There was an overriding scene of pride at Strakka Racing, despite the team’s mid-point retirement from the 2011 Le Mans 24 hours. The Silverstone-based team rose to the challenge of the world’s toughest motor race, overcoming a major setback in qualifying to fight back to 2nd position in LMP2 before a full attacking drive through the night saw the Relentless Energy Drink/Sun backed HPD ARX-01d run wide at Tertre Rouge, launch itself off the high kerbs and suffer what was to become race ending damage on landing.
Team drivers Nick Leventis, Danny Watts and Jonny Kane arrived at Le Mans as defending LMP2 champions, carrying the hopes of many of the 70,000 British fans that made up part of the 250,000 strong crowd. Even with its effective aero package, the air restricted Honda Performance Development car was down on straight line speed compared to some of its rivals, meaning that strategy, reliability and having to drive at 120% at times were required if last year’s success was to be repeated.
The professionalism of the team shone through after Qualifying 1, when it spent 17 hours totally rebuilding the twin turbo V6 engined car after Nick suffered a heavy crash. After an astonishing effort, the Strakka Racing HPD ARX-01d was one of the first cars to enter the track when Qualifying 2 began, running perfectly as the team ran a series of systems checks on its now race ready car. Having only set a banker lap time in Q1, and no fast times in Q2 or Q3 at all, it still remained in 2nd position on the starting grid.
Jonny made his customary clean start for the team at 15.00 on Saturday afternoon. A lengthy safety car period soon followed, while the crash barriers were repaired following a huge accident involving the #3 Audi R18 at Tertre Rouge – which thankfully Allan McNish emerged from unharmed. Having led LMP2 briefly, Jonny handed over to Danny after the two hour mark. Having lost track position in the pits, he began to close in on the three LMP2 cars ahead of him at a rapid rate; eventually overtaking car #41 and #39 after a quick fuel-only pit stop. Nick then replaced Danny and showed no after-effects of his big accident in Q1 by doing an excellent double stint as the first six hours was completed.
As the race headed into the night, Jonny’s first triple stint was delayed following another massive accident involving an Audi R18 – this time the #1 car driven by Mike Rockenfeller. Jonny handed over to Nick, who was able to get his night stint out of the way behind the safety car; which stayed out on track for almost two hours.
Danny replaced Nick at 02.00 for what was planned to be a triple stint. With the top four LMP2 cars on the lead lap, Danny’s mission was to reduce the three minute gap to the class leader by as much as possible, before handing back to Jonny for his dawn run. Everything was going to plan, and with other cars beginning to encounter problems, it looked like the reliability of the HPD ARX-01d would soon pay dividends. Danny overtook the #39 car to move up to 3rd, and had just pitted for fuel when he locked up under braking and flat spotted the front right tyre. Having come into the pits to replace it, he then ran wide at Tertre Rouge and drove over the high ‘sleeping policemen’ kerbs – launching the car into the air and landing with a 15G impact. The damaged front aero was causing high-speed understeer, so Danny returned to the pits to get the front of the car replaced. However, on getting back up to race speed, a more serious problem resulting from the heavy landing became apparent – and it’s believed an oil pipe, or the oil cooler itself, may have been damaged. As Danny hit full throttle coming out of the pits, oil began to pour onto the rear wheels and a loss of oil pressure forced Danny to park the car at the first chicane on the Mulsanne straight at 02.30.
Nick Leventis: “This is what Le Mans is all about – the highs and lows of motorsport. I’m very proud to be fair, because what we’ve been through as a team this week will only make us stronger. We showed very promising pace, I had a big accident and the team did a tremendous job against the odds to repair the car in such a short period of time and get it back out on track for the next session and remain P2 on the grid. I said before the race that, no matter what the outcome, we’d already done ourselves more than proud and we’d achieved an incredible result by just being on the grid. In terms of the race, it was just one of those things. The Nissan engined cars had the legs on us, so we had to run to our own strategy because we knew we couldn’t beat them on speed. Jonny and Danny both did an excellent job and personally I think my driving was below standard for me; I think the crash had taken a little bit of confidence out. Le Mans is an event where you have to give it your all, yet I still think the race would have come to us. It was frustrating to go out like we did, but we did ourselves proud, we showed tremendous pace with the car, Wirth Research, Michelin and HPD have done a fantastic job to get us where we were. Coming into the race we weren’t so confident we’d be up there on pace and we thought reliability would come and play into our hands, which is clearly does, and I’m very pleased to see both other HPD cars get to the finish. It’s unfortunate for us to not be there at the finish, but it was encouraging for us to know that we were in the mix and fighting hard.”
Danny Watts: “I feel so sorry for everyone else in the team, because of the magnificent effort they’ve put in at Le Mans this year. I’m annoyed at myself, because I don’t often make mistakes, but I made two fundamental errors that cost us the race really. I locked up and flat spotted a tyre, so I had to come back into the pits and that cost us time, and then I went wide at Tertre Rouge and ran over the sleeping policemen on the exit of the corner. That launched the car into the air, landed very heavily and damaged the bottom of the engine. After the pit stop to replace the nose, I had a few moments in first few corners, which is very uncharacteristic for this car, so I knew there was something wrong. I thought it might be low tyre pressures, but it transpired that there was an oil leak and oil was pouring onto the rear tyres, so I didn’t have any grip. Going down Mulsanne towards the first chicane, I felt the engine make a noise, it lost power and I could smell oil. I knew then we had a big problem and it would be terminal. We have a fantastic team and we’ll bounce back stronger than ever after this, but at the moment I’m thoroughly disappointed and mentally drained.”
Jonny Kane: “Le Mans is more than just driving a race car; it means everything to us. The difference between elation and desperation is very slim sometimes. It was another great team effort. We had the misfortune in the middle of the week and the team did a stunning job to get the car back together and in such a good condition. The car felt really good in the race; we were lapping pretty much as fast as everyone else and things were starting to go our way. It’s just unfortunate for Danny, six inches wide at one corner and all of a sudden our race is over. I took the start and it was pretty fraught actually. We were a little bit slower than the Nissan engined cars in a straight line, which meant that they could get passed me on the straight and whilst I could stay with them, I didn’t have enough speed to overtake them. It was a little bit frustrating to go from second on the grid to fifth within a few laps of the start, but it’s a long race and we had a good car. HPD has done a fantastic job to produce good horsepower with good fuel economy, and we were able to go one lap longer than our rivals, so things were looking really good. It’s a shame we retired when we did, because we had manoeuvred ourselves into what was increasingly looking like a very strong position, so I’m really disappointed for everyone in the team.”
Piers Phillips, Team Principal and Technical Director: “I’m extremely proud of every member of the Strakka Racing team, especially the guys on the shop floor who did such a fantastic job to rebuild the car overnight and put us back into a position where we were able to challenge for a good result. We changed our strategy following the two big accidents involving the Audis – which we are all delighted to see the drivers emerge from. We made a very good driver call late in the night when the safety car was out, and this meant that Danny and Jonny were ready to push very hard during the five hours they were scheduled to be in the car and try to break the back of the opposition and get us back up to the front. Danny was on an incredible stint and ran wide at Tertre Rouge and launched the car into the air over a sleeping policeman, and soon after that the car stopped. We’re disappointed that we didn’t finish. We won’t know until we get the car back exactly what caused us to stop, but clearly where has been a systems failure. We were once again down on performance against the Nissan engined cars, through no fault of our own. We were operating at one hundred and twenty per cent for the entire week, where possibly some of the other teams don’t have to do that. You need some luck when you’re working at that sort of level, and when you make a little mistake it costs. We’ll take a lot of positives away from Le Mans, dust ourselves off, and get stuck into Imola in two weeks time.”
Time-lapsed significant race moments
12:28 Car stops at first chicane on Mulsanne and retires
12.40 Pits for new cone after damaging it on kerb
13.04 Pits to replace flat-spotted front right tyre. Dropped to 3rd (behind #48)
13:09 Fuel only. DW moved up to 2nd (ahead of #48)
13:56 Driver change: DW replaces NL. Fuel and tyres. Safety Car comes in
15:42 Under Safety Car, NL replaces JK. Fuel and tyres. 4th P2l
16:24 Pits – fuel only. 3rd P2
17:11 Pits – fuel only
18:00 Driver change: JK replaces NL. Fuel and tyres.
18:47 Pits – fuel only
19:39 Driver change: NL replaces DW. Fuel and tyres.
20:24 Pits – fuel only. DW 2nd P2
21:10 Pits – fuel only
21:54 Driver change: DW replaces JK. Fuel and tyres. 1st P2
23:37 Pits – fuel only
24:00 JK makes a clean start, goes from 2nd P2 to 4th P2
Source : Strakka Racing