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Gearbox failure deals blow to team
Silverstone, England, 14 August 2005 - A broken gearbox forced Hong Kong’s pioneering Le Mans team to retire from the 1,000km of Silverstone on Saturday just as Darryl O’Young was producing an outstanding drive in treacherous conditions.
The Noble Group-GruppeM Racing star had shown immense skill and maturity to keep his bauhinia-emblazoned Porsche GT3 RSR in the running as torrential rain turned the track into a skidpan and spray thrown up by cars reduced visibility to a few metres.
But O’Young was powerless to do anything about the broken gearbox that ended the Hong Kong team’s hopes an hour and a half into the six-hour evening race.
"I was in fifth gear when I felt it go – and I knew straight away it was serious,” explained O’Young, 25. "I got it back to the pits in third gear and within minutes the mechanics were telling us there was nothing they could do.
"It’s too bad. It had taken me a while to get used to the track and the conditions, but after that I felt I was going really well.”
The breakdown came as O’Young was running seventh out of 15 in his category and just a few laps before co-driver Matthew Marsh was due to take over behind the wheel.
The setback mirrored the team’s misfortune in their first outing at Monza last month when a rear tyre blowout forced Marsh into the gravel trap and out of the race before O’Young had taken his turn in the driver’s seat.
Marsh, 36, refused to be downhearted. "Obviously, it’s disappointing, but we have to concentrate on the positives,” he said.
"Considering his relative lack of experience at this level, plus the fact it was an unfamiliar track and very difficult conditions, Darryl drove fantastically well. He showed tremendous coolness under pressure in a race where some of Europe’s top drivers were unable to keep their cars on the track.
"It’s almost impossible to explain to the casual observer just how tough it is to drive in heavy rain like that. Racing tyres are very efficient at removing water from the track, but the place they remove it to is the air and that creates a huge amount of spray. It is very, very difficult for a driver to see where he is going.”
Marsh, who had placed seventh in qualifying, added: "However, for the second race in a row, we’ve shown we’re on the pace. We were running seventh in our category, but we were on the same lap as the fourth-placed car and in position to challenge the leaders later in the race.”
The Silverstone race was the latest event in the 2005 Le Mans Endurance Series (LMES), a string of 1,000km races at some of Europe’s top tracks.
Noble Group-GruppeM Racing are competing in the LMES with the aim of being invited to take part in the Le Mans 24 Hours in June next year. It is the first time a Hong Kong team has targeted the world’s greatest endurance race.
The team’s next outing is the 1,000km of Nurburgring on 4 September, when they will be hoping for better luck.
"We’re competitive, there’s no doubt about that,” added O’Young. "But you need a little bit of good fortune in endurance racing. Let’s hope we get it in Germany.”
Victory in the GT2 class in which Marsh and O’Young were competing went to Sebah Automotive’s Marc Lieb and Xavier Pompidou driving a Porsche 996 GT3 RSR. The race winners were Stephane Ortelli and Allan McNish from Audi Playstation Team Oreca - they were driving an Audi R8 in the top category, Prototype 1.
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Released on behalf of Noble Group-GruppeM Racing by Two Up Front - Asia’s sports PR specialists.