The 400 mile trip from the UK, under the tunnel to France and then into Belgium took the best part of a day. As you approach the town of Francorchamps you get a sense of how hilly it is, with tall pine forests surrounding the area. The size and scale of the circuit dwarfs anything in the UK - even Silverstone.
Arriving early evening we dropped the car and trailer at the circuit truck park, where Englsih and Dutch cars were starting to assemble, before heading to our accomodation in the town.
After an early start Friday morning, we got access to the track and setup, sharing an F1 pit garage with 4 other cars over the weekend. We didn't need to shelter from any rain, as was feared for October, the weather was warm and sunny the whole weekend.
Friday practice was an open pitlane track day and our plan was to do several 20 min sessions for each driver. We ran with 60 mins of fuel (nearly a full tank) to match race conditions as we have never needed to before.
We knew the track from our simulator work on Assetto Corsa but it's always a bit different in reality. You can't simulate the compression through Eau Rouge and cresting Radilion which is completely blind (all you can see is the sky) it's so steep!
Around the back of the circuit it's steeper down hill too and the off-camber Double Gauche drags you away from the apex very easily if you get your corner entry line wrong.
In between sessions we signed on for Saturday and Sundays racing, had our car scrutineered and had our kit checked for the relevant FIA standards. Our first drama was when Garry's suit was rejected for not having the required FIA hologram. A quick trip to the Spa Race shop and he was back in business (wallet considerably lighter obviously).
In the afternoon sessions we started to feel a vibration on the left front wheel under hard right cornering, so limited our running to one more session each knowing we couldn't change a wheel bearing on site - but we're confident it would hold together ok.
Mike set out fastest times of the day and was more confident up Eau Rouge and pushing the limits on braking points. At 135mph we need less than 100m to go down from 5th to 3rd at 60pmh at the end of a Kemel straight.
Saturday Practice and Qualifying
Saturday brought 30 minutes of free practice and then the same amount of official qualifying after lunch. The first was disrupted by cars going off causing red flags - we both got some running though. Our fastest lap was similar to Friday at 3m03s but we knew more was possible from our Friday data and best sector times.
Qualifying was also stopped after just a couple of laps for a red flag. With so many cars on track we mirrored Dutch driver JP's tactics in his Sonax Cayman, waiting for all the cars to get on track and going out in the gap they left.
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| clear track tactics in qualifying |
It turned out they had pit radio watching the circuit live tracker to ensure the best gap possible for a clean and traffic free hot lap.
We got as clean laps as possible so improved several times and ultinately to 2m57.9 to qualify 31st of the 52 cars. We were pretty happy with that knowing we lost over 1s in the last corner with 3 cars of different speeds arriving on hot laps together.
Saturday night was an Anglo-Dutch BBQ night at a restaurant out in the countryside. This went down very well with everyone.
Sunday Race 1
Sunday's two 1hr races were going to test our car mechanically and there wasn't much time between for repairs so we had to be on our game. Whilst normally we would be called to the assembly area over the tannoy - this is an FIA event so things just happen at the time indicated on the live timing system.
The pit lane opens for 5 minutes for you to get to the grid. Nobody will wait for you or chase you up! If you miss it - it's your problem.
The safety car was so quick the green flag lap was almost flat out race pace before concetinaing at the bus stop into our 2x2 rolling start formation.
The lights went out as we came down the straight. With so many cars the train was still rounding the final corner.! Some cars didn't event catch up in time.
Loosing a couple of spots being careful around La Source the first time under green was ok and the race picked up from there. Garry was faster than several cars in front but couldn't pass a bright green dutch 968 to make progress.
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| Race 1 - mix of Boxster and 968's |
The safety car came out for an accident and due to slower cars in front we never caught the back of the safety car train, passing the pits just before the pit window opened. Everyone else pitted at least part under safety car but it was green when we came around again for our stop, costing us a lot of time.
After a fairly relaxed pit stop (2m Vs our usual 1m) Mike was cleared to leave the pits by our crew (Dad). After negotiating Eau Rouge safely it was a case of getting up to speed quicky. The next laps were a little scrappy as faster cars caught him in awkward spots.
He made a good overtake judging the gap to the car in front to get the slignshot over the crest at Radilion and down the long straight, as they were blocked by a slower car. A few quicker laps followed, but tyres were starting to struggling in the last 10 mins. Mike got down to 2m58s on the penultimate laps as the fuel reduced.
Finished 27th, fastest Lap 2m58.5s.
Sunday Race 2
With not much time between races we were under time pressure to bleed (the pedal felt soft in race 1) and clean the brakes and wheels. Then when tightening the wheel bolts a wheel stud sheered off just 30mins before the race. We carry spares and the tools to change it and after a bit of a struggle with blunt drill bits, we got it changed very quickly.
We were ready just as the pits opened to go to the grid however our fire extinguisher wouldn't arm - the battery was flat and it took another 2mins to change - we just made it before the pit closed.
Mike got a clean get away on the rolling start, holding position and followed several cars up Eau Rouge closing along the Kemmel straight. On the second lap around cars went off into the gravel and the safey car was out.
The marshals cleared the cars quickly but then decided to spend 10 more minutes putting cement dust on all the oil around half the circuit which caused the crashes. They hadn't bothered cleaning it up from the race before us and the race really shouldn't have started with so much oil on track.
Mike did get a couple of laps green racing before handing over in the pit stop and after a couple of scrappy laps meeting slow cars at the most awkward spots Garry started to improve. He was ~10 seconds behind and catching the group in front at 2s per lap with 5 laps remaining it was going to be close. He overtook a Cayman and got onto the back of the group just as the last lap was signaled.
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| Catching the group in front on the last lap |
Unfortunately the grand stand finsh was denied us, as the GT4 Caymans lapped him, one tagging the back bumper breaking the exhaust and the gap was back to 2s which was just too much to get back..
Finished 22nd best lap 2m55.0 Vmax135.4mph.
Our first trip abroad has been a journey and a half to say the least. The preparation was hard work, and so was the weekend with the travel involved too.
But racing on such a big stage, at arguably the greatest F1 track in the world with such a large and diverse grid of Porsche's was a truly unforgettable experience.
A massive shout to the All Dutch Porsche Racing Club who are an amazing group of racers, who made us so welcome and looked after us over the weekend.
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| The #46 drivers (left) and piut crew (right) |
