Another edition of the Safari Classic Rally is currently in progress and, as always, I’m running the Tuthill Porsche media feeds. With ten cars under its wing, the team is enjoying a decent event. Yesterday was rally day seven and three Tuthill-built 911s finished the day in the top three positions: a fortunate position after thousands of kilometres of competitive rallying on this famously brutal contest.
The entry list for 2019 was smaller than previous editions; fewer than thirty cars entered and only twenty-two cars started the rally. The lower entry numbers can be ascribed to a number of factors, including cost, perceived risk and alternatives. There were also some issues in management and communications during and after the 2017 edition, following the death of one of the managing partners in a mid-event car crash. The fallout cast a traumatic shadow over what had otherwise been another tough but exciting Safari.
Putting things right took a lot of hard work. After 2017, the organisers put considerable effort into modernising its processes, with a major personnel shakeup and big changes in transparency and stewarding. As was promised in discussions and competitor workshops through 2018, the changes delivered a much-improved structure for 2019 and the organisers – headed by a new Clerk of Course – have done a magnificent job this year.
The Safari Classic entry list is restricted to cars from the glory days of Safari: 2wd non-turbo cars pre-1986 that conform to FIA historic regulations. Many cars have won the event, with Mk1 and Mk2 Escorts, 240Zs and 911s all down as previous winners.
The rally takes place over vast swathes of East Africa. While the event is run entirely on open public roads, the logistics including car shipping, accommodation, route mapping, marshalling, medical helicopters etc are huge and it is not cheap to compete. Entry fees for international drivers including car shipping and three twin hotel rooms for the rally duration are set at $34,000, with local entries costing $12,500. Add the cost of car prep before and re-prep after, the cost of hiring support and bringing in parts and the cost of putting up team and supporters and the costs soon soar. This is not a poor man’s sport.
Kenya has a highly active national championship and locals stage another Safari-style rally earlier in the year. Subsidised by wealthy competitors, the earlier rally has lower entry fees and no participant support, so drivers sort out their own shipping, accommodation and so on. If one only wants to rally against local friends and rivals, the smaller event might fit the bill. As most club rally folk do not have the resources to refurbish a rally car twice in six months, this leads to inevitable consequences for the big Safari’s entry list.
Safari Classic entries may have been down this year but the calibre of entrant remained pretty strong. Six-time Kenyan champion, Ian Duncan, was entered in a new Rover SD1 build. Three Kabras Sugar 911 entries included the triple Safari Rally winner, Baldev Chager.
Three Team Tidö Race4Health 911s included the former world rally champion and 2015 Safari Classic winner, Stig Blomqvist. Former Austrian national rally champion and three-time national historic champion, Kris Rosenberger (below), was also entered in a Tuthill 911 that had competed in several earlier events with its previous owner. He would be co-driven by partner, Nicola (Niki) Bleicher, on her first rally in Africa.
The weather through Kenya and Tanzania in the weeks before Safari was wet on an epic scale. Heavy rains in the mountains washed away many roads and bridges and some cancelled stages would be inevitable. Nevertheless, the rally began in Mombasa on November 27th and the competitors completed day one with the first three stages of the 2019 event.
The end of the day saw Kabras Porsches first and second, Blomqvist third and Rosenberger fourth. Three seconds separated first and second, then it was seven minutes back to Blomqvist and Rosenberger: the Austrian less than a minute off Stig. The front two were setting a super hot pace, but Safari is all about surviving the long haul.
Day two brought the first big change at the front. Chager ran well in the first two stages but failed to start the third of the day. This cost more than two hours in penalties and moved him out of the top ten. As team mate Onkar Rai took the lead, Rosenberger outpaced Stig: Nicola was learning to manage the notes and the pair closed the gap to the lead to under three minutes.
Huge rains in the mountains around Arusha in Tanzania lead to the cancellation of all stages on day three, but the cars got racing again the day after. Blomqvist came out with guns blazing, setting the fastest time on stage one. Onkar Rai responded, going quickest on two, but the day’s third stage again hurt the Kabras team and Rai suffered damage. He moved down to fifth overall and Rosenberger took over the lead with Blomqvist some thirty seconds behind. Kabras driver, Tejveer Rai, was now in third.
Day five is the mid-point of the rally and what’s known as ‘rest day’. Drivers get a chance to catch up on sleep, relax or go sightseeing while the crews prepare the cars for four more days of torture. In an extended six-hour service, every Tuthill car is stripped, checked and rebuilt ready for rally part two. This is made possible by a huge team effort, including a mobile parts base shipped from the UK and a devoted tyre station with two tyre guys managing the thirty-six tyres allotted to each car for the nine-day event.
The scale of Tuthill’s presence in Africa is akin to manufacturers on world championship events and many of the mechanics looking after these 911s in Kenya are ex-WRC, so operate efficiently under extreme pressure. The team has run as many as seventeen cars on previous editions and, given the sums clients are paying to complete the event successfully, there is a pressing commercial case for the highest possible level of technical support.
Compared to how solo competitors with simpler aspirations go rallying in Africa, the Wardington army may seem like overkill, but if you want to start ten cars, rally them flat out for nine days and thousands of kilometres in an environment as harsh as this and get them all across the finish line nine days later, it is difficult to overcook the support. The detailed campaign is a giant leap forward on how privateers used to go rallying back in the day, but what clients expect nowadays on tortuous, far-flung events.
Today was the penultimate day of the 2019 East African Safari Classic Rally and it was a typical day of Safari highs and lows, as seen in Richard’s latest video diary (below – see the full set on the Tuthill Porsche YouTube channel). From securing loose goats to losing a podium place within sight of the finish with an unfortunate landing, the rally is all about highs and lows, but that is why devotees love it so much.
As we wait for the final stages of day nine to begin, 6.8 seconds separate Blomqvist and Rosenberger at the front of the field. That exciting story is about to conclude, but this rally is packed with stories equally as thrilling right through the order. From those drivers who save for a lifetime to experience this event, to the people who help run and operate it, to the spectators who take so much energy from brief glimpses of rally cars once every two years, Safari Classic is an incredible spectacle.
Whatever happens tomorrow, I hope the organisers can continue to build upon the overhaul of their internal structures and entice more cars back to Kenya in 2021. This event and the spirit and heritage it honours merits huge respect and success: it is one of a kind and unique in the world.
Sitting on the sofa after the Sunday night dog walk, flicking through the TV channels to pass a few minutes before some antiques programme got started (saddos r us), I chanced across the highlights from the Formula E racing at Riyadh in Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia has put an estimated $260 million into a ten-year deal to host the Formula E season opener: part of developing an improved cultural infrastructure and staking out a green future as it diversifies from oil. Watching the event, I can’t say that I was struck by the wedge. A quick search revealed that, despite investments of almost $150 million last year, the series reported a $29 million loss for its fourth season, bringing Formula E’s total losses up to circa $160 million. Wow.
Andre Lotterer on the podium for Porsche
Two races were held in Riyadh at the weekend. Porsche driver, Andre Lotterer, came second in the first race, but was penalised in the second race for overtaking a damaged car just as the race went to safety car. He was classified fourteenth overall in race two, with team mate, Neel Jani, finishing just in front of him.
Royadh (or Diriyah) circuit was a bit better than some of the Formula E tracks I’ve seen. The surface was dusty and the layout was tight in places, but that made for some interesting moves. I’ve not found Formula E particularly entertaining to watch in the past but, as I’m keen to see how Porsche measures up, I’ll follow the series for a few races more and see how my views develop.
Watching any sort of racing always gets the blood up a bit and Formula E is a roll call of star drivers, but the more obvious names don’t always finish up front. Watching drivers that I’ve never seen before taking on names I know well from other series is interesting, even if the combination of unfamiliar liveries and squirty tracks with choppy TV edits makes some of the action a bit tricky to follow. That should get easier.
Former McLaren F1 driver, Stoffel Vandoorne, had a good weekend in Saudi, finishing on the podium for Mercedes in both races after taking a surprise lead. “This is the most competitive series I have ever raced in,” Stoffel said. “One can enjoy pure racing here, as opposed to Grand Prix racing, which is a bit of a fake world in which everyone gets along well but above all has their own interests to defend.”
I hear what Stoffel is saying but Formula E looks plenty fake to me in places: fountains of money tend to have that effect. A friend has just moved from endurance racing into Formula E and she is not enjoying the culture that much. “I work between two silent accountants and a group of engineers, all of whom spend their time creating ways to spend truckloads of money. It’s bollocks.”
Sebastian Vettel has also spoken about being nonplussed by the series and claims many Formula E drivers are just in it for the money. “To me, this is not the future,” the four-time F1 world champion told a Swiss newspaper, as reported by WTF1.
“E-mobility is currently very popular in the world, but anyone who is honest and identifies with motor racing does not think much of Formula E. The cars are not very fast and many drivers who drive there tell me that the driving is not very exciting.”
I thought the racing in Riyadh was a bit more exciting than previously, but maybe I was talking myself into that because Porsche had entered a team. My mind is not made up as yet; I need to watch more of it.
I will either get over the soundtrack or it will put me off forever. Whirring motors and cars ramping over temporary kerbs sounds like an indoor electric kart track, but without the funs of watching karts in full drift around every corner. If the racing is actually good, then I guess it works out, but I’m still not sure it’s my cup of tea. That does not surprise me too much, as the series is still pretty new and everyone knows about new things for fifty year-olds. You probably know Douglas Adams’ rules on our reactions to technologies:
Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.
Formula E winds me up a bit on many levels: the money that manufacturers are throwing at the series instead of designing better road cars (Jaguar has thrown something like $40 million at it to date), the short races, the lack of outright speed and the small city tracks and convoluted add-ons. Extrapolating that bandwagon to the industry as a whole, the marketing surrounding electric mobility seems to vastly outweigh the amount of affordable technology: where are the electric superminis that do a week on a charge and cost £10k to buy? I’m ready to buy one of those right now – I’m sure most of us are.
As for the racing: well, my kind of racing pits head-to-head speed and reliability over races taking anything from two hundred miles to twenty-four hours and I don’t know that Formula E will ever match either of those things.
Maybe that is good for the planet, and I am all for that, but we are allowed to lament the slide that manufacturer defection will inevitably weigh on what older generations will come to call “proper” motorsport. People say that shorter races make the racing harder, so maybe I just need a shorter attention span. Maybe if this is all there will eventually be, we should either get used to it, stop watching racing or get into some kind of ball game.
I am fully aware that this may come across as some some old bloke moaning, but I did enjoy some of it: it’s just nothing like as good as what I usually watch! We will see how the season pans out.
SHARE • EXPLORE • SUPPORT
Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
There are some big family birthdays this month. My eldest sister turns fifty tomorrow and youngest daughter is fifteen in a fortnight. Between the two is a big birthday for Norbert Singer, the most celebrated race engineer in Porsche history.
It’s no coincidence that Singer is a name now known for a certain type of 911s. Singer founder, Rob Dickinson, is one of the many Norbert Singer superfans. Recordings of my first interview with Rob where he talks about the genesis of his company feature a geekish delight in the fact that Rob was both a successful singer and a disciple of Singer the designer.
Big ideas in Bohemia
On November 16, 1939, Norbert Singer was born in Eger in the Sudetenland, one year after Hitler had reclaimed the disputed region split from Germany as part of the creation of Czechoslovakia in the Treaty of Versailles.
Having annexed neighbouring Austria in March 1938, Hitler called for a plebiscite across the Sudeten Mountains of northern Czechoslovakia, to allow the millions of German-speaking Sudeten Germans who had been “trapped” by the creation of Czechoslovakia to decide their own fate, threatening invasion if the request was ignored and building a force of some 750,000 soldiers along the Czech border.
To avoid war, England and France acquiesced to the demands as part of the appeasement set out in the Munich Agreement and convinced the Czech government to cede the territory. Hitler sent the Wehrmacht into the Sudetenland the day after the agreement was signed, on October 1st, 1938. Six months later, he invaded the rest of the country.
German expansionism (known as Lebensraum or ‘space to live’) was the climate that welcomed young Singer in November 1939. Eger (now Cheb in the Czech Republic) was again part of Germany and feeling good about life: it was time to think big and plan for the future.
Norbert was all about the future: he grew up fascinated with space travel and dreamed of a career as a rocket engineer. He watched a lot of racing through his university years studying aerospace and automotive engineering in Munich and saw Jim Clark race at the Monaco Grand Prix. A professor convinced him on the idea that “rocket engineering is for Americans: in Germany we are all about cars”.
No letter from Porsche
Singer learned that Porsche was looking for engineers, but his father was not convinced that the small sports car firm would be Norbert’s best option. Other small firms were all going under: what hope could Porsche have of being any different? Singer’s fascination almost came to nothing as, after interviewing with Porsche, he heard no more until a phone call in early March 1970, asking why he hadn’t turned up for his first day at work. Stuttgart had neglected to send the letter confirming his appointment.
He turned up for his second day and was immediately set to work on simplifying the 917’s fuel system, under the leadership of Ferdinand Piëch. After that it was gearbox cooling, then aerodynamics. The 917 won its first Le Mans later that year and Singer began to build a reputation. His work on the 911 RSR took the car to victory, as it did with the RSR Turbo, the 935 and the famous 936. But it was the 956 that really put Norbert on the map.
Following the introduction of the Group C regulations in 1982, Singer proved his tremendous ability as an aerodynamicist, providing Porsche’s new Group C car with exceptional ground effect. The car’s winning sure-footedness came from a special underbody design with air ducts and the legendary “Singer dent”, but Norbert notes that success was not guaranteed.
Norbert Singer: “You can trip up over your own feet”
“I was cautious going into the race,” recalls the chief engineer. “The 956 was a completely new car. You can’t go into every race saying, Hurray, we’re going for the win! You have to see how things go – getting through 24 hours is no easy task. This win was perfect and actually somewhat surprising. We had taken our job very seriously. A few years before that we had made a mistake.
“In 1979, Ernst Fuhrmann was still with Porsche and he said to us engineers, ‘What do you say if we drive Le Mans this year? There’s practically no competition.’ Basically, we just had to show up and walk off with the victory. And what happened? We didn’t reach the finish line with either car – we lost even without competition. You can trip over your own feet as well. Having experienced that, I really enjoyed the win in 1982. The 956 went straight into the museum. It’s the car that hangs from the ceiling.”
The 956 and its successor, the 962C, won five driver titles, three manufacturer titles and two team world championships between 1982 and 1986, also clocking up seven overall victories at Le Mans. From 1970 to 1998, Singer played significant roles in all of Porsche’s race wins at Le Mans with the 917, 935, 936, 965, 962C, WSC Spyder and 911 GT1 98.
Until his retirement in 2004, Norbert Singer was the project manager for most of Porsche’s racing cars. After leaving Porsche, he continued to consult with customer race teams, also serving as an advisor to ACO: the Le Mans race organisers. Singer’s knowledge of Porsche racing history has also proved invaluable to the factory when restoring original race cars, such as 917 chassis number 001 or 965 number 005.
Porsche says that Singer has been lecturing at Esslingen University since 2006 and continues to do so. Whatever he is up to these days, his place at the top table of Porsche history is without question and it is a delight to see him reach the grand age of eighty. Happy birthday Norbert!
“I suppose the German side wants to keep everything in control, and the Irish side wants to wreak havoc,” claims Michael Fassbender. I’m not so sure about that. When I am with Germans, I’m generally the one keeping things under control, while the rest run amok. I guess it depends on the Germans you know.
Weg mit ihren Köpfen
The Irish missionary Kilian went to Germany in 689 AD. It was a big mistake. When Kilian suggested that a local lady was not the most suitable bride for a newly-baptised duke, on the basis that she had once been married to the duke’s now-dead brother, the Germans chopped off Kilian’s head, and those of both his companions.
But times have changed. When Fassbender smashes his GT3 Cup nose-first into the Hockenheim pit wall right in front of the Porsche crew, they run through what went wrong and roll out a spare car. A few weeks later, he has another sizeable accident and another spare car is wheeled out. German-Irish relations have definitely evolved.
Anyway, this story is all about an actor en route to Le Mans. Yes, that old chestnut is back, except this time it is rather more interesting (for us Irish, at least). After a two-year learning curve racing Ferraris, Michael Fassbender is training with Porsche for a shot at the 24-Heures. His teacher, Felipe Fernandez Laser, is a VLN winner with Frikadelli Racing and should be capable of helping a decent amateur find their way up to the level of a quick GTE-AM driver.
So far, Fassbender appears to show decent potential. A ninth place finish in a Porsche Sports Cup race is no mean feat for a rookie and there are flashes of speed all the way through Porsche’s latest Youtube series, following Fassbender’s Road to Le Mans. The biggest test will be whether he can put it all together, but this is man knows what it’s like to do 10,000 hours.
Heidelberg to Aghadoe
Fassbender arrived into the world just 100 kms north of Stuttgart in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemburg on April 2, 1977. His German father, Josef, was a chef and his Irish mother, Adele, raised the kids. The pair had met while working in London but ended up moving to Germany. Adamant that the Republic would be a better environment for their kids to grow up in, Adele convinced Josef to move the family to Ireland. So, when Michael was two, they settled just outside Killarney, in County Kerry.
Killarney was rally central in the 1980s, so young Michael got into Group B. Then followed the age of Michael Schumacher and, as a young German who spoke the mother tongue fluently, Fassy followed Schumi: he’s often now found on F1 grids with Crazy Liam Cunningham and the pair met Schumi at one such weekend.
The youngster struggled to find some direction until he discovered drama in school. He immersed himself in acting and staged Tarantino’s ‘Reservoir Dogs’ over two nights for the craic. He eventually moved to London to study the craft. Things were tough in the smoke and Fassbender was living on a few quid a week, working two minimum wage jobs and battling exhaustion to do as many auditions as possible. It all took its toll and Michael quit drama school to go it alone. It would not be the smoothest path to success.
When he quit his bar job after landing a part in Steven Spielberg’s ‘Band of Brothers’, the boss advised him to keep in touch, as the work might come in handy again. Fassbender laughed it off, feeling he had hit the big time, but, after a spell in LA trying to crack Hollywood, he ended up back in the bar.
Bit parts on British TV followed, leading to more and more screen time and the emergence of a fan base amongst critics. Eventually, things took off: he delivered an exceptional performance as IRA hunger striker, Bobby Sands, in the film Hunger and then Tarantino came back into his life, casting the German speaker as a British spy in Inglourious Basterds.
While the actor-turned-racer premise may initially feel like Fassbender is buying his way into racing and walking in footsteps we’ve all seen before (not that there’s owt wrong with that), there is more to this story than the same old thing and Porsche has scored big with Youtube viewers. Part 1 alone has 700k views and Porsche’s channel has 800k subscribers, so that should tell you all about the reach of this.
I am also a fan of the documentary: the way this is shot is just perfect. Fassbender is given the full expression of his Irish upbringing with no bleeps or edits and we see things exactly as his driver coach sees them. “I’m so bummed about the fuckin’ smash there behind the safety car,” is Fassbender’s first line in part 1. It’s hard to resist parts two and three after that.
Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
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:
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.AcceptRead More
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
