Among the many storylines heading into the 2014 race is the
promising crop of rookies from backgrounds in single-seaters, touring cars and
GT racing, ranging from the very young – 18-year old Greaves racer Alessandro
Latif is sitting his A-Levels during the week leading up the race – to those
well-established in other categories – Filipe Albuquerque, Rene Rast and Alvaro
Parente to name but a few – intent on discovering for themselves at the magic
of Le Mans. The Motorsport Journal
spoke to a few of those aiming to make a good first impression.
Matt
McMurry
 |
| Matt McMurry attacks Tertre Rouge in testing (Credit: John Brooks) |
Once again, this
year’s LMP2 field is a full house, so standing out from the crowd will be a
tall order. But that’s precisely what American Matt McMurry is aiming for. The 16-year-old, who wasn't even born when Audi star Tom Kristensen scored his first of nine wins at the circuit, will go down in history as the
youngest driver ever to start the Le Mans 24 Hours, breaking the record held by
the late Ricardo Rodriguez since 1959. With youngest finisher, youngest
podium finisher and several more records besides there for the taking, the young McMurry, whose father Chris raced at Le Mans in 2003 and 2008, has a lot to be excited about. Nonetheless, he cuts a remarkably grounded
figure for his age, and limited level of experience level. In just two European
Le Mans Series outings at Greaves, McMurry impressed many with his mistake-free
driving and sponge-like propensity to soak up information, benefitting
enormously from the experience of two-times class winner at Le Mans Tom
Kimber-Smith and ALMS champion Chris Dyson in what is sure to be a competitive
lineup. He says:
“The test went very well. I learned more and
more every session and consequently my times went down further and further each
time I went out. There is a limit as to how much you can learn, but that’s just
because you can never learn everything about a track and be perfect on it. Even
if you have been on a track a thousand times, you will still learn something
new every lap.
“Since we finished 4th in our previous races
at Silverstone and Imola, it puts us in a good position to finish well at Le
Mans as well. Greaves will prepare a great car for us, and my co-drivers have
been great teammates for me. After almost every session we look at data or
video together to find some things for me to improve on and they teach me a ton
about setting up the car. It’s incredible how much Chris knows about how the
car works and how eloquently he can describe to the engineers what exactly is
going on.
“One of my personal goals for the race is to
be clean and to take care of the car, while obviously staying consistent and
quick. I also want to learn to be better at conserving fuel and tires while
keeping lap times low, and as a team, I think that our goal should be a podium.
We finished just outside of it in our past two races, even with an engine that
wasn't running at full power at Imola, so I think we have a very good chance of
getting up there.”
Harry
Tincknell
 |
| Harry Tincknell is on form heading into Le Mans. (Credit: Drew Gibson) |
For McMurry to score a remarkable debut win, he will first have
to topple Harry Tincknell in the similar Zytek ran by Jota Sport. Single-seater
convert Tincknell, 22, has been a revelation in his first season of sportscars and
is brimming with confidence after taking a debut pole on home turf in the ELMS
at Silverstone, a win at Imola and a strong second when up against the WEC
regulars at Spa. With ever-improving silver Simon Dolan and the experienced
Marc Gene – a winner for Peugeot in 2009 – alongside, the 'Mighty 38' is sure
to be in the mix at La Sarthe and will hope for an ideal end to the Journey to Le Mans film which has followed their season so far. He says:
“The test was really
useful. You can just concentrate on the pure driving, there wasn’t too much
razzmatazz like there is in the race week and it’s a bit of bonus running
especially for someone like me who hasn’t been on the track before. I’d done
lots of simulator work, so I knew where all the corners go, watched as many
on-boards as I could from last year, but nothing can replicate getting in the
car and driving.
“We had a puncture
which meant that we lost about an hour and a half of running because it did a
lot of damage to the bodywork, but I’d rather it happened when it did than next
week. I got my ten compulsory laps done in the morning, the first few laps I was just taking it easy but by the end of
the session I was in P2 and I purple in the first two sectors. Obviously the
track evolves a lot through the day, but I was still around 12th quickest out
of the LMP2 drivers, which was very encouraging.
“The Zytek is a really
good chassis and it has a little bit downforce than some of the other cars, which is really good from a confidence perspective as it means you can get up to
speed quickly, especially in the Porsche Curves. I’ll certainly be disappointed
if we’re not competitive. But if you take the last race at Imola, that was a
four-hour rollercoaster race and we came out on top at the end of the day, but
to think that Le Mans will be another 20 hours more is just crazy. Until the chequered
flag drops, you just never know what’s going to happen.
"The main thing is just
to stay out of the pits as much as we can, not have any issues and just
tick the laps off, but I think we have the pace; we were very happy [with their pace] relative to the others; Oreca have brought out a new aero kit, the new
Ligiers are there and the Morgans are always very strong on the low-drag
circuits anyway. There’s going to be five or six really strong cars in LMP2 and
we’re definitely one of them. The key is just staying out of trouble and if we
can do that then we’ll certainly be in with a shout at the end of 24 hours.”
Alex
Macdowall
 |
| Alex Macdowall is enjoying his first season of sportscars with Aston Martin. (Credit: Drew Gibson) |
As ever, the GTE-Pro field is once again fiercely
competitive, with entries from Ferrari, Porsche, Corvette and Aston Martin and
a healthy mix of factory and privateer teams vying for the ultimate honour in
endurance racing. Among them is 23-year-old Alex Macdowall, who enters the fray
with the Craft-Bamboo Aston Martin team following a successful stint in the
rough and tumble environment of touring cars. Acclimatising to high-powered GT
cars after several years in a 2.0 FWD Chevrolet Cruze has taken the Cumbrian
some getting used to, but MacDowell is growing in confidence with every meeting
and recently made a guest appearance in the Blancpain Endurance Series in a GT3
spec Aston to get some extra seat time ahead of the biggest race of his career
so far. He says:
“It’s a big change for
me coming from a front-wheel drive car, but I’m learning all the time. It sounds a lot more sexy, it feels like
you’re in a race car. The Aston has got around 550 horsepower, which is great
down the straights and it’s got the aero to match. It’s quite a smooth, easy car to drive and it
doesn’t throw any gremlins at you on the lap. You’ve got to really hustle a
touring car around and go for every little gap, whereas in this, if you’re
smooth and precise and use the grip that’s there, you’ll do a quick laptime.
“I’m learning as I go
along and improving all the time. [Team-mates] Fernando [Rees] and Darryl [O’Young]
both have GT experience so I can learn from them which is helpful looking at
their data. It’s obviously such a long race, so I don’t know what to expect,
we’ll just have to see how it goes. We’ve
got to look at the mental approach, the fitness, all the little aspects that go
with Le Mans, it’s going to be really draining, so hopefully I’ll be in a good
position to last the race.”
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