Spa 24 Preview: Inside Line with Joe Osborne

Joe Osborne gives James Newbold the lowdown on his preparations for the Spa 24 Hours, MP Motorsport’s rivalry with fellow British GT team Beechdean Motorsport and the Balance of Performance issue.

The Aston Martin and the BMW are completely different, they have different strengths they use to make up the laptime. The BMW doesn’t have as much power, but it has a great chassis and a lot of downforce it can use to get its time from corner-speed, whereas the Aston is a little bit rawer, but it has loads of power to make it up down the straights. Being in the BMW don’t help when I’m in the Aston Martin the week after, but it doesn’t hinder either, so there will be a few positives I can take away I’m sure. We know what the positives of the car and we know the weaknesses of it, so it does give you a chance to exploit it and muscle round it as best you can, but it doesn’t help as much as you would imagine.

Osborne heads to Spa hoping to close the gap on Pro-Am 

championship leaders Scuderia Villorba Corse. (Credit: Gary Parravani)

The test went really well. It was the first time we had Darren Turner in the car and it’s great to have a guy of his calibre there. It was my first time driving with him and the wealth of knowledge and experience he brings is just going to make the whole team, drivers, mechanics, engineers, everybody up their game. And that’s exactly what you need for a big blue-ribband event like the Spa 24 Hours; you can’t have any part of the team being a weak link. When you have 60-odd cars all in the same GT3 spec you’ve really got to be on the top of your game in order to get a half-decent result, which we obviously need to keep the championship hunt alive.

We’re just lobbying for a bit more straightline speed, but we’re not going to be the ones claiming that we’re the worst car out there. I think we’re right in the middle of the BOP, I don’t think we’ve got the best car but we haven’t got the worst car either. It’s just the lack of straight line speed makes it tough to pass, so we’d be happy to trade off some extra straight line speed for a bit more weight that would mean we’d lose a bit of performance round the corners. But I don’t think we’re a million miles away. Probably the Bentley and the Nissan are the strongest, they’ve got very good chassis anyway, even though they’re big cars. By the time you’ve got that turbo power down the straights, those things are absolutely flying past us. On one lap at Ricard [Alex] Buncombe took around ten lengths out of me up the straight, so it’s tough to keep pace. The BOP is close, but it could always be closer. I’d expect the Audis to get a break, the Bentleys and the Nissans to get a hit and then I think everyone will be pretty happy.

Osborne is looking forward to reprising the battle with British GT
 adversaries Beechdean Motorsport. (Credit: Gary Parravani)

It should be a good fight between us and Beechdean in Pro-Am, on paper you couldn’t really pick between the two teams. I’m not going to be the one that lies and says there’s not a bit of inter-team rivalry there! The cars are prepped in the same workshop by AMR and Prodrive, even down to the mechanics looking over them in the week before, so there’s going to be lots of friendly hostility. In terms of the driver line ups, they probably couldn’t be much closer either. The gents Andrew Howard and Mark Poole are very similar, but I’d probably say Mark’s got the upper hand over a longer stint because he’s got that fitness over Andrew; Me and Dan Lloyd are pretty similar, not full time in the Aston Martin but seem to do alright; then you’ve got Richard Abra versus Jonny Adam which is going to be an interesting fight, both works drivers on their junior scheme and then [Stefan] Mucke versus Turner is going to be another pretty tasty battle. I don’t think you can call it to be honest!

Because it is so close, I don’t think there’s a lot you can personally do. You need the rub of the green to make sure you’re not involved in any stupid accidents that can rule you out of the race. It’s the old cliché that you can only do things wrong in a 24 hour race and that to finish first, first you must finish, but I really do think it’s true. With the number of cars that are all doing the same sort of speed, it’s not going to be easy to overtake. In the Aston we’re going to struggle to get past the gent Ferraris and the amateurs in the Nissans, or even the Mercedes because their straight-line speed is so strong. We’ve had the rights act read to us by our engineer Dave Wilcox to make sure the car is back in one piece after every stint, then you can take a look after 18 hours at how much risk you want to take and were you’re ultimately going to finish.

MP Motorsport will undoubtedly benefit from the addition of
factory ringer Darren Turner. (Credit: Aston Martin Racing)

I’ve done the Spa 24 hours three times now and the Silverstone 24 hours twice and had every sort of result as well. That really changes how you feel because when you’re leading there is that bit more adrenaline in the body which is harder to get rid of. If you’re not looking at a decent result then you can relax a little more naturally. I’ve done two out of the five without sleeping and been absolutely fine, then the other way I’ve probably caught an hour or so during the race.  I don’t get that tired and I think the adrenaline really carries you through. The sports nutrition guys are so good now, they’re telling you exactly what you need to be eating and when, so you’ve got the right release of energy when you need it instead of the peaks and troughs you get if you’re just on the Red Bull or high sugar stuff. They’ve got it down to a proper fine art, which it makes your life a lot easier for sure.

From a driver’s point of view, you’re just trying to make sure the week ahead is as relaxed as possible, no long days at work or late nights, just making sure you’re on top of your game as much as you can. Hydration is the biggest thing that we get told to be aware of, so in the week leading up to it we’ll be massively over-hydrating to make sure the body is ready. During the 24 hours itself we’ll have a physio with us, so as soon as we’re out of the car we’re straight on the table making sure we’re getting all the knots out and getting prepped for the next stint. It’s a little bit more effort involved in the preparation, but there’s not a huge amount more we can do. Even though its only three hour races usually, you still want to be on the top of your game there anyway; if you’re not doing the right preparation for the three hour race but you’re doing it for the 24 hour race then that’s not right, you should be 100% focused for every single race.