Pippa Mann – Le Mans
When I wrote my diary column last week, I told you that I would turn up this weekend at Le Mans and be fast, but that the weekend needed rather a lot less drama – especially on Saturday mornings when the time for qualifying counts.
On Thursday morning, we put the car down and instantly we were running in the top 15. It began to rain so we went out on the wet tyres and had a look, but after a few laps, the rain had stopped and the track started to dry again! This trend continued for most of the session, and by sheer bad timing we managed to be sitting in the garage during most of the dry intervals. Inclement weather aside, things were looking positive.
In the afternoon however, the first drama struck – I made a mistake at the final corner, found a damp patch, spun around, and my left rear corner gently touched the pit wall. The only damage was a wishbone, but the time it takes for this change meant sitting out the rest of the two hour session. When racing drivers are pushing hard it means we’re quite near the limit, so these things happen sometimes. You just shrug it off, and get on with it.
Friday morning greeted us with rain, and not just any rain – this was a torrential downpour! We worked on the wet set-up during the sessions, and with the forecast changeable for the following morning and qualifying we weren’t sure whether the track would be wet or dry. Loosing the running time on Thursday was starting to look a little more important, and a little more like a drama, but I wasn’t worried. The car I had on Thursday would give me a good shot at making my first ever Super Pole session – as long as it was dry.
My engineer studied the data from Le Mans on the Thursday and also from Nürburgring the weekend before, and with my new set-up there was a trend where I was loosing time in the slower corners. We decided on a change to the car, which we thought would make very little difference, but might help in those areas.
I’m sure you’ve all heard of the expression ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’? Well on Saturday morning, the time just wouldn’t come and we all really wished we hadn’t tried to fix it! The time was slower than I had been able to run on Thursday on old tyres and the damp track. Cue one very disappointed driver, team boss, set of mechanics, and driver’s father. It would have been easy to start pointing fingers in this situation and for everyone to blame each other, but instead we all stuck together and took the sensible rout – we put the car back!
In the first three laps of the race I went from my 22nd starting slot to 15th. The car was great again, and I was able to find ways past the other cars. I had some great side by side running, and was confident of being able to go further forwards. Unfortunately on lap three, one of the cars I passed ran into the back of me, and spun me out of the race. The stewards later gave him a four place grid drop for the next race, which while at least was something, it didn’t give me back my track position, or starting position for the following day. As the first retirement of the race – I would now be starting last in the second race…
Last place on the grid at Le Mans is actually before the final corner, and starting there in any car is never going to be fun. I came in for an early pitstop to get me out of traffic, but we never got to find out whether we would have gone anywhere or not because one lap later the brakes failed and I went off the circuit.
Motor-racing is all about risks and maybes… I guess that’s all part of the show, and it’s why we go racing in the first place. If it was always predictable, then no one would be interested. However I’m hoping we can have some better maybes… Maybe we will put the car down and it’ll be fast again. Maybe we’ll avoid any big dramas. Maybe we’ll get into Super Pole. One thing I do know for sure, is that Estoril is one of my favourite circuits on the calendar, so maybe things will look up for us after all…
Yours Pippa