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[email protected] l’endurance are supported by Speed Chills: Britain’s best Le Mans travel agency l’endurance are supported by Speed Chills: Britain’s best Le Mans travel agency speedchills.com contents 40 Photo: Dan Bathie Events Events In Depth Nurburgring Spa Inside 24 hours 24 hours view Page 24 Page 40 Page 64 Alex Roache reports on Jake Yorath takes a look Joe Osbourne gives his view the wacky but wondeful back at the Belgian classic of the Spa 24 hours as a Nurburging 24 hours member of the United Auto- sports team. contents l’endurance is: Jake Yorath (editor) Twitter: Alex Roache (deputy editor) @lendurancelive Dan Bathie (sub editor) Sam Tickell (reports editor) Facebook: Brecht Decancq (photographer) James Boone (photographer) facebook.com/lendurance 10 Events ILMC IMOLA Page 6 Dan Bathie reports on the Italian round of the Inter- continental Le Mans Cup Photo Feature Silverstone Classic Page 10 Britains largest classic event is captured on camera by Jake Yorath and Dan Bathie Photo: Jake Yorath In Silverstone Classic, Silverstone Dan Bathie used a Nikon D300s and 70-300 F4-5.6 FocUS Sigma. Shutter speed 1/100th at F9. In Silverstone Classic, Silverstone Dan Bathie used a Nikon D300s and 70-300 F4-5.6 FocUS Sigma. Shutter speed 1/3200th at F5.6. In Silverstone Classic, Silverstone Guillaume Tassart used a Nikon D3 and 400 F2.8 FocUS Nikkor. Shutter speed 1/400th at F3.2. In Spa 24 Hours, Spa Francorchamps Jake Yorath used a Nikon D200 and 300 F4 Nikkor. FocUS Shutter speed 1/1250th at F4. In Spa 24 Hours, Spa Francorchamps Dan Bathie used a Nikon D300s and 80-200 F2.8 FocUS Nikkor. Shutter speed 1/1000th at F2.8. In Spa 24 Hours, Spa Francorchamps Jake Yorath used a Nikon D200 and 10-20 F4-5.6 FocUS Sigma. Shutter speed 1/10th at F7. In Spa 24 Hours, Spa Francorchamps Dan Bathie used a Nikon D300s and 10-20 F4-5.6 FocUS Sigma. Shutter speed 1/5th at F5.6 In Spa 24 Hours, Spa Francorchamps Jake Yorath used a Nikon D200 and 80-200 F2.8 FocUS Nikkor. Shutter speed 1/8th at F22. In Spa 24 Hours, Spa Francorchamps Jake Yorath used a Nikon D200 and 80-200 F2.8 FocUS Nikkor. Shutter speed 1/10th at F8. In Spa 24 Hours, Spa Francorchamps Marcel Thomassen used a Canon 40D and 80-200 FocUS F2.8 Canon. Shutter speed 10 seconds at F13. In DEPTH Classical music The Silverstone Classic featured some of the finest sports racing cars of all time. By Jake Yorath Photo: Yorath Jake Classical music The Silverstone Classic featured some of the finest sports racing cars of all time. By Jake Yorath he Silverstone Classic classic British GT car. For me, the fairground was popular as is fast becoming Brit- though, the quality of all the usual; though whether there Tain’s premier historic sixties GT racing was superb, was a little too much of the racing event, and again pro- and rarely do you see so many tacky surrounding the event is vided big grids, interesting classic Ferraris in one place as a point mooted amongst many machinery and great racing were assembled here, as well colleagues. One went as far as over three days. Stars of the as a Daytona Cobra and count- to say he was a little drained. show included three Ferrari less AC Cobras too. As always Certainly, an over saturation of 512s, (two S and one superb Lola were well reperesented races that tended to err on the M), the Group C field and the and the Huntingdon marque’s short side often left the appe- ubiquitous Jaguar E Type. T70 shone at the head of the tite whetted but not satisfied. In fact, with the E Type World Sportscar Masters field. Still, not an event that disap- celebrating its 50th birthday, Away from the track, classic pointed me, just one that tired there was cause for all types car displays covered every inch my aching bones! of festivity surrounding the of the Silverstone infield, and Photo: Yorath Jake Photos: Dan Bathie and Jake Yorath Photo: Jake Yorath Sixties GT cars provide as much drama as their more brash modern cousins. In DEPTH United front United Autosports’ man Joe Osborne talks about Spa from his view ’m not a morning per- weekend away.One thing that son, unless the early start constantly amazes me is how involves me racing. So people react when they can when the alarm went off get up close and personal to Iat 4am the Thursday before any racing car; the West Lon- this year’s Spa 24 Hours, I don Audi guys’ jaws dropping wondered why I didn’t fancy lower than the front split- jumping out of bed. The rea- ter that so impressed them. son? I wasn’t racing. Instead It’s easy to forget this feeling I was helping out my FIA GT3 when you are fortunate enough team United Autosports with to see these machines regular- their three car assault on the ly. It’s why the annual parade 63rdrunning of the infamous into the centre of Spa is such Spa 24hr. I wasn’t drafted a hit before the 24hour race. in for my amazing mechani- In truth if cars could give auto- cal skill,nor my engineering graphs I’m sure fans wouldn’t prowess. As team boss Rich- care about the drivers ruining ard Dean put it, I’like talking’ their posters with a scribble. I so became head of guest liai- think the sport would do well son (self appointed title). if we could get more fans in It seemed the team were so the garages next to these in- against me driving, they flew spirational cars. They’re much me from Heathrow to Brus- more engaging than sterile au- sels. Having hooked up with tograph sessions. the lucky West London Audi Anyway, back to the rac- mechanics selected to help the ing. In FIA GT3 we have really team out for the weekend,I struggled to achieve the suc- was chauffeured to the circuit cess that the team was created while being quizzed about what to achieve and it’s down to one the weekend had in stored for element: rubber. I know it’s them. They seemed to go quiet not an element that features when I said,“Don’t expect to in the periodic table but in see your hotel bed from Satur- racing it is the only thing that day morning to Sunday night. connects the car to the track Once we arrived at the cir- and even my limited knowl- cuit, we made our way to the edgeofpreparing a car realises garages to meet up with the this is vital. The tyre in ques- rest of the 40+ staff running tion is the only tyre I have ever the Audi R8 LMS for the long used that goes slower when it United front United Autosports’ man Joe Osborne talks about Spa from his view Photos: Jake Yorath is brand new, which is a nov- el idea for qualifying,but has meant a personal best position of 12th: somewhat frustrating. However, the blinding light at the end of the tunnel is the construction of the tyre being such thatit could run for four hours without much perform- ance drop off, which is perfect for endurance racing. Not that I care (all my races are a sin- gle hour) but it gave the team hope that they could try and better their mighty third posi- tion from last year’s Spa 24hr. Thursday saw the cars qualify in conditions that were more suited to the aquatic sort than the antiquated F1 driver line up that United Autosports had impressively lined up. Mark Blundell and Eddie Cheever re- turned from last year’s podium place they weresupplemented with Johnny Herbert, Stefan Johansson and Indy legend ArieLuyendyk. The last seven seats were taken up by United 24hr regulars: Alain Li, Richard Meins and Henri Ricard joined FIA GT3 reprobates Matt Bell, Mark Patterson and UnitedAut- osports’ co-owners Zak Brown and Richard Dean. During qualifying I went for a walk. Like many a motor- sport spectator, all I wanted to see was crashes so I headed to Eau Rouge. Wading through the ‘red water’was worth the effort and though I didn’t wit- ness any shunts seeing Maxime Martin’s raw speed/balls in the GT3 BMW Z4 was amazing. Even though I attend over 20 races a year, I rarely get time to just watch by myself with- out any distractions and it’s something I need to start do- ing. With the rain now stopped it came apparent that it would all boil down to Quali 3 to sort Photo: United Autosports out the 62 cars for the start of Saturday’s race. Knowing our tyre related issues we had been given a special qualifying compound to help. In fact it, compounded our problem. The 23 car ended up 28th, the 11 34th and the 12 car way down in 53rd. We always knew our race pace had to be good but in truth I can’t think of a su- perlative that we needed the race performance to be.