Technical Issues Mar Silverstone Race
Technical Issues Mar Silverstone Race
By Jeff Daniels
On Saturday, May 17, the International LeMans Grand Touring Series arrived at Silverstone Circuit, Northamptonshine, United Kingdom to race on the sacred grounds of the 5.141 km (3.294 miles) seventeen turn Grand Prix Circuit that claims to be the home of British Grand Prix. There is a strong argument for that claim as Silverstone was the host of the first ever Formula One World Championship Grand Prix in 1950.
The race rotated between Silverstone, Aintree and Brands Hatch from 1955 to 1986, but was permanently relocated at Silverstone in 1987. On September 30, 2004 British Racing Drivers’ Club president Jackie Stewart announced that the British Grand Prix would not be included on the 2005 provisional race calendar, and he stated further that if the 2005 British Grand Prix were to be held, it would probably not be held at Silverstone. After some strong lobbying efforts, an agreement was reached ensuring that the track would host the British Grand Prix until 2009.
The Formula one future of Silverstone is somewhat clouded at the present. Bernie Ecclestone, president and CEO of Formula One Management and Formula One Administration, has stated that he will only negotiate the future of Formula One at Silverstone if the British Racing Drivers’ Club gives up its role as the promoter of the race and if the they get the circuit up to level expected from so- called Third-World countries. A new pit-and-paddock complex is the minimum redevelopment required to keep the race at Silverstone. On August 1, 2007, it was announced that a £25m redevelopment of the circuit has been approved to construct new grandstands, pit facilities and a development centre.
In addition to the annual Grand Prix, Silverstone also hosts rounds of the British Touring Car Championship, FIA GT, British Superbikes, British F3, British GT, LeMans series championship, the Britcar 24 the United Kingdom’s only 24 hour race, and many club events. Since 2002, Silverstone has also hosted exhibition rounds of drifting, a form of racing unknown to this reporter, but extremely popular among young adults who might otherwise not be interested in motorsports. The drifting course starts on the main straight used in club races and makes use of both Brooklands and Luffield corners to form a S-bend, a requirement in drifting. The Silverstone drifiting course is regarded by its judge, Keiichi Tsuchiya as one of the most technical drifting courses of all. The modernization of the track resulting from the £25m redevelopment plan and the openness of the track to new forms of racing, suggest that the long history of Silverstone will continue at least for another generation.
The list of Grand Prix race winners at Silverstone reads like a who’s who list of Formula One drivers and constructors. In 1951, a Ferrari in the hands of José Froilán González won for the very first time. Maserati, Alfa Romeo, Lotus, McLaren, Williams and Renault all have won more than once on this track. Drivers Jim Clark, Jackie Stewart, Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell, Jacques Villeneuve and David Coulthard are multiple time Grand Prix race winners at Silverstone.
Track layout
Constructed as a wartime airfield the circuit was converted to racing in 1948. The first two Grand Prix races were held on the runways themselves, with long straights separated by tight hairpin corners with the racing layout marked with hay bales. A track using the perimeter roads was used for the 1950 and 1951 Grand Prix races. In 1952, the starting line was moved from the Farm Straight to present Finish Straight and this layout remained in use for the next 35 years. Between the 1990 and the 1991 races, the track underwent a major redesign and in 1995, as a consequence of the deaths of Grand Prix drivers Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna, the entry from Hanger Straight into Stow Corner was modified so as to make its entry less dangerous.
Spectator traffic management has historically been the major technical difficulty for races being held at Silverstone. The area surrounding the track has a long history of severe traffic jams on race day. But this problem was virtually eliminated by the completion of the A43 Silverstone bypass. When the Grand Prix was moved to an April date in 2000, rainy conditions turned the fields used for parking to mud baths causing chaos for spectators trying to park. Enough spectators travel to the formula one race via helicopter to make the Silverstone Heliport the busiest airport in the United Kingdom on race day.
The technical issues that plagued the ILMS race weekend were not spectator traffic issues. They were issues that threatened the race itself and were related to timing and scoring. The timing and scoring data is sent via transponders placed in each car to timing and scoring located in the race control tower. These transponders are tamper-proof radios that are owned by the ILMS and are issued to the teams after they arrive at the track. The transponders fit in a standardized location in each car and remain there for the entire weekend. The transmitter is triggered to send data by an antenna located under the roadway at the end of each timing segment and at the start-finish line. Each transponder has its own frequency and that enables timing and scoring to know which particular vehicle that signal is coming from. At the end of the race, each team must return its transponders to race officials before they are cleared to leave the track.
Rechargeable Transponder
Since the control of transponders is managed by officials assigned to each class of cars, It is the opinion of this reporter that the most logical cause of the timing and scoring issues was duplicated frequencies. Because at least two teams in each class were sending data to timing and scoring simultaneously, timing and scoring was unable to determine lap times of the individual cars during qualifying which resulted in the race stewards decision to start the race by having drivers draw for their starting positions. What this reporter cannot understand is why all positions were drawn together resulting in some slower GT-2 cars at the front of the grid and some faster GT-1 cars located at the tail end of the grid. It would have been far more prudent to put all of the GT-1 cars in one pool and all of the GT-2 cars in another pool, because that way there would be random placement within a class, but the two classes would have been separated. GT-1 cars could have gridded first and then GT-2 cars gridded behind them.
Race Start, Mixed Class Grid
Once the green flag finally dropped on the seventy-five minute sprint race, there was exciting racing as fast GT-1 drivers came up from the back of the grid and slower GT-2 cars drifted back in the standings. After several laps of racing, the grouping of most of the GT-1 cars together and most of the GT-2 cars together got itself sorted out and drivers got down to the business of racing for positions within their own class.
Opps!
Almost as soon as the checkered flag fell, several team registered protests declaring that the results of this race should not count toward the season championship because the random placement on the grid significantly hindered some of the faster drivers in each class and aided the finishes of other slower cars. Other drivers voiced equally strong feelings that the points should count because they worked hard and ran good races to achieve finishing positions near the top of the finishing order. It will be very interesting to see how the race stewards handle the final race results when they are posted and whichever way the stewards determine to be correct, there are going to be drivers who feel the decision was unfair.
Having said all of that, here are the provisional results of the race. While at least fifty garage stalls were filled with cars during the practice session and immediately before qualifying, the provisional results list 47 cars as the official count. There were 22 GT-1 cars including 8 Saleen S7Rs, 8 Aston Martin DBR9s, 4 Corvette C6-Rs and 2 Viper SRT-10s, Several new Aston Martins appeared on the grid for the first time to bring the number of the Aston Martins up to the same number of Saleens that we have seen in recent weeks. There were 25 GT-2 cars including 11 Porsche GT3 RSRs, 8 BMW M3 GTRs and 6 Ferrari 360 GTCs. The high number of Porsches can be accounted for by the fact that Porsche makes far more race ready RSRs available for purchase than either the BMWs or Ferraris.
Richard Hylands Fast Qualifier and Race Winner
Once again Richard Hylands was the quickest GT-2 qualifier listed in the provisional results with a time of 1:43.4 in his Excitement Gang Porsche GT-3 RSR, followed by Drew McLean with a time of 1:43.5 in his ILMS Porsche GT-3 RSR and Pawel Korbel with a time of 1:44.0 in his Happy Rays Racing. But these times were not used to establish the GT-2 grid because of the previously mentioned transponder issues.
Scott Arrington, Fastest Qualifier Overall
New comer Scott Arrington was at the top of the listed GT-1 qualifying results in his ILMS Saleen S7R with a time of 1:36.8 followed by Raymond Rieux with a time of 1:37.6 in his ILMS Saleen S7R and Dalton Cowden in his Phantom Force Racing Aston Martin DBR9 with a time of 1:38.1. But due to the transponder issues, their placement on the starting grid had nothing to do with the times that were recorded because there was no way to confirm their times and for some unknown reason, Arrington was unable to start the race and was listed in 44th finishing position.
Dalton Cowden, Race winner
When the checkered flag fell at the end of the 75 minute sprint race, Dalton Cowden in his Phantom Force Racing Aston Martin DBR9 was declared provisional the winner of the race. Dalton was joined on the podium by his brother and teammate, Bob Cowden driving the second Phantom Force Racing Aston Martin DBR9, and Gregg Mulgrew in his Talon Racing Saleen S7R. Four Aston Martins, two Saleen S7Rs, a single Viper SRT-10 and one Corvette C6-R finished in the top eight positions. Ed Caranci drove his Viper to fifth place and Terry Fisher drove his Corvette to seventh place. For the first time in this reporter’s recent memory, Feint Motion Motorsports was unable to continue the GT-1 dominance which this writer has almost come to expect week after week. In a surprising move, only 1 GT-1 was entered by FMM, an Aston Martin DBR9 driven by Alexander Lugones who had a suspension failure on the opening lap and was listed in the 46th finishing position. The Aston Martin teams showed that all of the development work and time spent in a wind tunnel during the early portion of the season is starting to pay off and one has to wonder if the Cowden father and son team and Aston Martin will now dominate the GT-1 podium in the way FMM and Saleen have done in recent weeks.
In GT-2, Drew McLean got an early race lead and for a while it looked like he might just be on his way to victory in his ILMS Porsche GT3 RSR, but when the checkered flag fell, on the GT-2s, once again, it was Richard Hylands in his Excitement Gang Porsche GT3 RSR who finished first in class and ninth position overall. Drew McLean hung on to finish second and Tommy Christian proved that while Feint Motion Motorsports did not have the expected result in GT-1, they haven’t lost touch with the podium as he brought his FMM BMW M3 GTR home in the final podium position.
The fastest lap of the race was 1:40.9 by Raymond Rieux in his ILMS Saleen S7R. Lap leaders were Graham Swartz with one lap led in his Saleen, Ed Caranci with 3 laps led in his Viper, Mik Mercier and Gregg Mulgrew with 6 laps led by each in their Saleens. Winning driver, Dalton Cowden, led the most laps with a total of 28 out of the 44 laps recorded in the race and of course led the all important final lap. The leader in overtakes was James Bowders driving his Red Weasel Racing BMW M3 GTR with a total of 43. Most of the drivers made at least 20 overtakes during the race. Of course, this was caused by random start of the race that caused cars from both classes to start the race in the front two or three rows.
My racer of the week award goes to every driver on the track for the race. The fact that there were not any major multi-car accidents during the first few laps of the race is the result of the excellent driving done by the drivers in both classes. GT-2 drivers seemed to anticipate what looked like dive-bombing maneuvers as GT-1 cars rushed past and the GT-1 drivers exhibited patience by waiting for safe passing locations in their rush to get up to the top of the standings. This reporter noted numerous occasions when it was evident that GT-1 and GT-2 drivers were working together to allow passes to be made as efficiently as possible. My hat is off to all of the drivers for the driving exhibited under less than ideal conditions.
The IMLS now takes a mid-season break and the next race scheduled is set for June 2nd when the 4 class LeMans Championship series will race at Suzuka Circuit in Japan. The LMS GT-1s and GT-2s will compete next at Suzuka with the prototypes and then will move on to Diablo Hills, for a standalone race on June 9th. Hopefully by that date, we will have a ruling from the race stewards regarding the results of Silverstone race and you will all be eager to race when the two series resume.
By Jeff Daniels
On Saturday, May 17, the International LeMans Grand Touring Series arrived at Silverstone Circuit, Northamptonshine, United Kingdom to race on the sacred grounds of the 5.141 km (3.294 miles) seventeen turn Grand Prix Circuit that claims to be the home of British Grand Prix. There is a strong argument for that claim as Silverstone was the host of the first ever Formula One World Championship Grand Prix in 1950.
The race rotated between Silverstone, Aintree and Brands Hatch from 1955 to 1986, but was permanently relocated at Silverstone in 1987. On September 30, 2004 British Racing Drivers’ Club president Jackie Stewart announced that the British Grand Prix would not be included on the 2005 provisional race calendar, and he stated further that if the 2005 British Grand Prix were to be held, it would probably not be held at Silverstone. After some strong lobbying efforts, an agreement was reached ensuring that the track would host the British Grand Prix until 2009.
The Formula one future of Silverstone is somewhat clouded at the present. Bernie Ecclestone, president and CEO of Formula One Management and Formula One Administration, has stated that he will only negotiate the future of Formula One at Silverstone if the British Racing Drivers’ Club gives up its role as the promoter of the race and if the they get the circuit up to level expected from so- called Third-World countries. A new pit-and-paddock complex is the minimum redevelopment required to keep the race at Silverstone. On August 1, 2007, it was announced that a £25m redevelopment of the circuit has been approved to construct new grandstands, pit facilities and a development centre.
In addition to the annual Grand Prix, Silverstone also hosts rounds of the British Touring Car Championship, FIA GT, British Superbikes, British F3, British GT, LeMans series championship, the Britcar 24 the United Kingdom’s only 24 hour race, and many club events. Since 2002, Silverstone has also hosted exhibition rounds of drifting, a form of racing unknown to this reporter, but extremely popular among young adults who might otherwise not be interested in motorsports. The drifting course starts on the main straight used in club races and makes use of both Brooklands and Luffield corners to form a S-bend, a requirement in drifting. The Silverstone drifiting course is regarded by its judge, Keiichi Tsuchiya as one of the most technical drifting courses of all. The modernization of the track resulting from the £25m redevelopment plan and the openness of the track to new forms of racing, suggest that the long history of Silverstone will continue at least for another generation.
The list of Grand Prix race winners at Silverstone reads like a who’s who list of Formula One drivers and constructors. In 1951, a Ferrari in the hands of José Froilán González won for the very first time. Maserati, Alfa Romeo, Lotus, McLaren, Williams and Renault all have won more than once on this track. Drivers Jim Clark, Jackie Stewart, Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell, Jacques Villeneuve and David Coulthard are multiple time Grand Prix race winners at Silverstone.
Track layout
Constructed as a wartime airfield the circuit was converted to racing in 1948. The first two Grand Prix races were held on the runways themselves, with long straights separated by tight hairpin corners with the racing layout marked with hay bales. A track using the perimeter roads was used for the 1950 and 1951 Grand Prix races. In 1952, the starting line was moved from the Farm Straight to present Finish Straight and this layout remained in use for the next 35 years. Between the 1990 and the 1991 races, the track underwent a major redesign and in 1995, as a consequence of the deaths of Grand Prix drivers Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna, the entry from Hanger Straight into Stow Corner was modified so as to make its entry less dangerous.
Spectator traffic management has historically been the major technical difficulty for races being held at Silverstone. The area surrounding the track has a long history of severe traffic jams on race day. But this problem was virtually eliminated by the completion of the A43 Silverstone bypass. When the Grand Prix was moved to an April date in 2000, rainy conditions turned the fields used for parking to mud baths causing chaos for spectators trying to park. Enough spectators travel to the formula one race via helicopter to make the Silverstone Heliport the busiest airport in the United Kingdom on race day.
The technical issues that plagued the ILMS race weekend were not spectator traffic issues. They were issues that threatened the race itself and were related to timing and scoring. The timing and scoring data is sent via transponders placed in each car to timing and scoring located in the race control tower. These transponders are tamper-proof radios that are owned by the ILMS and are issued to the teams after they arrive at the track. The transponders fit in a standardized location in each car and remain there for the entire weekend. The transmitter is triggered to send data by an antenna located under the roadway at the end of each timing segment and at the start-finish line. Each transponder has its own frequency and that enables timing and scoring to know which particular vehicle that signal is coming from. At the end of the race, each team must return its transponders to race officials before they are cleared to leave the track.
Rechargeable Transponder
Since the control of transponders is managed by officials assigned to each class of cars, It is the opinion of this reporter that the most logical cause of the timing and scoring issues was duplicated frequencies. Because at least two teams in each class were sending data to timing and scoring simultaneously, timing and scoring was unable to determine lap times of the individual cars during qualifying which resulted in the race stewards decision to start the race by having drivers draw for their starting positions. What this reporter cannot understand is why all positions were drawn together resulting in some slower GT-2 cars at the front of the grid and some faster GT-1 cars located at the tail end of the grid. It would have been far more prudent to put all of the GT-1 cars in one pool and all of the GT-2 cars in another pool, because that way there would be random placement within a class, but the two classes would have been separated. GT-1 cars could have gridded first and then GT-2 cars gridded behind them.
Race Start, Mixed Class Grid
Once the green flag finally dropped on the seventy-five minute sprint race, there was exciting racing as fast GT-1 drivers came up from the back of the grid and slower GT-2 cars drifted back in the standings. After several laps of racing, the grouping of most of the GT-1 cars together and most of the GT-2 cars together got itself sorted out and drivers got down to the business of racing for positions within their own class.
Opps!
Almost as soon as the checkered flag fell, several team registered protests declaring that the results of this race should not count toward the season championship because the random placement on the grid significantly hindered some of the faster drivers in each class and aided the finishes of other slower cars. Other drivers voiced equally strong feelings that the points should count because they worked hard and ran good races to achieve finishing positions near the top of the finishing order. It will be very interesting to see how the race stewards handle the final race results when they are posted and whichever way the stewards determine to be correct, there are going to be drivers who feel the decision was unfair.
Having said all of that, here are the provisional results of the race. While at least fifty garage stalls were filled with cars during the practice session and immediately before qualifying, the provisional results list 47 cars as the official count. There were 22 GT-1 cars including 8 Saleen S7Rs, 8 Aston Martin DBR9s, 4 Corvette C6-Rs and 2 Viper SRT-10s, Several new Aston Martins appeared on the grid for the first time to bring the number of the Aston Martins up to the same number of Saleens that we have seen in recent weeks. There were 25 GT-2 cars including 11 Porsche GT3 RSRs, 8 BMW M3 GTRs and 6 Ferrari 360 GTCs. The high number of Porsches can be accounted for by the fact that Porsche makes far more race ready RSRs available for purchase than either the BMWs or Ferraris.
Richard Hylands Fast Qualifier and Race Winner
Once again Richard Hylands was the quickest GT-2 qualifier listed in the provisional results with a time of 1:43.4 in his Excitement Gang Porsche GT-3 RSR, followed by Drew McLean with a time of 1:43.5 in his ILMS Porsche GT-3 RSR and Pawel Korbel with a time of 1:44.0 in his Happy Rays Racing. But these times were not used to establish the GT-2 grid because of the previously mentioned transponder issues.
Scott Arrington, Fastest Qualifier Overall
New comer Scott Arrington was at the top of the listed GT-1 qualifying results in his ILMS Saleen S7R with a time of 1:36.8 followed by Raymond Rieux with a time of 1:37.6 in his ILMS Saleen S7R and Dalton Cowden in his Phantom Force Racing Aston Martin DBR9 with a time of 1:38.1. But due to the transponder issues, their placement on the starting grid had nothing to do with the times that were recorded because there was no way to confirm their times and for some unknown reason, Arrington was unable to start the race and was listed in 44th finishing position.
Dalton Cowden, Race winner
When the checkered flag fell at the end of the 75 minute sprint race, Dalton Cowden in his Phantom Force Racing Aston Martin DBR9 was declared provisional the winner of the race. Dalton was joined on the podium by his brother and teammate, Bob Cowden driving the second Phantom Force Racing Aston Martin DBR9, and Gregg Mulgrew in his Talon Racing Saleen S7R. Four Aston Martins, two Saleen S7Rs, a single Viper SRT-10 and one Corvette C6-R finished in the top eight positions. Ed Caranci drove his Viper to fifth place and Terry Fisher drove his Corvette to seventh place. For the first time in this reporter’s recent memory, Feint Motion Motorsports was unable to continue the GT-1 dominance which this writer has almost come to expect week after week. In a surprising move, only 1 GT-1 was entered by FMM, an Aston Martin DBR9 driven by Alexander Lugones who had a suspension failure on the opening lap and was listed in the 46th finishing position. The Aston Martin teams showed that all of the development work and time spent in a wind tunnel during the early portion of the season is starting to pay off and one has to wonder if the Cowden father and son team and Aston Martin will now dominate the GT-1 podium in the way FMM and Saleen have done in recent weeks.
In GT-2, Drew McLean got an early race lead and for a while it looked like he might just be on his way to victory in his ILMS Porsche GT3 RSR, but when the checkered flag fell, on the GT-2s, once again, it was Richard Hylands in his Excitement Gang Porsche GT3 RSR who finished first in class and ninth position overall. Drew McLean hung on to finish second and Tommy Christian proved that while Feint Motion Motorsports did not have the expected result in GT-1, they haven’t lost touch with the podium as he brought his FMM BMW M3 GTR home in the final podium position.
The fastest lap of the race was 1:40.9 by Raymond Rieux in his ILMS Saleen S7R. Lap leaders were Graham Swartz with one lap led in his Saleen, Ed Caranci with 3 laps led in his Viper, Mik Mercier and Gregg Mulgrew with 6 laps led by each in their Saleens. Winning driver, Dalton Cowden, led the most laps with a total of 28 out of the 44 laps recorded in the race and of course led the all important final lap. The leader in overtakes was James Bowders driving his Red Weasel Racing BMW M3 GTR with a total of 43. Most of the drivers made at least 20 overtakes during the race. Of course, this was caused by random start of the race that caused cars from both classes to start the race in the front two or three rows.
My racer of the week award goes to every driver on the track for the race. The fact that there were not any major multi-car accidents during the first few laps of the race is the result of the excellent driving done by the drivers in both classes. GT-2 drivers seemed to anticipate what looked like dive-bombing maneuvers as GT-1 cars rushed past and the GT-1 drivers exhibited patience by waiting for safe passing locations in their rush to get up to the top of the standings. This reporter noted numerous occasions when it was evident that GT-1 and GT-2 drivers were working together to allow passes to be made as efficiently as possible. My hat is off to all of the drivers for the driving exhibited under less than ideal conditions.
The IMLS now takes a mid-season break and the next race scheduled is set for June 2nd when the 4 class LeMans Championship series will race at Suzuka Circuit in Japan. The LMS GT-1s and GT-2s will compete next at Suzuka with the prototypes and then will move on to Diablo Hills, for a standalone race on June 9th. Hopefully by that date, we will have a ruling from the race stewards regarding the results of Silverstone race and you will all be eager to race when the two series resume.