - and I mean consistently very good!" |
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| Free practice was held on Friday October 21st : the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar. In recognition of this we carried a sticker showing Admiral Nelson, the script 1805-2005 and the flag signal carried on his ship, the Victory, during the battle: 'engage the enemy more closely'. |
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| This year is Porsche's 50th in Hong Kong and we were supported in Zhuhai by the importer for Hong Kong and China - Jebsen & Co. Ltd - who also run Darryl in the Carrera Cup Asia. |
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| In both free practice sessions we were fifth quickest. Unsurprisingly the two GruppeM factory-supported RSRs were quickest and the GPC-Giesse Ferrari 360 was third. In one session we were beaten to fourth by the Spyker and in the other by the Ebimotors Porsche RSR of Luigi Moccia and Cristian Passutti. We would battle with them throughout the 500 kilometre race. |
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The Noble Group Hong Kong car chases the Ebimotors entry |
| The start of the race was uneventful and we completed the opening laps in grid order. There was a short safety-car period after some of the leaders spun into the gravel. Thereafter Matthew held station behind the Ebimotors car. "He was a fraction quicker than me," admitted Matthew, "so it was obvious that the best strategy was to run consistently and pick-up the position when their slower second driver did his stint." |
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| Before the first pit stops the GPC Ferrari retired with a gearbox problem promoting Ebimotors to 3rd and the Hong Kong car to 4th. This changed soon after the first stop. Whereas Darryl and Matthew are both capable of lapping at the same pace, the Ebimotors team had one strong driver and one less so. Thus at the two-hour mark the top three in GT2 were all GruppeM cars and Hong Kong looked set for their first podium finish. |
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The team's strategy had called for Matthew to run a full 80-minute stint,
for the car to be refuelled and fitted with new tyres and then sent with
Darryl to the end of the race. O'Young would need to stop after another
80-minutes for fuel but time would be saved by keeping him in the car and
not changing tyres. It turned out that Ebimotors were running a similar
strategy except that they would swap drivers at the second stop - with the
rapid Luigi Moccia getting back into the car. Hong Kong's plan went a little awry when time was lost in the first pit stop due to miscommunication. Nonetheless Darryl was able to take third place early in his stint. Then, however, the team was forced to bring forward the second stop - and to change the front wheels - in response to a badly flat-spotted tyres. This put us behind Moccia. He and Darryl traded almost identical lap times and the gap remained at about 10-seconds for the remainder of the race. With just a handful of laps to go Darryl experienced almost total brake failure in the Porsche and the team were lucky to make the finish - and retain 4th place ahead of the Spyker. |
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Darryl, Matthew and Wolfgang Bern of Open Concepts pose with the Quick Foot paddock bike - and the Hong Kong team Porsche RSR. |
