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2011
MONZA

BRNO - 14th/15th June 2003

Pictures at the bottom of the page!

The fastest times were set in final qualifying on the morning of Saturday race day the afternoon temperatures of the previous day were too high to get the best from qualifiers and the Saturday morning final qualifying saw lower temperatures – in 3^rd were Yamaha Austria with their Superbike specification Yamaha R1, rider Karl Truchsess only worried about the sprint to the bikes at the start.

Qualifying second was former World Superbike star Piergiorgio Bontempi, the No.2 Zongshen Suzuki rider teaming up with Bruno Bonhuil and Igor Jerman.

But once again topping the timing sheets – but only by 1/10^th of a second, Warwick Nowland and Stephane Mertens had taken pole position, the top 4 teams covered by only 1/3^rd of a second.

As the bikes lined up on the right hand side of the track, there was a minor problem spotted on the GMT94 Yamaha as an oil leak was seen coming from the clutch after the sighting lap – it was quickly pushed back to the pits, fixed and back on the grid to complete the warm-up laps. It was going to be a hot race, with the air temperature already at 28 degrees.

This was the first 3 hours of a two-part race with the machines bedded down in Parc Ferme overnight.

Getting away in the lead, it was again those two Zongshen Suzukis, the Phase One No.3 with a problem at the start with the bike not firing up (possibly a “kill-switch” problem?) and stuttering before getting away. Their 4^th place qualifying position ruined, rider Olivier Four got away finally at the back of the pack with a lot of ground to make up. Igor Jerman on the No.2 was leading the pack, chased by Warwick Nowland on the No.1 bike, Gwen Giabbani on the Police Nationale No.22, then Truchsess on the Yamaha Austria No.9, GMT94 and the Ducati DRE No.5 Superbike.

As the front pack opened the gap, the Yamahas of GMT94 and Yamaha Austria along with the No.5 Ducati were able to match the speed of the Suzukis – meanwhile, Olivier on the Phase One No.3 was carving through the pack and was already up to 11^th. Kevin Falke on the Trackdaze No.11 was leading the second group and the Polish wildcard No.75 Castrol Yamaha team were staying with the Endurance regulars…a good ride but spoilt by the size of the fuel tank, the team would finish the race but be disqualified from the final results.

Olivier was riding brilliantly to close the gap and was soon up to the leaders who seemed to be dropping the Superbike specification Yamaha R1 No.9, rider Karl Truchsess seemed to have lost a bit of speed. The bike had a problem which wasn’t spotted during qualifying because Karl had the habit of only needing to do a few laps to get a good qualifying time, his fastest lap in first qualifying posted on only his SECOND lap!

But there were far worse problems for the LMJ Moto38 Yamaha, which had dropped down to 17^th before coming into the pits with gearbox and fuel injection problems. By now Phase One No.3 had moved into the lead chased by Marc Garcia on the No.5 Ducati DRE and the two Zongshen Suzukis

By the second hour, the LMJ Moto38 Yamaha had fixed its gearbox problem and was out racing but still having problems with fuel injection. The pitstops were revealing true fuel consumption in race conditions, worrying a few teams. Zongshen No.1 were leading just in front of the Phase One No.3 and Police Nationale No.22 – once again, Suzukis in the top 3 places. The Bollinger Kawasaki No.8 was showing it’s strength, if not it’s speed, and the big ZX9 was lying 8^th. GMT94 had a faster bike but were now one of the teams worried about fuel consumption…indications were that they would have to change their fuel pump and Christophe Guyot was hoping that it would last until the overnight stop.

Michal Bursa had crashed the KFM-Herber Suzuki No.4 at the Schwantz complex of curves while in 10^th place. Michael was OK but mortified that he’d crashed at one of the corners he had earlier described to me as being the most important to get a good lap time. He was able to drive the bike out and back to the pits for repairs – it pulled out of the pits running on 3 cylinders and also was misfiring down the straight but that problem cleared itself after a lap or two.

As we approached the middle of the first part of the race, it was still a battle between the GSXR1000’s of Numbers 1 and 2 Zongshen bikes with the Phase One No.3, Police No.22, GMT94 and Dario Marchetti’s Ducati DRE No.5 all in touch and in the fight.

LMJ Moto38’s problems had not been fixed and they had spent too much time in the pits to ever be a threat.

Igor Jerman was unhappy with the rear suspension on the No.2 bike but didn’t seem to be losing much time – I think he was mainly concerned with trying to beat Warwick again!

There was nothing wrong with the speed of the Police Nationale No.22 Suzuki – but as Italian Paolo Blora brought the bike in for a scheduled pitstop, it was clear that all was not well. The weight of the Paolo and a full tank of fuel meant that the front wheel was touching the radiator under heavy braking, causing a leak. The radiator would have to be replaced. That pitstop would cost the Police team 4 laps and move them down to 18^th place - that meant that GMT94 were now in 4^th place with the Ducati DRE No.5 in 5^th.

Yamaha Austria’s problems now saw them 2 laps down, fighting with the Trackdaze No.11 and the Bollinger Kawasaki No.8. The Yamaha was intermittently overheating and Mandy Kainz (Team Manager) thought it might be an air lock in the cooling system and his plan was to try to rectify this in the 5 minutes allowed before the start of the next 3 hours on the Sunday.The Polish Stocksport wildcards, Castrol Yamaha No.75 were a surprising 9^th place but, as I said, their great riding would be spoilt by an oversize fuel tank and disqualification.

Now the lead was held by Zongshen Suzuki No.2, Piergiorgio Bontempi on board.

But the final round of pitstops for the first race and fuel strategy had played its part. Earlier in the race, the Zongshen No.1 Suzuki’s fuel light had failed, not noticed by Warwick while he was riding - the bike was brought in a couple of laps later than scheduled but before it ran out of fuel, so it meant that it didn’t have to come in a third time – but the No.2 and the Phase One No.3 had to do a splash and dash – with nearly disastrous consequences, Phase One coming into their pit (next door to Zongshen) just as the No.2 was going out. Incredible luck saw them JUST miss each other.

That meant that the No.1 Zongshen bike would be leading the race going into the overnight stop.

When Warwick Nowland crossed the line after 3 hours, the team were leading by 12 seconds over the No.2 machine, with the Phase One No.3 a further 12 seconds back, all down to the luck of over-running a scheduled fuel stop. GMT94 held 4^th in front of the Superbike Ducati DRE 998R with Yamaha Austria No.9 in 6^th.

The bikes were all wheeled straight into Parc Ferme where they were not allowed to be touched before the next day. I was a bit worried when I saw mechanics fiddling with the battery of the Yamaha Austria bike but I found out later that teams were allowed to disconnect their batteries (normally just pulling a quick-release plug) but the Yamaha had to have it’s seat unit removed to do so – the FIM officials OK’d it.

The second half of the race on Sunday afternoon saw an unusual “mechanics” race. As the bikes had only a limited window of opportunity to get their machines to their pit boxes before the allowed 5 minutes of race preparation and of course, that would penalize the teams who were at the far end of pit lane. There was a bit of confusion in the pits as teams weren’t sure if they could work on the bikes straight away (I think 3 teams actually started work before the siren started for the 5 minute preparation period).

The Fagersjol-El.Se No.12 Suzuki was hit in the melee and had to do some emergency repairs to their fairing as well as race preparation. Manager Nik Carlberg was holding back from the mechanics race, hoping not to get caught in the crush but the marshals forced him to move before he wanted to and there was a bit of a collision.

When the pit siren sounded the beginning of the preparation period there was frantic activity as teams had to prepare the bike and get it out of pit lane before the 5-minute time limit expired, GMT94 having to change their tank. It was the integral fuel pump that had caused their fuel consumption problems in the first 3 hours.

Many teams asked if there were any penalties by starting from the pit lane for the second part of the race. They wanted to maximize their fuel consumption by not doing the sighting and warm-up laps – good idea but it seemed that the FIM officials wouldn’t let them get away with that clever idea; miss the sighting lap and you would get a 10sec stop-and-go penalty, miss the warm-up laps and you’d get a 20sec stop-and-go, so no advantage to be gained there!

There was also the question of rider time on the bike (riders have to rest for 2/3^rd of the time that their particular session lasts – and if their fastest rider was out in the last session on Saturday with a long relay, what would happen if he went out first on the Sunday for another long session – would that mean a lengthy rest period, bearing in mind that the overnight stop was effectively a pit-stop?). The FIM official said the rest period wouldn’t count, as rider time on the bike was a safety issue and with the overnight stop this would be ok.

Most teams managed to get out of pit lane without being penalized and the sighting lap was noticeably slow for some teams who would be trying to conserve as much fuel as possible. The Zongshen team has a huge fan base in China and as the bikes lined up for the second 3 hours, they had a visit from the Chinese Ambassador…guaranteed to relax you before the race, wouldn’t you say?

I also noticed two riders taking “relief” against the armco barrier at the start…

The second part of the race started in the order of finish of the first 3 hours and, once again, the two Zongshen Suzukis were quick off the mark but Phase One No.3, Police No.22 and GMT94 were all with them.

GMT94 having solved their fuel consumption could run faster than before and rider William Costes took the lead early on the track. Karl Truchsess on the Superbike Yamaha No.9 was hoping that the discovery of an air lock in the radiator would stop their bike from overheating. The team had had the bike on its side in the pits during the second race preparation to try to clear the air lock. GMT94, Phase One and Police Nationale quickly settled into a fast rhythm at the front in order to catch the Zongshen bikes on aggregate time, William Costes setting the fastest lap on the 6^th lap.

Rider Andi Notman had crashed the Swedish Fagersjo-El No.12 Suzuki while in 5^th place and over-eager marshals had pushed him into an ambulance before he was able to push the bike back to the pits. He was a bit winded and didn’t have the breath to talk to the marshals and tell them he could carry on. Manager Nik Carlberg protested and was allowed to get the bike back to the pits – which he did – and covered with sweat from his run back with the bike, struggled into his leathers to get out and back racing – these World Endurance riders are TOUGH!

Police Nationale No.22, Phase One No.3 and GMT94 were all trying to pull back time on Zongshen. So was the No.9 Yamaha Austria bike – but it didn’t last, around the back of the circuit the engine exploded. Rider OK but that was the end of another Superbike engine and they were out of the Brno race.

At the first pit stops for the second 3-hour race and both Zongshen bikes came in to the pits at the same time. It looked like a mistake by the Zongshen team but apparently it was carefully planned for one of the bikes to run one less pit stop….er…OK, I’ll go with that J

Olivier Four and Phase One had taken 2^nd place overall by the 97^th lap of the complete race, by lapping 1.5 seconds quicker than the No.1 bike. But first Warwick Nowland and then Stephane Mertens responded with quick laps of their own. Phase One had a slow pit stop with the No.3 machine and was now having to defend 2^nd place from the charging GMT94 - the Zongshen No.2. Ducati were in 5^th and the Trackdaze No.11 were equaling their best ever position in 6^th. Gwen Giabbani on the Police No.22 Suzuki was trying his best to close the 4 laps lost during the first 3 hours of the race when the team had to change the radiator – they were still 4 laps down but had moved to 7^th place

One quarter of the race left and the Zongshen No.1 had pulled out a 40 second lead over Phase One No.3. Despite a lot of hard work in the pits the LMJ Moto38 Yamaha was out of the race, their fuel injection problems proving terminal. Mean while, the Phase One No.3 was slowing – it seemed that throttle sensor problems encountered 2 years ago had resurfaced, meaning a loss of power and high fuel consumption, Jason Pridmore noticeably slow around the track and Team Manager Russell Benny disconsolate in the pits and seeing his chance of a podium place evaporating.

GMT94 meanwhile had fixed the fuelling problems they had in the first part of the race and were flying, passing the Zongshen No.2 to take 3^rd place.

Then the unthinkable happened again for Zongshen. With less than ½ hour to go, Piergiorgio Bontempi crashed out – he was OK but was unable to get the bike back to the pits. A slowing Phase One had been passed by both GMT94 and the Zongshen No.2 and were off the podium, but the crash would again see many teams move up a place and suddenly Phase One were back in 3^rd place. GMT94 were in 2^nd and uncatchable but Pridmore on the No.3 bike had to keep going.

With only a few minutes left the Zongshen No.1 was still leading, having led the whole of the second part of the race on aggregate times and with GMT over 40 seconds behind them, unless something drastic happened, it was looking like another win for Mertens and Nowland . And so it proved, Nowland taking the win, GMT94 coming home in 2^nd place 45 seconds down and Phase One No.3 getting 3^rd.

In two weeks it’s the 12 Hours of Albacete, the only track outside of Japan that has total track lighting (just installed at the beginning of June)…it’s all NIGHTIME RACING - and no breaks.

See you there!