The Simracing for Holland GT2 entry claimed a dominant class victory in RaceDepartment’s 24 Hours of Le Mans last weekend. Rudy van Buren, Robin Verdegaal, Dennis Douna and Wilfred van den Brink superbly steered their #409 Porsche 997 RSR to a 7 lap advantage over their closest rival when the chequered flag dropped.
The second step on the GT2 podium was occupied by the #417 ORM Corse crew in the outfit’s first RaceDepartment Le Mans Series race this year. Rounding out the class podium was the Brigata Orso prepared Porsche 997 RSR, which completed 320 rounds of the Circuit de la Sarthe over the 24 hour period. SimracingPL Team and SimRace Vereniging Nederland completed the GT2 top 5 respectively. In our final RDLMS interview article, drivers from Simracing for Holland and RMI Motorsport were kind enough to discuss their respective campaigns at the 24 hour event.
Robin Verdegaal, Rudy van Buren – Simracing For Holland (Finished 27th Overall, 1st in class)
How would you evaluate your team’s RaceDepartment Le Mans 24 Hour campaign?
Robin: It has been a challenge this time to find a setup that suited the track as well as all of our drivers, but the effort paid off. An early incident with an LMP2 car sent us back to seventh place with a lot of damage. We were really worried about that at first, but after we made up two positions on track within a couple of hours, the complete top three in GT2 ran into trouble, and we kind of fell back up into the lead and stayed out of trouble for the rest of the race.
Did you find it physically difficult to complete long stints behind the wheel?
Robin: I was not as prepared as I should have been. The track still had some secrets which revealed themselves whilst I was driving, resulting in better and better lap times. It helped me to stay in concentration. It kept me on my toes, which was a good thing.
Rudy: The g-force is a special feeling that I personally miss a lot during the night stints. While driving through the day stints isn't a problem, I do know that through the night, the g-forces would help to 'feel' the car. When it’s dark and you’re running in a sim, you don’t properly see the depth and therefore don't see the slides coming as you normally would during a day stint. Apart from that, the most difficult thing for me was starting the stint in the light, and then it went to pitch black in about 3 laps. There was no room for error, so that puts the pressure on the driver. Luckily I was able to keep the lap times down and use it to open up the gap.
Were you satisfied with your cars setup in terms of tyre wear and speed?
Robin: As I couldn't match my teammate’s lap times, I chose to double-stint the hard compound tires, which seemed to cost me relatively little time on track but made a difference in the pits.
Rudy: We, as a GT2 team, have quite a few different driving styles in the car. I personally drive with a car tending to understeer, while Wilfred prefers it handling in the opposite manner. Either way, we needed to take a midway point and drive with that to get everybody to say ' ok ', I can handle this and adapt it a little with brake balance.
From your personal perspective, how hard was it to maintain concentration and continue to complete consistent and clean laps throughout the race?
Robin: Because of our early incident, I was especially aware of the importance of staying out of trouble. After the server restarts, we had a clean car again, and I was not going to be the one to mess that up.
Rudy: The only point where I found it difficult was with the server restart at 02:00 in the night. Since the cars were all mixed up, the lmp's were everywhere and in a GT2, you’re just a sitting duck. Luckily, I found my way through it without any damage.
How many stints did you complete throughout the race? Which was the most difficult for you and why?
Robin: My two late night stints were uncomfortable because the track was still light and I had tested in pitch black conditions. It took a while before I found my braking points. After guiding Rudy van Buren through the night, I had a couple of hours of sleep until I took over the car for the last three stints. By then, we had a five lap advantage over the competition, so I could stay on the safe side and could focus on keeping concentrated. I finished five fuel stints with so-so lap times, but without damage.
Rudy: The last one I did in the night (around 3am) was for sure the hardest. My eyes started burning and you could just feel your concentration slipping away for little moments. Luckily, Robin was on TeamSpeak to talk to which really helped me to stay focussed.
Jonatan Acerclinth – RMI Motorsport (Finished 37th Overall, 8th in class)
How would you evaluate your team’s RaceDepartment Le Mans 24 Hour campaign?
I think we, (considering we're (as Roy so nicely put it) a tourist team who just did it for fun, (and didn't do hours and hours of practice before the event)) managed to do very well. Each of us (Me, Magnar, Ole and Roy) only had one big shunt, which cost all of us a little bit of time, but only one of them resulted in a penalty for ESC usage. When we finished, we were very happy with the position we finished in, (and that we finished at all) so we did well, very well.
From your personal perspective, how hard was it to maintain concentration and continue to complete consistent and clean laps throughout the race?
It was quite hard during the second stint I did; as I was both driving quite long (which took its toll with a cramping foot) and I had also not slept. The setup wasn't perfect for my driving style, which also made me more aware of making sure to not overdrive the car, or lose concentration.
As a GT Class driver, was it difficult to maintain spatial awareness of the faster prototype entries constantly passing you?
At some points it became a bit difficult. During the night, you could get lost in the sense that you couldn't be sure how many cars were coming at you, especially if they were following each other (or like one driver did, shut their lights off for almost 1.5 seconds so I had no idea where he was).
As I've always driven Touring Cars, I do have the awareness to glance into the side mirrors when I begin to turn in, so I was able to pick up if anyone was up the inside. Consequently, I likely avoided 2 or 3 crashes thanks to this manner of driving.
Did you have any close battles with any other entries during the race?
During the second stint, Thomas Roth (in the DR Motorsport GT2) and I had a 6 lap battle, which included switching positions a couple of times and drafting together to try and go quicker. During this time, I also managed my best time of the event.
Thomas and I have raced with each other before, and he has driven with another team I've driven for, so I knew I could trust him to not make a foolish dive. Therefore, I could race with him and have a lot of fun, which I thanked him for after the stint and hope will happen again. It’s always a pleasure when you can have a good long battle with someone.
Were you satisfied with your cars setup in terms of tyre wear and speed?
In terms of the speed you could get out of the car, it was good. Tyre-wear with hard compounds on the car was also good. Magnar made a great setup, and with a small change to the setup shortly before the event, it was brilliant (even though it didn't suit the way I like to drive hehe).
How many stints did you complete throughout the race? Which was the most difficult for you and why?
I did a first stint of about 2 hours, a second stint of about 2h30 and a third stint of an hour at the very end of the race (when Roy said that he would prefer a slight break after driving for about 2h40).
It is difficult to say which one was the hardest....
I would say that, with regards to everything, the second stint I did was the hardest. It was light (in the team I'm sort of considered as a night driver as I'm almost always quicker in the dark, this time I did a PB during the night hours which was 4 seconds better than anything I had done in the light of day), I didn't have my braking markers from the dark hours and it went on to be quite long. Consequently, it became harder and harder to keep the consistency up, so it was nice to hear Roy join TS after those hours.
But also, the last stint I did was hard, but it was more for the reason that we had a slight chance of getting 5th in class. Therefore, I tried to drive as fast as I could and, at the same time, didn't want to wreck the car and lose positions to the car(s) behind.
If you haven’t already, be sure to check out our
Virtual 24 Hours of Le Mans race report, as well as our
LMP1,
LMP2 and
GT1 interview articles. Thank you again to all of the drivers who participated in our post-race interviews!
