Paul Ricard Oct 30/31 Nov 1st

[rogerwills]

Anyone going to Ricard at the end of the month?

Our truck has stayed in Portugal and will go up to Ricard just before the event. There is a great 3 hour sports car race, the Historic F1 series is there and there is also a saloon and GT race.

Roger

[Marcus Mussa]

Who is the organizer?

[rogerwills]

Patrick Quiniou is the main organiser.

He has grids for his CHE sports car series (1960-1970s) and this generally attracts Lola T70 Coupes, B8s, Elva, Lotus 23B, Merlyns etc. as well as some real rarities. It is a 3 Hour race so fantastic value and a great endurance race.

He also has a combined GT and Touring car race.

Then Historic Formula One is also there.

Plus there is usually a 90s GT series as well.

We have done it the last few years and it is a great way to end the season in warmer climes and some great races.

[rogerwills]

Well, the weather was fantastic!

However, the racing was a bit of a disaster interspersed with a few high points.

I had the 2 kids in tow (5 and 3) and they had a ball of course and neither stopped from 7am to 9pm every day. It was very full-on! Both were bouncing off the limiter the entire time!

There were still some highs.

In the CHE 3 Hour sports car race, Joe and I qualified the McLaren M1C second behind Simon Hadfield and Leo Voyazides in the Lola T70. Simon was nothing short of awesome, beating us by 3 seconds! And I felt like I had gone damn quick! We were still ahead of Leo's lap times so knew it would be a good race. We led the race for most of the first half (Leo started) and I had a fantastic battle with the Renault Alpine ex-Le Mans car driven by ex-Le Mans pilot (but on Avon cut slicks – Dunlop distributor for France was not able to supply tyres….. with modern F3 calipers, etc etc). We swapped places a couple of times and I took back the lead before we had a gear linkage failure. I came in and we lost quite a few laps fixing it. The guys managed to fix it and we went back out but there was an increasing amount of vibration from the drive train so I switched it off and stopped. It has subsequently turned out the crankshaft had failed.......

The Chiles / Ingram B8 were there at the end and took the win much to their surprise I think. The Lola T70 Spyder ran out of fuel on the last couple of laps as did one of the other front cars. Of course not to take it away from the Chevron which was very well driven. And of course to finish first, first you have to finish…..

Joe and I also ran the Mercury Comet Cyclone in the GT and Touring car race, a 90 minute affair. First 3 cars were Cobras. We were fastest touring car and 4th on the grid. Joe started and on the first lap the throttle stuck open on the back straight. He locked up and blew the front tyres trying to get it stopped. Scary stuff. I’m pretty happy I wasn’t in the car!

For me, the F1 car was probably the highlight. There were some really big names out as it was the last round of the FIA Historic F1 Championship. There were two qualifying sessions on Saturday and I managed to qualify 9th overall and 4th in class among a lot of later ground effect cars and ahead of some very good drivers so I was very happy. The start was intimidating as it is not often now that I do a lot of standing starts and it was the first time I’d tried to get the Williams off the line from a standing start. Everyone was super helpful and gave lots of advice about what revs to use. I tried 8500 and it seemed to bog down a bit so I floored it and got away pretty well. There was a car in the air on the right hand side so I stayed well left and got a great start into the first corner. Unfortunately it was short lived. I lost power on the first lap so switched the engine off. The ceramic on a spark plug had failed so all the compression from one cylinder went out of that plug and blew all the plug leads off the left hand cylinder head. Weird. A real shame as I think I would have done ok in my first race out with HFO and only my second race in the Williams. More to come in 2010!

The Paul Ricard event is a great way to end the season each year. It offers fantastic long races for reasonable money in the comfort of (usually for the time of year) warmish end of summer weather. It is one to put in the calendar for 2010 if you can.

[Mike Bell]

Originally Posted by rogerwills

I had a fantastic battle with the Renault Alpine ex-Le Mans car driven by ex-Le Mans pilot (but on Avon cut slicks – Dunlop distributor for France was not able to supply tyres….. with modern F3 calipers, etc etc)

Hopefully he was in the invitation class!

Great report Roger, but sorry to read about the car problems. Are you taking the M1C to NZ this winter?

I trust 'Uncle Joe' kept the kids amused in the paddock, and wasn't somewhere else recovering from the Cyclone incident........

[John Turner]

Great report, Roger, thanks.

[rogerwills]

I'm sure Simon H will have more to add about the Renault Alpine....

I've been meaning to do a report from Portimao as well but I never seem to find the time.

[rogerwills]

Good luck dad!


Pit boss giving last minute instructions to the driver


While the gearbox is repaired, a driver pep talk occurs

[rogerwills]

Team boss prepares to hand over the gloves


Stig Jnr


Williams Wolf FW05

[zefarelly]

now you know how hard it is racing with mini-me's

you need a reliable car to relax for a bit of peace and quiet!