In some ways the Paul Ricard 24 hour race, organised by the Creventic organisation for GT3 cars, 24-hour specials and touring cars, was an unusual race. It was not unusual to see a Porsche winning, nor was the warm, dry, sunny weather a surprise. What marked it out as unusual was the fact that only one of the leading runners had a fault-free race. Not only that, but those that had problems seemed to have more, and lost more time in the pits as a result.
Out of the ten A6-Pro cars entered, only five finished and a look at the time spent in the pits for each of these is revealing in determining the destination of the silverware.
However, it is worth noting that the winning margin of the Porsche was 14 laps, or very nearly 32 minutes in terms of time. So although Ram Racing spent around 18 minutes longer in the pit than the Porsche, it still had another 14 minutes that was lost in straight speed on the track.
Let’s look at the pace of the fastest six cars – again I will constrain myself to the A6-Pro cars, and I am well aware that this excludes some quick A6-Am class runners - three of which filled the top six places - but we will return to them later.
Interesting is the fact that there is little difference between taking the fastest lap and taking the average lap times: the gaps are around the same - apart from the Lamborghini, which could not translate a fast single lap into as fast average laps. It does seem that the Audi R8 was at a (slight) disadvantage, and one wonders (quietly) what HTP was doing that made their Mercedes so much quicker than the other AMG GT3s.
And although the Hankook tyres are specified for all teams, the pressure and camber angle had a large role to play as well. The fact that (left-rear) punctures impacted the race so heavily bears testament to that.
Looking specifically at the difference between the Herberth Porsche and the Ram Mercedes, the British team’s fast laps were only a tenth or so slower than those of the German’s. Over 600 laps, that only accounts for one minute of the fourteen that I identified earlier as being the difference between the cars. To get to the bottom of this, it is necessary to look more closely at the lap times of the individual drivers.
An aspect of GT3 racing in general and Creventic-organised events in particular is that the cars are relatively easy to drive. “The car may break traction, but it does so progressively, and any slide is relatively easy to control,” one driver told me. That is not to say that all drivers can get the same out of the car though and not only the combination of drivers in crews was important, but also how the drivers were used. Here is the data for the drivers in each of the first five cars in the overall results.
*excludes four joker laps
**excludes two joker laps
*excludes two joker laps
**excludes one joker lap
***excludes six joker laps
I have included the two cars in the top five that were from the A6-Am category in this analysis, and it makes interesting reading. It seems to me that only the HTP Mercedes, the Scuderia Praha Ferrari and the Grasser Lamborghini had the pace to beat the Herberth Porsche and all three had problems. The Precote Porsche, just as it did at Zandvoort, had a perfect race.
Herberth Motorsport celebrates its 20th anniversary in motor sport this year, having begun racing in 1996 in the ADAC GT Cup. Founded by Alfred Herberth (father of Robert and Alfred), it was a proud moment for him when his twin sons joined the grid of the Porsche Carrera Cup Deutschland in 2003. The team was rocked by the death of Alfred senior in a road accident in 2012, leaving Robert and Alfred to take over the team. Somehow, I think dad would be proud of the team’s achievements this year.
The competition will need to improve its reliability, if not its pace, in the two remaining 24-hour races of the season at Barcelona and Brno. If Herberth hadn’t made it look so easy in the South of France, we would have had a better race!
Out of the ten A6-Pro cars entered, only five finished and a look at the time spent in the pits for each of these is revealing in determining the destination of the silverware.
| Car No. | Team | Car | No. of stops | Total time in pit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 911 | Herberth Motorsport | Porsche 911 GT3-R | 20 | 1h 30m 28s |
| 30 | Ram Racing | Mercedes AMG GT3 | 20 | 1h 48m 16s |
| 27 | SPS automotive | Mercedes AMG GT3 | 22 | 2h 02m 11s |
| 41 | HTP Motorsport | Mercedes AMG GT3 | 24 | 2h 24m 25s |
| 49 | Drivex | Audi R8 LMS ultra | 25 | 5h 55m 15s |
However, it is worth noting that the winning margin of the Porsche was 14 laps, or very nearly 32 minutes in terms of time. So although Ram Racing spent around 18 minutes longer in the pit than the Porsche, it still had another 14 minutes that was lost in straight speed on the track.
Let’s look at the pace of the fastest six cars – again I will constrain myself to the A6-Pro cars, and I am well aware that this excludes some quick A6-Am class runners - three of which filled the top six places - but we will return to them later.
| Car No. | Car | Fastest lap | Average of best 100 laps | Average of best 20% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 911 | Herberth Porsche | 2m 08.311s | 2m 10.2s | 2m 10.3s |
| 30 | Ram Mercedes | 2m 08.512s | 2m 10.3s | 2m 10.4s |
| 27 | SPS Mercedes | 2m 08.740s | 2m 10.4s | 2m 10.5s |
| 41 | HTP Mercedes | 2m 07.261s | 2m 09.5s | 2m 09.5s |
| 49 | Drivex Audi | 2m 09.315s | 2m 12.3s | 2m 12.0s |
| 11 | Scuderia Praha Ferrari | 2m 08.259s | 2m 09.8s | 2m 09.8s |
| 963 | GRT Lamborghini | 2m 07.805s | 2m 09.9s | 2m 09.9s |
| 14 | Optimum Audi | 2m 09.023s | 2m 11.9s | 2m 10.9s |
| 33 | Car Collection Audi | 2m 10.468s | 2m 14.4s | 2m 12.6s |
Interesting is the fact that there is little difference between taking the fastest lap and taking the average lap times: the gaps are around the same - apart from the Lamborghini, which could not translate a fast single lap into as fast average laps. It does seem that the Audi R8 was at a (slight) disadvantage, and one wonders (quietly) what HTP was doing that made their Mercedes so much quicker than the other AMG GT3s.
And although the Hankook tyres are specified for all teams, the pressure and camber angle had a large role to play as well. The fact that (left-rear) punctures impacted the race so heavily bears testament to that.
Looking specifically at the difference between the Herberth Porsche and the Ram Mercedes, the British team’s fast laps were only a tenth or so slower than those of the German’s. Over 600 laps, that only accounts for one minute of the fourteen that I identified earlier as being the difference between the cars. To get to the bottom of this, it is necessary to look more closely at the lap times of the individual drivers.
An aspect of GT3 racing in general and Creventic-organised events in particular is that the cars are relatively easy to drive. “The car may break traction, but it does so progressively, and any slide is relatively easy to control,” one driver told me. That is not to say that all drivers can get the same out of the car though and not only the combination of drivers in crews was important, but also how the drivers were used. Here is the data for the drivers in each of the first five cars in the overall results.
| Name | Laps | Driving Time | Best Lap | Average Lap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Robert Renauer | 174 | 6h 44m 59s | 2m 08.311s | 2m 09.8s |
| Daniel Allemann | 153 | 5h 43m 12s | 2m 10.470s | 2m 11.6s |
| Ralf Bohn | 133 | 5h 08m 15s | 2m 11.120s | 2m 12.2s |
| Alfred Renauer | 131 | 5h 05m 26s | 2m 08.774s | 2m 09.9s |
| Name | Laps | Driving Time | Best Lap | Average Lap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stuart Hall | 183 | 7h 09m 15s | 2m 08.512s | 2m 10.2s |
| Jamie Campbell-Walter | 195 | 7h 23m 27s | 2m 09.227s | 2m 10.3s |
| Roald Goethe | 49 | 2h 03m 19s | 2m 15.794s | 2m 16.4s |
| Dan Brown | 150 | 5h 50m 16s | 2m 09.922s | 2m 10.6s |
| Name | Laps | Driving Time | Best Lap | Average Lap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Christiaan Frankenhout | 155 | 6h 09m 04s | 2m 11.937s | *2m 13.3s |
| Kenneth Heyer | 111 | 4h 08m 55s | 2m 10.168s | **2m 13.3s |
| Roland Eggimann | 143 | 5h 41m 37s | 2m 13.562s | 2m 15.5s |
| Chantal Kroll | 106 | 4h 17m 52s | 2m 15.447s | 2m 16.0s |
| Michael Kroll | 62 | 2h 28m 09s | 2m 16.537s | 2m 17.4s |
**excludes two joker laps
| Name | Laps | Driving Time | Best Lap | Average Lap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lance-David Arnold | 143 | 5h 29m 32s | 2m 08.740s | 2m 10.2s |
| Valentin Pierburg | 62 | 2h 36m 58s | 2m 11.764s | 2m 13.4s |
| Alex Müller | 166 | 6h 39m 48s | 2m 08.982s | 2m 10.4s |
| Stéphane Kox | 46 | 1h 53m 50s | 2m 12.459s | 2m 13.4s |
| Tom Onslow-Cole | 158 | 5h 51m 49s | 2m 09.352s | 2m 10.5s |
| Name | Laps | Driving Time | Best Lap | Average Lap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ingo Vogler | 124 | 4h 58m 51s | 2m 12.830s | *2m 14.1s |
| Elmar Grimm | 152 | 5h 51m 36s | 2m 12.597s | **2m 14.0s |
| Johannes Dr. Kirchhoff | 123 | 5h 09m 12s | 2m 13.903s | 2m 14.7s |
| Gustav Edelhoff | 82 | 3h 10m 37s | 2m 15.716s | 2m 17.0s |
| Max Edelhoff | 89 | 3h 27m 42s | 2m 12.065s | ***2m 13.4s |
**excludes one joker lap
***excludes six joker laps
I have included the two cars in the top five that were from the A6-Am category in this analysis, and it makes interesting reading. It seems to me that only the HTP Mercedes, the Scuderia Praha Ferrari and the Grasser Lamborghini had the pace to beat the Herberth Porsche and all three had problems. The Precote Porsche, just as it did at Zandvoort, had a perfect race.
Herberth Motorsport celebrates its 20th anniversary in motor sport this year, having begun racing in 1996 in the ADAC GT Cup. Founded by Alfred Herberth (father of Robert and Alfred), it was a proud moment for him when his twin sons joined the grid of the Porsche Carrera Cup Deutschland in 2003. The team was rocked by the death of Alfred senior in a road accident in 2012, leaving Robert and Alfred to take over the team. Somehow, I think dad would be proud of the team’s achievements this year.
The competition will need to improve its reliability, if not its pace, in the two remaining 24-hour races of the season at Barcelona and Brno. If Herberth hadn’t made it look so easy in the South of France, we would have had a better race!
Hi Paul, great insight thanks. I am interested to know how/where you get these stats from? I assume you use some sort of connection from the live timing?
ReplyDeleteThanks, Chaz.
It is fascinating that the Bernd Schneider car just happened to be nearly a second per lap quicker than all the other Mercedes.
ReplyDeleteThat Herberth car is going to be tough to beat all year. None of them are restricted by driver time and their two Am drivers aren't off the pace much at all.
Something else interesting is that I am fairly sure SPS didn't have an Am driver at all. Stéphane Kox wasn't listed, which Creventic consider "Am", but she has since been added as a silver. I don't think it'll have much bearing now, but I do wonder if one of the Dubai one-off entries is going to try to take advantage of that.