Superb 4th place finish for Barwell Aston Martin DBRS9 in Spa 24 Hours

Barwell Motorsport made a stunning return to the FIA GT Championship last weekend, when it contested the world’s premier GT race – the Spa-Francorchamps 24 Hours. We were running the Eddy Renard-owned Aston Martin DBRS9 that regularly competes in the Belgian GT Championship, with Renard being joined for this event by Jeffrey Van Hooydonk, Julien Schroyen and Koen Wauters in the all-Belgian driving squad. During a full 24 Hours of hard racing in the ultra-competitive G3 Class (for FIA homologated GT3 cars), we ran in the top three positions for over half of it and eventually claimed a historical fourth place in class and 14th overall (out of 39 entries including GT1, GT2 and GT3 cars). This is the first time ever that an Aston Martin DBRS9 has finished an international 24 Hour race.

The performance of the car and the team in the race was all the more remarkable when you consider that we only knew we would be doing the event one week before the official practice and qualifying day! Despite this, no stone was left unturned in our organisation and preparations. “The car is 100% ready to go,” declared Chief Mechanic, Chris Weeden, “and although we’ve had limited time we haven’t compromised on anything”. The Barwell Motorsport-prepared car ran without any mechanical problems for the entire 24-hours, with the only non-planned pit stops occurring due to a damaged oil cooler after an on-track excursion into the barriers, and a puncture. Prior to these, during the 19th hour, we moved up to second in class and had dramatically closed the gap to the leading (and eventually class-winning) factory Matech Ford GT. This despite the fact that the big 6-litre V12 DBRS9 was having to pit for re-fuelling four laps earlier than the Ford every stint, and no less than seven laps earlier than the eventual 2nd and 3rd-placed Porsche 911 GT3 Cup S cars. All in all it had taken a fantastic performance from the team and all four drivers to bring the car home in a highly competitive position.

With Jeffrey, Julien and Koen all new to both the team and the DBRS9, we had a very busy day on Thursday getting all the drivers comfortable in the car during the day-time free practice and pre-qualifying sessions. Their acclimatisation to the Aston Martin was certainly not made any easier by the constantly changing weather conditions of the day! As the most experienced professional driver, Jeffrey was selected to complete a full new slick tyre qualifying run during the first session held in the early evening light. Although it was dry during the build up to the start of this session, the threat of rain was clearly hanging in the sky, and thus the first few laps of this session were likely to prove critical to the qualifying positions of the 39 GT cars entered. Nobody knew quite how long the cars could stay on slicks, and the pace was hot from the very start. Jeffrey immediately became embroiled in a battle for G3 Class pole position with the Ford GT of Thomas Mutsch, with these cars separated by a few 1/10ths of a second at the top for the first two flying laps.

The track conditions were absolutely treacherous, however, with rain appearing at La Source hairpin at the start of the lap. From there the drivers didn’t know what to expect at each corner in the way of the track surface grip, and had to find a delicate balance between speed and safety. The result of these slippery conditions was that all the front-runners in each class from GT1 down were lapping around four seconds off a full dry pace. With second fastest GT3 time in the bag, Jeffrey was happy to not risk a further flying lap as the rainfall started to increase. After just 15 minutes of the 60 minute session, the heavens exploded and a huge storm flooded the track for the rest of the night. We were thus very happy to take second out of the strong G3 Class entry, and had also claimed quite a few GT2 and G2 Class scalps on our way to 19th overall.

Car owner and regular driver, Eddy, thus took the start of the Belgian endurance classic at 4 o’clock on Saturday, and it was a great sight to see the Barwell Aston rounding Eau Rouge in amongst such a quality 39-car field. With most of our G3 class rivals opting to put their ‘pro’ drivers in for the opening stint, it was inevitable that Eddy would slip down the order slightly in the first hour. We also lost some more time to the class leaders when it rained heavily again during this period, and we opted to play it safe and change Eddy onto wets for the last 15 minutes of his stint. This was the right call for a non-professional driver on a very wet track, but some of the pros in the other cars managed to stay on slicks and use a riskier strategy. All of this mattered little, however, after the next two hours when our pros, Julien and Jeffrey, had pressed on in their stints and brought us right back into contention in fourth place on the same lap as the class-leading Muhlner Porsche Cup S. We also used the safety car periods to good effect, bringing the car into the pits to top up the fuel and thus extend our fuel strategy.

The race then settled down for a few hours, as the leading six G3 cars pulled away from the rest of the pack (in 18th-23rd places overall) whilst also shadowing the lower order GT2 cars just ahead. We remained in fourth spot as we became embroiled in a ‘yo-yo’ battle of territory with the ‘other’ Matech Ford GT (half a lap ahead) and the ‘other’ Muhlner Porsche (half a lap behind). By 1/3rd distance at midnight, the erstwhile lead Muhlner car had slipped back behind us, and thus we moved into the top three podium spots that we would occupy until the end of the next morning. Although the leading Matech Ford had moved ahead slightly, we continued our dogfight with its sister car for second place through the early hours of the morning, with the Muhlner Porsche also ever-present behind on the same lap.

With Eddy, Julien, Jeffrey and Koen all driving to the best of their individual abilities, we were able to set an excellent average pace across all the stints. During the fully-dry night we also double-stinted Jeffrey and Julien, who both pushed on with a strong pace and did a great job during their two-hour runs. At the same time, all the drivers were looking after the car and not taking any risks. Our time in the pits was also kept to a minimum with the ultra-slick Barwell re-fuelling and tyre change crew turning the car around with absolutely no time wasted. The crew were absolutely faultless hour after hour, and the combined performance of drivers and team crew moved us out of reach of the Muhlner Porsche and
into a ‘private’ battle for G3 honours with the two Matech Fords as the race hit the half distance mark at 04.00am on Sunday.

The pace was incredibly hot at the front of the G3 class, and this eventually took its toll on the second-placed Ford GT, which hit engine problems during the 14th hour. At 06.00am we were thus lying second in G3 class and 16th overall, with a two-lap cushion over the third-placed Muhlner Porsche and seven laps ahead of the First Motorsport Porsche Cup S in fourth position. We used up our two lap cushion over the Muhlner car in the next hour, when we completed a planned front disc change. This went without a hitch and was done in less than five minutes, with Eddy then returning to the track for his double stint as the race entered its 16th hour. Renard was pressing on hard to try and pull out a margin over the Porsche again, with the early morning circuit now greasy and covered in debris. Unfortunately he fell foul of the tricky track conditions just before the end of his stint, colliding with the barriers at Les Combes and damaging the front and side of the DBRS9. “Eddy was unlucky to go off,” commented Barwell MD and Team Manager, Mark Lemmer, “but it’s all part of doing a 24 hour race - it happens all the way up and down the field.”

Eddy brought the car back into the pits just before 08.00am, and the crew surveyed the damage and taped up the broken panels. Only a few minutes were lost before Julien rejoined the fray, but we were now a lap behind the Muhlner car in third. Schroyen completed a successful hour’s stint without drama, but at the next pit stop the Barwell pit crew noticed some oil residue around the damaged area at the front of the car. We kept monitoring the situation but the car was running quickly and reliably, and we once again jumped ahead of our Muhlner nemesis and back into 2nd spot (and 14th overall) during the 19th hour. Also during this period, the leading Matech Ford had an incident on track and had to pit for repairs, bringing us to within three laps of the G3 leader. At this stage of the game with five hours remaining, the G3 class victory (and a possible top 10 overall finish) was still definitely there for the taking.

Fate still had a nasty little card up its sleeve for us, however, as we called the car in for its scheduled stop and routine brake pad change at midday on Sunday. At this stop we discovered the oil loss had become more serious, and that the damage sustained by the oil cooler during the earlier bump was now causing a severe oil leak, and thus a problem that had to be rectified. We took the decision to bring the car into the garage so that all hands could work on it, and we changed the brake pads, inspected the driveshafts and changed the oil cooler all at the same time. To change the oil cooler and all associated pipework is not the work of a moment, especially when the mechanics are having to do it inside a roasting hot engine bay. The Barwell boys thus did a phenomenal job to turn the car around in half an hour, including the regular re-fuelling and tyre change service. The damage to our race position was done, however, and we slipped from second to fourth in class, 11 laps behind the Prospeed Porsche. Further drama occurred shortly after, when Koen suffered a puncture on the far side of the circuit from the pits, and we lost a further two laps in getting the car to the pits and changing the damaged tyre.

It was frustrating to slip out of the podium place that we had fought so hard for, and richly deserved, but the drivers still pushed hard during the last three hours in case one of the
leading three cars hit trouble of their own. The Barwell-prepared car again ran like clockwork after its major service, the 6-litre V12 engine never missing a beat as Jeffrey brought it home in a comfortable 4th place to the delight of all the team and drivers. “The car felt perfect at the end of the race,” said Van Hooydonck, “and I could still have equalled my fastest laps of the race if I had needed to”.

Team boss, Mark Lemmer, summed up everyone’s feelings at the end: “We’re obviously slightly disappointed to have missed out on the podium place that we held until near the end, but overall everyone is really delighted to have run and finished so strongly in such a classic endurance race....Great Team; Great Drivers; Great Car!!”

Barwell would like to thank everyone involved in the Spa 24 Hours, especially:
EDDY & SEVERINE – FOR MAKING IT ALL POSSIBLE !
Eddy, Jeffrey, Julien and Koen for great driving; All 17 Barwell Motorsport team members; Alan from Aston Martin Racing; Silvia Vandeghen & the catering crew for looking after us so well; The physios; Michelin – for great tyres and tyre service; Performance Friction; MRTC; Publiaplic; Our commercial & hospitality partners: Aston Martin Brussels, GPC IP, Total, EL Systems – Elektrische Installaties, Anthracyt, Cuisines Schmidt, séd EM, Canine Security