The Road to Le Mans!
Thursday, September 08, 2005
Sunday, September 04, 2005
FIRST POINT FOR HONG KONG TEAM
Matthew Marsh and Darryl O’Young were celebrating in Germany on Sunday after claiming a slice of Hong Kong motor racing history.
The Noble Group-GruppeM Racing co-drivers piloted their Porsche GT3 RSR to eighth place in their class at the 1,000km of Nurburgring – and in doing so claimed the SAR’s first ever point in Europe’s elite sports car competition, the Le Mans Endurance Series (LMES).
The duo overcame a crash involving O’Young shortly before the halfway point in the six-hour race to register their first finish on their third outing in the series.
“This is a huge step for us,” said Marsh. “We’ve shown all along that we’re competitive and up with the pace, but we’d been held back by a bit of bad luck in the first two races. Our goal here was to finish – and we’ve achieved that.”
O’Young added: “We’re progressing all the time. It’s great to register our first finish and our first point, but we’re still slightly disappointed because, without the crash, we could have finished second. Next time out, we’ll definitely be targeting a podium finish.”
The pair started seventh on the grid out of 15 cars in their GT2 class. Marsh took the wheel for the first 80 minutes and by the time O’Young took over they were in fourth place.
But the team had a setback when O’Young, running eighth at the time, collided with a backmarker, damaging the Porsche’s front left suspension. The car was in the pits for 25 minutes while mechanics repaired it and the team dropped to last place.
“It was an error of judgment on my part,” said O’Young. “I went to overtake, locked up and we came together. But the guys did a great job fixing the car so quickly. The main problem after that was the handling because the car’s set-up was badly affected. From then on, we simply had to nurse it around and make sure we finished.”
The duo each took another turn behind the wheel, using their skill and experience to pick their way through the field to eighth place in their class and 28th overall.
It was third time lucky for Marsh and O’Young. In their first outing, at Monza in July, a puncture ended their race early while a broken gearbox meant they also failed to finish at Silverstone last month.
Noble Group-GruppeM Racing are bidding to become the first Hong Kong team to take part in the world’s greatest endurance race, the Le Mans 24 Hours. They are competing in the LMES – a series of six-hour races at some of Europe’s top tracks – in an effort to secure an invitation to Le Mans in June next year.
The team’s next LMES event will be in Istanbul, Turkey, on November 13. Before that, they are hopeful of taking part in the three-hour FIA GT Championship race at Zhuhai on October 23.
Marsh added: “We’re looking forward to Istanbul and, if logistics allow, we’ll be at Zhuhai as well. It would be great if we could race in our own backyard and give Hong Kong fans the chance to see us in action. But one thing is certain – wherever we race next, we’ll be going for a top-three finish.”
Victory in the GT2 class at Nurburgring went to Sebah Automotive's Marc Lieb and Xavier Pompidou in a Porsche 996 GT3 RSR.
The overall race winners were the Zytek Engineering team of Hayanari Shimoda and Tom Chilton, piloting a Zytek 04S in the top class, Prototype 1. It was a remarkable win for the pair – despite being fastest in practice, they had to start from the back of the 44-car grid due to a technical infringement.
TUNG IMPRESSES AT NURBURGRING
Chinese ace Tung Ho Pin remains hopeful of joining Hong Kong’s pioneering Le Mans team after an impressive sports car debut alongside project leader Matthew Marsh today (Sunday).
Dutch-born Tung – who has done all his racing to date in single seaters – put on a scintillating display in the Maserati Trofeo race at Nurburgring in Germany.
Co-driving with Marsh for the first time, the would-be Formula One star made the transition to sports cars look easy, powering through the field from 11th on the grid to sixth by the time he handed over the wheel to Marsh 40 minutes into the hour-long race.
Marsh, Hong Kong’s most high-profile driver, experienced braking problems that saw him lose three places, but both men felt the eventual ninth-place finish was less important than the fact they had learned a lot about each other’s driving.
“I really enjoyed the race,” said Tung, a test driver for the Williams F1 team and currently racing in Formula 3 in Germany. “I had only done 15 laps in the car prior to today, so I was very happy with my performance. I was half a second quicker than in qualifying and my lap times were very consistent.”
The Maserati race was a support event to the main race later in the day, the 1,000km of Nurburgring, in which Hong Kong’s Le Mans team, Noble Group-GruppeM Racing – led by co-drivers Marsh and Darryl O’Young – were taking part.
That gave Tung, 22, the opportunity to meet team personnel and watch them in action with a view to working together in the future.
Noble Group-GruppeM Racing, who are hoping to race in the Le Mans 24 Hours next June, already have Marsh and O’Young signed up for six-hour races like the one at Nurburgring but need a third driver for 12 and 24-hour events.
“It’s an interesting project and one I’d like to be involved in, if my schedule next year allows,” said Tung. “In that respect, it’s been very useful to have the co-drive with Matthew, to learn more about driving sports cars and to meet the team. We will see what happens.”
Marsh, 36, added: “It was slightly disappointing to end up ninth because we felt we could have finished higher, but in terms of the Le Mans project – driving with Ho Pin and introducing him to the team – the weekend’s been a success. Hopefully we’ll work together again.”
Noble Group-GruppeM Racing are bidding to become the first Hong Kong team to take part at Le Mans, the world’s greatest sports car race. Their Porsche GT3 RSR is owned and sponsored by SAR companies and both British-born Marsh and Chinese-Canadian O’Young are Hong Kong residents
