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Wednesday, Jan 30 - We got the car unloaded today and went through technical scrutineering ..... well almost. The Grand Am rules were out on their website a month ago and we built the car to those rules. Well, today the "official" rules came out and our wing was 0.25" too high.
This required us to change the wing plates and the wing itself, on 3 wings. The Risi team composites and fabricator guy, John, did a fantastic job and we were ready. David Brabham will start in practice and hand over to Stefan Johansson. Then in the session before qualifying Eric van de Poele will drive. Eric will also qualify the car. We are looking for a top 6 starting spot. The car is not as fast as the modern cars, but we can run race laps as fast or faster, so all we need is a good starting spot. This race is 24 HOURS long. That is longer than the entire CART road racing season! Thursday, Jan
31 - Practice and Qualifying A pit stop and check revealed nothing so we changed the plugs (all 12) and sent him out. Worse, now it stopped on track. Renzo the Ferrari engine man changed some more things and it would now run, but not right. The session was over with zero good laps. Back at the garage we changed everything on the engine, coils, plugs, wiring, pressure sensor lines, engine control units, and map sensors. We were getting strange readings from the throttle position sensor, and after changing that the read out on the computer was looking good. So we went out for the second practice. Well, Renzo got it right, the engine was perfect. Now we had a chance to work on the car, but only 40 min before qualifying. We played with areo to get the balance close and then made some shock changes to get the slow speed handling better. Eric got nine fast laps, and that was the TOTAL number of full out laps this car has on it.
So into qualifying. We changed springs, shocks and rear wing settings for qualifying. In the 15 min session, Eric put the car in 6th place just 1.1 seconds off the pole. This was more than we expected. With so few laps we thought we would be 2 seconds off. We hit out goal and were very happy. "I think we solved all the problems we had this morning," van de Poele said. "The setup was good, and I had quite a good lap. I didn't take any crazy risks. I think third row is perfect - I can see all the pieces on the ground after the start from the other cars! The car is quite good now. We need to work on the setup for the race a little bit and everything will be fine." At 6:00pm we had a 2 hour night practice. Here the guys get set up to test the lighting and all the other items needed for night racing. Stefan finally got to drive and did one hour in the car. We worked on the set up some more with wing changes and shock changes. David drove the car later and we tested all three spare noses to be sure the headlights were aimed right. We also made some chassis changes. At the very end Eric did five laps and that was it. We are close with the set up, and it is so nice to have all three drivers agreeing. This can only happen with drivers of this caliber. True pros. So we will change engine and gearbox in the morning and run the final practice at 1:00pm. Friday, Feb
1 - Practice The new engine and gearbox worked perfect as did all the electrical systems and fuel systems. After practice the team finished preparing all the spares for the car. We have three noses complete with lights, a spare tail section, a complete back half of the car (gearbox and rear suspension). In addition to that, we have every suspension and driveline part as spare and a complete spare dash board with all switches and wiring. The team will change brake discs and pads every 8 hours. This can be done in 90 seconds, due to the design of the 6 piston Brembo calipers. It even extends to the drivers. Each has a spare helmet and three sets of driving gear. They have dryers in the motor home for the suits after each stint. We expect to go 24 laps per tank of fuel. That will take us 45 min between pit stops. A set of tires can last 50 laps or about 170 miles. We will be adding 1.5 liters of oil to the engine every four hours. We expect about 30 pit stops for the race. This is such a long race that we are going to just try to stay within striking distance of the leaders and take good care of the car, so that with 6 hours left we can attack, with a fresh car while the others have wounded cars. We are capable of running lap times with anyone so if it comes down to an all out sprint we are ok. "We checked everything and scrubbed some tires," reported van de Poele. "The engine, gearbox, all the team, driver changes, weather, everything is perfect. It's so hard to be at the end of the 24 hours, but this year looks pretty good. I love to be here this weekend! I just try to give all my best and try to motivate everybody so they can do the same." Saturday and
Sunday Feb 2/3
The Risi crew had everything ready, the pits were organized, we had spare everything ready in case of emergencies, we had people to feed the crew during the night and the best prepared Ferrari 333SP ever put on track. At the start Eric ran 6th and after 60 min was up to 4th. The car was running great and we were cruising. Eric was picking his way through the 76 car field making passes that were breathtaking on the TV coverage. On lap 43 Eric turned the car over to David in 3rd place. Eric decided that we needed the softer tire choice and David took over with fresh tires in 3rd. 30 min later he took the car to first place. David held first for over 1.5 hours making pit stops and only giving up the lead during pit stops for fuel every 45 min. Speedvision had some great in car shots of David as he carved his way through traffic and one time avoided a nose cone from another car in the center of the 180 mph back straight. At the 3 hour mark he handed over to Stefan and the lead continued. David said: "It was a little bit unexpected,I never really thought we would lead until later in the night. Our car's been running strongly, pit stops have been great, the guys have done a fantastic job. We've been dicing for the lead, but we're not really pushing. We just need to protect the car and make sure we get to the end, but we're running competitively, so that's good." Stefan had the rear tires start to go away on the first stint, and his times dropped about four seconds. Within two laps he was back to normal times. He had figured out how to drive the car to compensate. He would square off the turns, get the car straight and then nail it. This allowed the car to put the power down better and limit the wheel spin. At 4 hours Stefan had a great race with Robby Gordon and decided that Gordon was pushing too hard this early in the race and let him go, settling into a comfortable pace in second.
When Stefan turned the car over to Eric we were on full cruise mode then BANG! we lost all drive to the rear wheels. Eric coasted into the pits and Richard Taylor, the team gearbox specialist, found the problem. It would require a complete change of the back half of the car. The guys had the car back on track in 55 min, but we were in 37th place, 30 laps behind the leader. In just 45 min, Eric had the car into 31st place. David took over and drove a triple stint (2hours 15 min), getting the car to 22nd place before turning it back to Stefan. Then........BANG!, again no drive to the rear wheels. Back to the garage, but we only had one spare gearbox. Richard Taylor had already rebuilt the first one (in 5 hours, when this is a 15 hour job normally), and it was ready to go. It turns out that the bevel gears in the gearbox were badly heat treated and each failure was exactly the same. This time the change was done in 45 min (practice makes perfect). We were down 50 laps now and in 40th place. Another great charge by all three drivers. Stefan got it to 22nd place in the 12th hour with a triple stint. Eric did a triple to put the car in
17th place. David got in for his triple and after two was into 11th place and running laps like the other two drivers, 2 to 3 seconds faster than the race leaders. At the start of David's 3rd stint he accelerated onto the banking in turn 6 and the back stepped out, he corrected and the car shot into the outside wall.
It was a very hard hit, ending the day. As hard as our drivers were running to make up the lost time it is always a risk that something like this can happen. In the end it was a risk we had to take to have a chance to win. Everyone on the team has come close to winning Daytona and has been at it many years, no one wanted anything except a win, so the risk was worth it. It was a great effort by the entire Risi Competizione team. It was a pleasure to work with such professional people. This will be the last competitive race for the Ferrari 333SP. It is kind of sad that this car that has such a great racing history will never run again. But things change and technology marches on. The car that won the race this year is a direct descendent of the Ferrari. It was built by the same company, Dallara. So it was a perfect look at the past and present of Sports Car racing. Arrivederci, Ferrari 333SP! Click here to return to the Ferrari Happenings page.
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