When we decided to enter the iRacing 24 hours event we knew we were heading into a different challenge. Usually our drivers are going full pace precision perfect trying to be the fastest, at Le Man the script is very different.
Our qualifying session was pretty promising having been very fast in practice, we decided to put Jack Smith in the seat to secure us the best possible grid slot. He managed a superb 3rd in Class. However all the hard work was for nothing as on the formation lap an LMP1 car spun in front of Jack and blocked our path as almost the entire pack made it past because Jack could not go around him put us dead last in our class and near the back of the entire grid.
Jack then got his head down and raced hard setting the quickest times to try and claw back as much time before Oscar Williams would take over the next stint.
Oscar took over from jack on lap 27, forgetting to engage his pit limiter dropped us further back and with a very angry driver having done such a small mistake. With the pit wall calming him down, Oscar settled into a nice rythmn before handing back the control to Jack again on Lap 50. Jack's second full stint in the car was pretty flawless managing consistent lap times averaging low 3:33's and still maintaining fuel targets.
Max Hamelink took over driving duties on lap 77 and ran a very nice flawless stint which helped us close down 5th place in class as we had been running 6th. Annoyingly we could see we had the pace to be winning but with the incidents costing us valuable time we had to play catch the prey, also managing our fuel to make sure our stints were decent and competitive, with our engineers Luke and Bartek having given us a lot of data to work with and Luke managing the fuel during a majority of the race on the pit wall.
Jack took back the reigns on lap 103 for another stint in the car. by Lap 125 we had moved up into 5th then the next lap we gained another position into fourth! We would lose that having to switch our drivers again on lap 129, but it did mean that we were now not far behind fourth on track. Oscar jumped into the seat for another blast, Oscar managed his stint well and we had catapulted ourselves into 2nd by the end of his run pitting just after midnight for Karlis Skirmanis' turn behind the wheel. With us looking in good shape going into the night. Karlis managed a nice and steady run before handing back to Oscar on lap 178, with a few small errors starting to creep in as the drivers began to tire, Karlis would resume another stint as the track became a lot cooler and the marbles made the track trickier, but a solid run from Karlis again would put us in a strong position during this phase.
A fresh faced Maxi Junger took over on lap 230, but even being fresh and awake, things don't always go to plan and luck turned for us again, Maxi ran onto the marbles and scraped the wall on his outlap, luckily the damage was hardly anything and as the sun slowly began to rise during his stint, Maxi got into a nice rythmn but it was this point we had to do the highest amount of fuel saving as well so Maxi had to target certain deltas as we brought the fuel under control. As Maxi pitted to refuel for the 2nd part of his stint things were looking good for us, then on his outlap he was punted from behind by a faster class car which sent him careening off into the gravel trap, again we were lucky not to have more damage but this cost us heavily as we ended Maxi's stint down in 7th in our class.
WIth some of the drivers having had a rest over the night, it was time again for Jack to jump back in the car on lap 256. With the sun and tempretures rising, so did our spirits as Jack would round out another impressive stint getting us back up to fourth in class. Max would take control on lap 282 and ran another solid run keeping us in fourth and closing down third in class with every lap. With the hours now counting down rapidly, and with many drivers options available to take over, it was decided Maxi would drive the next stint in the car for another stint on lap 308. The pit wall began to crunch some numbers as we knew we had the chance of stealing 3rd if we could run our race in a certain way at the end and being pretty confident they did not have the option but to stop very very late in the race. So as Maxi finished and Max retook the car on lap 333. Things were getting very tense on the pit wall as we all began to strategise, Luke did some excellent calculations and we decided to only change the rear tyres on lap 358 when Oscar would manage his times to allow Jack to extend his chances for closing down third place in the final stage. Oscar would have to actually hit slower lap time deltas to eek out our options. Oscar nailed those required times and it was now all over to Jack for the final run to the flag. With us catching third place hand over fist, Jack drove an absolute storm of a stint, sadly due to the race being slightly delayed it skewed our predictions and we had to fuel save when we should have been pushing hardest, yet Jack still was managing to close down Third. The hardest part to swallow for the pit wall came when the car in third did indeed have to pit 2 laps from the end of the race proving that with that extra pace we might have had a good chance at overtaking or at least being very close to challenge third.
Jack had to crawl around the final lap to allow the leader of the LMP class to overtake just so we could finish a lap earlier and not run out of fuel having to do an extra lap. However after everything that had happened over the 24 hours. we as a team were estactic to come home fourth and know we had worked well as a team from drivers to engineering, the entire weekend had been such a challenge and we knew that we had achieved something very special just missing out on that podium.
However it does mean that next year we have higher expectations and will try to at least one better ourselves in terms of position but personally... This fourth was as good as the win and next year a win will be feeling as good as this fourth does.
Congratulations to everyone on the team who took part.
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