The 2005 US Grand Prix in Indianapolis came at the peak of the tyre wars between Bridgestone and Michelin. When Ralf Schumacher crashed during practice, Michelin picked up a problem and advised teams running its tyres not to race unless a pre-banking chicane was added, slowing the cars down and lessening the tyre loads.
Ferrari and the FIA vetoed the plan and all the cars came to the start grid. At the end of the warm-up lap, the Michelin cars pulled into the pits and retired. Six Bridgestone cars completed the race and F1 and Indianapolis canned their agreement.
Quick Thinking: The Grid Walk
Former F1 Driver , Martin Brundle, was the man chosen by ITV to develop the idea of a live TV “grid walk” before F1 race starts. Broadcasters had tried it before, but run-of-the-mill TV presenters were not the right people to get in the faces of drivers in the final tense minutes before lights out. Brundle blended his understanding of the pressures that came with the job, a good sense of humour and a lightning fast ability to think on the spot and became the de-facto gridwalk persona.
The 2005 US Grand Prix gridwalk is a great example of why Brundle has been so successful. In the midst of a media frenzy, he quizzes F1 boss, Bernie Ecclestone, at length, making several points on behalf of the fans without losing his cool. Brundle’s talent shines through when he asks the man who can famously arrange anything why this problem can’t be easily solved.
“Surely we just all need to take a sensible pill and then go motor racing?” says Martin. “Tell me where we can buy the pills,” replies Bernie, giving Brundle a playful dig. “Okay, we need to talk to Mrs Ecclestone,” Martin says: cheeky and quick all in one.
Thinking fast under pressure is common skill in racers. The speed of change on a racetrack means that most reactions to an emerging situation must be assigned automatically, living sufficient conscious capacity to make quick, confident decisions when faced with a series of options.
Of course, the skill is not always full developed and we often see things going wrong when a lesser decision plays out. But unforgettable moments are made when a champion driver focuses their ability to think fast and run against the odds, pulling off something that rails against our instincts.
One such moment was made at this year’s Nürburgring 24-Hour. After leading the early part of the race, Manthey Racing’s lead 911 had a puncture and was forced down the order. When Kévin Estre took over the sister car, he set a series of incredible laps, pulling more than twenty seconds back on Dirk Müller’s Black Falcon Mercedes.
Eventually the cars were line astern and fighting hard for the lead. The Porsche’s pace was mighty: Estre picked up the slipstream on Dottinger Hohe and decided now was his time. As the leader drifted left to lap a backmarker, Estre calculated that the verge would be dry. Putting two wheels on the grass and not lifting the throttle, he swooped to the lead.
The team of Estre, Christensen, Bamber and Vanthoor stayed in front until a five-minute time penalty for missed yellow flags put the Porsche out of contention. Having led the race for 105 of 157 laps, the Manthey car was forced to settle for second position. Two weeks after the ADAC Total Nürburgring 24-Hours, the number 911 car was retrospectively disqualified by DMSB officials. Manthey issued the following statement:
“The engine in our inspected #911 car complied with all the key points of the homologation. The only thing that was not consistent with the prescribed 2 x 34.6-millimetre diameter of the restrictor, which was the size we used, was the performance value calculated by the ADAC technical committee. We must accept that we did not check the plausibility of the value calculated by the organiser, neither on the test bench in Weissach nor on our chassis dynamometer in Meuspath. We accept the judgement and will not lodge an appeal.”
Disqualified from second place – does anyone really care about that? Winning is a statistic: proof you existed. But writing a move like this into the culture of motorsport is proof that you lived. Long after people have forgotten the winner of the 2019 Nürburgring 24-Hour, they will remember this pass, and Kévin Estre. So far, it’s the Porsche move of the year.
Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
Porsche has announced Simona de Silvestro as its first female works driver. Announced alongside Thomas Preining as test and development driver for the TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E team, de Silvestro and Preining will carry out simulator work in Weissach as well as attending select Formula E races. The two drivers will also be available to the team for in-season testing.
Born on September 1st, 1988 in Thun, Switzerland, the 31 year-old de Silvestro brings useful single seater experience to the team. Her career began with a drive for Cram in Italian Formula Renault before she moved to Formula BMW USA, scoring five podiums on her debut season. Several seasons in Toyota Formula Atlantic followed, with a 2008 win at Long Beach followed by an excellent run in 2009, where she took three wins and led the championship for much of the season, eventually finishing third overall.
Simona made her IndyCar debut in 2010 and was crowned Indy 500 Rookie of the Year, starting P22 but eventually finishing 14th overall. 2011 saw a fastest lap at Sao Paolo in a crazy race where she was criticised for racing the leaders as they made their way through the pack. De Silvestro was nine laps down after an early accident with another driver – perhaps if the leaders were quick enough, they should have just breezed past.
The uncompetitive 2012 HVM Lotus left her with little pace to challenge for wins. A switch to Team KV IndyCar in 2013 brought a podium in Houston: Simona becoming only third-ever woman to stand on the IndyCar podium. In 2014, she came to Formula 1 as a member of the Sauber team under the guidance of Monisha Kaltenborn, but the agreement ended early as financial issues led to the team terminating the relationship. In truth, Sauber had royally screwed up their driver arrangements for the year, ending up with five drivers under contract and one driver taking them through the courts. The team was eventually sold.
In 2015m, Simona raced for Andretti in IndyCar, finishing P4 in New Orleans and inside the top twenty at the 99th Indy 500. Later that year, she made her Formula E debut in London. She stayed with Andretti for the 2016 Formula E season, becoming the first (and so far only) woman to score points in the series. She has spent the last three years racing Nissans in Australian Supercars but is excited to return to single seaters with Porsche.
“It is a great honour to work for this prestigious brand,” said whoever wrote the PR for Simona. “I am really looking forward to my new role as test and development driver for the TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team. Over the last few years, I have gained a lot of experience from my previous involvements in Formula E. I will do my best to help Porsche on the road to success.”
After several disappointing seasons apparently through no real fault of her own, joining the Porsche team is a good opportunity. Simulator work is key – hopefully she can outpace young Preining in the virtual car and earn a run in competition. However, as a former Carrera Cup Deutschland champion and a contracted Porsche Young Professional with three top four GTE-AM finishes to his name as part of Gulf Racing, the 21 year-old Preining is already well established with Porsche as a hot shot on his way to the top.
It’s going to be tough for Simona to chip away at that level of embeddedness, but I hope she gets more than token attention at Weissach. As the dad of three daughters and having worked with several capable female competitors over the years, the gender imbalance in motorsport is shameful. It’s about time Porsche had a woman in their driver lineup: there’s room for more women in the supervisory boards also.
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Interesting news from Le Mans this morning, as the results of the pre-Le Mans test were released. Porsche works and customer racing teams clocked up a combined total of more than 6,000 miles (9,988 kms) at Le Mans last weekend, with the fastest 911 time of 3:54.233 minutes over the upgraded 13.6-kilometre Circuit de la Sarthe.
Porsche set the fifth fastest lap overall, Tandy claiming honours for Weissach in the number 93 RSR. The Corvettes finished first and third, sandwiching the Ford GT of Jonathan Bomarito. Magnussen was quickest overall with a time just two-tenths ahead of Tandy’s best. Bergmeister revealed that the team had not tried a qualifying lap on the dirty circuit.
“As always at the Le Mans pre-test, the track was very dirty compared to the upcoming race weekend, said Jorg Bergmeister. “There was little grip, so it didn’t make sense to simulate a qualifying session. We collected important data during the test day to be as well prepared as possible for the season finale. There’s always something new to learn at Le Mans. We learned a lot – especially that our Art Car is a real head-turner. The astonished fans tooka lot of photos.”
“Aside from the normal set-up work and tyre tests, there was an additional item on the list,” noted Richard Lietz. “Several areas of the track have undergone some modifications. Above all, a very high kerb has been added in the Ford corner, affecting the racing line. You have to tackle this passage a little differently now and you can’t take a shortcut. It was important to check out these changes.”
The 2019 Le Mans 24-Hour weekend starts with four hours free practice at 4PM on Wednesday, June 12 before the first qualifying at 10PM that evening. Two more qualifying sessions take place the following day, with the race starting at 3PM on Saturday June 15.
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Following Andreas Seidl’s departure from Weissach in September 2018, McLaren F1 has announced that the former head of Porsche’s LMP1 programme is the new managing director of its Formula One racing team.
McLaren Racing has appointed Andreas Seidl as managing director of our @F1 team. 🤝
Born on January 6, 1976 on the banks of the Danube in Passau, Lower Bavaria, father-of-two Seidl built his early career with BMW Motorsport. He went on to run the test and operations department at the BMW Sauber Formula One team and later served as Head of Race Operations when BMW left F1 and returned to DTM in 2012. BMW’s DTM team claimed the manufacturer’s title on its first year back.
In 2013, Seidl’s friend and Porsche motorsport boss, Fritz Enzinger, signed him up for Porsche’s LMP1 squad. Coming on board as Director of Race Operations, he was made Team Principal in 2014. The Porsche 919 LMP1 Hybrid claimed the first of its three Le Mans wins the following year.
Co-workers point to Seidl’s love of “what-if” planning as an essential component in his approach: a distaste for snap reactions to the unexpected means he develops strategies to account for all imaginable scenarios before a race wheel is turned. “Andreas is like a chess player,” says Enzinger. “He’s a tactician who runs through every possible move with the team in advance in order to be able to respond in a flash.”
The HR doors were fairly one-way at McLaren F1 last year, with drivers, designers and trackside bosses all saying goodbye by the end of the season. This year, McLaren F1 brings in top designer, James Key, drivers Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris and now an ex-Porsche man, too. Whether Seidl’s management will pull the team together and lift McLaren out of its doldrums remains to be seen, but his track record is unquestionable. Friends of the blog at McLaren F1 are excited to learn how the Bavarian works once his gardening leave expires.
“This is an enormous privilege and challenge, which I am ready for and committed to,” said Andreas. “To have an opportunity to contribute to the McLaren legacy is extremely special and inspiring. McLaren has the vision, leadership and experience but, most importantly, the people to return to the front, and that will be my absolute focus and mission.”
F1 2019 kicks off next month with two four-day tests at Barcelona on February 18 – 21 and Feb 26 – March 1. I have talked little brother into a first test trip, so I hope the weather’s better than last year.
The star attraction of the GP Ice Race for air-cooled Porsche enthusiasts will almost certainly be Otto Mathé’s Fetzenflieger single-seat race car with its spiked tyres and succession of Porsche racing engines.
If there was a top ten list of people who embodied the “cult of Porsche” concept, Mathé would be close to the top. His name has popped up on this blog more than once and I never get tired of dipping into Mathé’s history and imagining what life must have been like for this true-blue Porsche enthusiast.
Period photos of Mathé (and his story as a whole) calls the late John Surtees CBE to mind. Surtees was the only man to ever win world championships on both two and four wheels and Mathé’s early life involved racing motorcycles. An accident in 1934 caused the loss of his right arm and motorbikes were out from then on. Rather than being chased away from motorsport, Mathe turned his considerable engineering ability to other forms of racing.
Mathé owned a filling station and was fascinated by lubricant development. As World War 2 drew to a close, Mathé developed an additive that improved the performance of racing engine oils. At a time when Porsche recommended oil changes every 3,000 kms, Mathé is said to have ran his engines for 100,000 kms without changes. Mathé passed his lubricant business on before his death in 1995 and Mathé Universal Lubricant products are still available to buy today.
1952: Fetzenfleiger is born
Switching from two wheels to four after his accident, Mathé’s car racing career went from strength to strength until, in 1952, he unveiled the car which would cement his place in history. Built to Formula Two regulations of the time, the car raced on asphalt circuits, sand and ice, and it was the latter where Mathé truly established his legend. In 1952, Mathé’s special won twenty out of twenty races and he claimed the Austrian championship.
Otto Mathé’s special features handmade bodywork on a tubular frame chassis. Constructed from Porsche, VW and Kubelwagen parts with a super-low centre of gravity, the car weighed less than 400 kilograms. Sources differ on the original power unit: some say 1100cc, others 1500cc, but they agree the engine was Porsche. Mathé mounted the engine in front of the rear axle, fitting a left hand gearshift to overcome his disability, changing gears in corners by moving his body and holding the wheel with his torso.
Fans soon christened the car “Fetzenflieger”. This is hard to translate into English directly, with various attempts relating to Scrap Flyer or Spark Flyer. The nickname comes from the spectacle of the car’s textile side engine covers, which would burn from the flames spitting out of the exhausts, sending sparks and embers flying. It must have been an incredible sight.
Quickly coming to terms with his creation and taking it to win after win, Mathé later upped the ante by fitting a 550 engine with Spyder wheels and brakes in 1955. Some historians believe that this car was subsequently run at Silverstone in 1956 fitted with a JAP engine. Whether or not this is true, it certainly got about, running as an “intertyp” in both Formula and Sport Car events with various parts added or deleted as appropriate.
The Otto Mathé collection at Hamburg Automuseum PROTOTYP
That Mathé managed to race after losing an arm is one thing. That he managed to race and win is another, but to outperform everyone – literally single-handedly – is something truly inspirational. The “Ice King” and his racer went on to win four of the “Prof. H. c. Ferdinand Porsche Memorial Race” events, in 1955, 1956, 1957 and 1959. The car was towed by a spectacular collection of Porsches, many of which were also raced. Mathé’s collection can now be seen in permanent exhibition at the Automuseum PROTOTYP in Hamburg.
The collection includes the MA-01 “Fetzenflieger”, the Cisitalia D46 race car, with which Hans Stuck won the first official German circuit race at the Hockenheimring in 1947, the Delfosse DVD electric racing car, Mathé’s VW T1 “Bulli” as well as the Porsche Type 64 (No. 2) “Berlin-Rome-Wagen”, rebuilt by the Automuseum PROTOTYP on original parts, his DKW Monoposto and his JAP F3 car. Anyone looking for a road trip destination this year would do well to add Hamburg to their list!
photos courtesy of Automuseum PROTOTYP and Porsche AG via GP Ice Race
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