"Spa" - defined as a place from which water springs. What better name for a race track which, despite brilliant sunshine, can within minutes become a streaming river! This incredible circuit, set deep in the forested hills of the Ardennes, is one of the greatest challenges in the world of motorsport, and the all the serious teams in the British GT Championship made the trip across the Channel to contest this event, Brunswick Endurance Racing of course being one of them.
In addition to the British GT cars, the race also included the FIA Sportscar Championship, with big name drivers such as Tom Christenson (Audi R8), Jan Lammers (Dome S101 - Judd), Stephane Sarrazin (Courage Peugeot) and Andy Wallace (DBA4-03S Zytek).
"Driving against these guys is a great experience", Peter commented, "but the huge power and downforce advantage they have in those cars makes life difficult for us when they come past, especially in the rain, when it is really impossible to see anything in the spray behind them!"
Brunswick brought their rapid Lotus Elise to Spa, with the knowledge that it's speed (demonstrated capably at Oulton Park in July) and nimble handling would pay dividends at the twisty Belgian track. With the event spread over three days, Friday was given over to practice, with co-drivers Graham Saunders and Rupert Bullock driving the car in torrential conditions.
With no technical problems, things were looking good as Peter arrived on Saturday to take over the driving and work on refining the set up of the car throughout the two qualifying sessions. "The weather was not really playing fair on Saturday. We had two sessions in which all drivers needed to qualify (which meant lapping within 110% of the fastest class runners) but with heavy rain at the start of the first session, it would always be a challenge to set fast times."
Nevertheless, running on wet "grooved" tyres, Peter was able to set down a 3 minute 5 second marker in his first three laps in the car, despite a sticking throttle making the car difficult to drive on the limit. Rupert and Graham then took over as the rain stopped and the track began to dry. Rupert matched the 3:05 lap time, and Graham, taking over right at the end of the session had the benefit of a dry line to improve that by 4 seconds. Unfortunately, Graham soon had to pit, due to a driveshaft problem which had been caused by the heavy kerbs at the famous Bus Stop chicane.
"We know it's important to take a lot of kerb through there, especially in qualifying, but it seems the car couldn't handle it," said Dave Ashford, chief Brunswick mechanic. "We've made a modification to the driveshaft which should solve the problem but it lost us time on the session." Several rival cars had switched to slick tyres whilst the team were working on the car, and the lap times started to tumble right at the end of the session, which pushed the Brunswick car down the order.
The second qualifying session in the afternoon saw the Brunswick drivers go out in reverse order, with a few changes to the set up to maximise mechanical grip through the tighter corners. The times from this Qualifying 2 session, combined with those from the Qualifying 1 session would determine the starting grid position for the race. The track, awash from a sudden downpour, meant that there would be little chance to improve on the morning's times, and it was not until Peter got into the car that the track began to dry. "I enjoy driving on a low grip surface like this, " he said afterwards, "but the problem at Spa is that one part of the track can be just a little bit wet, and the other can be soaked!".
Peter put in a series of quick laps on the still damp surface, getting down to 3:01, which, combined with Graham's Qualifying 1 time was good enough for 5th in class on the grid! With no mechanical gremlins to deal with, the team was looking forward to a good race! "I'll be doing a rain dance tonight," Peter smiled. "We've got a great wet and intermediate set up which is easy on the car and on the drivers, so if it rains, we will surprise a few people up the grid!"
Race day dawned bright and sunny, and the cars were out on track for the official 20 minute warm up at 8:15am. Graham would drive the car and Brunswick took full advantage of the dry track to try a low-downforce set up, which enabled a lap time of 2:52. In terms of overall position, this was less competitive than the wet times set the day before, due to the relatively low power of the Lotus engine (220bhp) but the team were confident of being able to consistently lap at this level during the race.
The race itself would start at 12:50, using a rolling start in grid formation. Peter would take the first stint, using his experience of such starts, with Rupert and Graham driving second and third respectively. As the start time approached, huge black clouds began to gather over La Source hairpin. The track was wet in places from an earlier shower but with no rain actually falling, their was no choice but to start on slick tyres.
On the warm up lap, there was chaos as the Dome sports-prototype of Gabbiani and Ortiz spun whilst trying to apply the throttle coming out of the Bus Stop. This dropped the Brunswick Lotus off the back of the field as the lights changed to green but after a great first lap, Peter had pulled back the gap and overtaken several rivals and the pack fought for position. On the second lap, the inevitable rain started to fall as the cars streamed back up the hill to La Source. "I could see the spots of rain on the screen getting heavier, and everyone went diving into the pits, but I didn't want to come in because it was dry over the other side of the track. It would have been a traffic jam anyway!"
That additional lap on slicks, combined with a quick pit stop to switch to wet tyres on the next time around meant that the Brunswick car was climbing up the order fast. Rain was exactly what the team needed, and Peter put the wet set-up to good use, passing several cars in the next few laps to rise to fourth place in class! "The more powerful cars were really struggling. We passed the GTO Ferrari 360 down into Stavelot, something you could never do in the dry!" In fact the only car running quicker at that point was the Porsche 996GT3 of Pierce/Griffin/Berridge.
With his sights set on the remaining GT Cup class cars ahead, Peter exited the 2nd gear Rivage bend on Lap 7, only to find the car would not engage the next gear! "At first I thought our race was over - I seemed to have a boxful of neutral..." Fortunately, he was able to re-select 2nd gear and limp back to the pits at an agonising pace, where the team worked frantically to locate the problem. This was traced to a tiny fragment in the selector mechanism which had prevented the system from functioning; such a small thing can have a huge effect and the team lost 53 minutes in the pit garage before Rupert could take over.
Thankfully, Rupert's stint went without trouble (although enduring a hefty nudge from one of the sports-prototypes), the car being sent out on slicks since the track had dried during the lengthy pitstop. Lapping in the low 2:50s, the car was running competitively as the team suspected it would. With over 4 hours left to race and with other cars suffering mechanical problems or crashing out altogether, a result was still on the cards as Graham took the driving seat.
With the slicks working well, Graham was able to work hard and gradually cut down the lap time, eventually setting a 2:48 lap but then.........disaster struck! Rounding the long fast left hand Pouhon curve, a 4th gear 95mph corner, a sudden vibration from the engine bay was the signal for another pit stop. It turned out that the engine mounting had failed due to the excessive g-force of the track at this point! The team worked wonders to fix the problem, removing and re-working the mounting as fast as possible to avoid more time loss.
Peter was then sent out again as a light rain began to fall, with instruction to avoid the Bus Stop kerbs (which could aggravate the engine mount). "The car actually felt great in those greasy conditions, really well balanced, and although we were losing time through Rivage (where he was using 3rd gear to avoid stressing the gearbox) and through the Bus Stop, we could maintain a good pace."
A "good pace" actually meant slamming in three 2:48 laps straight out of the pits, the car looking phenominal through the famous Eau Rouge, if a little twitchy! But the intended recovery drive was not to be - only a lap later, the repaired engine mount failed again, at exactly the same point in Pouhon corner, leaving Peter to nurse the car back to the pits once again.
"At that point, we'd had it," said Giles Groombridge, Brunswick team boss. "The gap to the cars ahead was too much by the time we'd fixed the mount, so I just said to the guys to go out and have some fun, if only for the sponsors to gain some more crowd exposure!"
With Graham having run the least laps, Giles assigned him to complete the race, there being only approximately 30 minutes left to the chequered flag. The car lapped consistently around the 2:50 mark without problem until the final laps when the driveshaft finally let go, a likely legacy from the two engine mount failures. Graham pulled the car off the circuit at Stavelot and had to watch from the wrong side of the barrier as the victorious Audi R8 of Tom Christenson and Seiji Ara led the field home.
"Even with the mechanical problems, we achieved a lot this weekend," Peter commented. "We put a lots of guys in the shade, particularly in the wet, when we were only bested by the Porsche GT3s, which says a lot about this car and this team. It's never a good feeling to come away from a circuit without a finish, but we were there to the dying moments. Knowing that the cars we were beating finished on the podium gives us a lot of hope - we'll be back to claim that trophy!"
Brunswick will next campaign the
Lotus in the Brands Hatch race at the Brands Hatch Grand Prix
circuit in Kent, again
supported by sponsor i-TRAK ,
whom we would again like to thank for their backing this year.
