Client News
Marsh recalls moment of drama
Monza, Italy, 12 July 2005 - Matthew Marsh has been reliving the dramatic moment when he had to call on all his 20 years’ driving experience to steer Hong Kong’s pioneering Le Mans team away from danger.
The Noble Group-GruppeM driver suffered a rear left tyre blowout at 260 km/h during the prestigious 1,000km of Monza endurance race in Italy - leaving him battling to keep control of the car.
To make matters worse, the tyre unravelled and ripped out the brake lining, leaving Marsh – travelling at more than two and a half times Hong Kong’s fastest legal speed limit – without brakes as he headed for the next turn.
The Hong Kong resident had to use all his strength and know-how to keep the car upright and moving in a straight line before careering headlong into a gravel trap.
The incident put Noble Group-GruppeM out of the race – but car and driver were unharmed and ready to fight another day.
"It was certainly an anxious few seconds,” says Marsh, 36, recalling last Sunday’s race. "You need a little bit of good fortune when something like that happens and I definitely had some luck on this occasion because the tyre blew while I was on a straight part of the track. If it had gone while I was cornering, it might have been a different outcome.
"The same thing happened to one of the Ferraris later in the race and the driver wasn’t so lucky – he went into a wall and caused a great deal of damage to his car.”
Until fate intervened, it had been a promising big-race debut for Noble Group-GruppeM Racing, which is attempting to become the first ever Hong Kong team to gain entry to the world’s greatest endurance race, the Le Mans 24 Hours.
Co-driver Darryl O’Young had taken the wheel of the bauhinia-emblazoned Porsche GT3 RSR for qualifying and registered a time good enough to place the team seventh out of 14 in the GT2 category on the grid.
Then Marsh had moved the team up to fifth when the blowout happened on lap 46 of the 173-lap race.
"It was extremely frustrating for Darryl, because he was supposed to take over for the second half of the race,” says Marsh. "But he was brilliant about it. He just said, ‘That’s racing, we’ll have better luck next time.’ And I’m sure he’s right. Tyre trouble apart, we were quick, we were competitive and we showed Hong Kong can thrive at this level.”
Canadian-born Chinese O’Young, 25, agrees. "It was unfortunate, but we have every reason to be confident about the rest of the season. We’re off to the UK next month for the 1,000km of Silverstone and we’re anxious to get going again. Racing at Monza was a real buzz and, if anything, has made us even more excited about the Le Mans project.”
The duo are hoping tyre supplier Pirelli can work out why several teams on Pirelli tyres, including Noble Group-GruppeM Racing, experienced blowouts during the weekend.
"It was our third puncture – we had one in practice and then another one earlier in the race,” explains Marsh. "Obviously, we’ll be talking to Pirelli because we don’t want the same thing happening at Silverstone.”
Noble Group-GruppeM Racing is competing in a series of four major races in Europe – the Le Mans Endurance Series – this year and expects to also appear in the Zhuhai leg of the FIA GT Championship in October.
The team will then take part in America’s most important endurance race, the 12 Hours of Sebring, in Florida next March.
A series of strong performances will be enough to earn the team an invitation to the Le Mans 24 Hours in June 2006.
If that happens, it would be the first time that a car owned and sponsored by Hong Kong companies and piloted by Hong Kong drivers has taken part in the world’s most famous sports car race.
Marsh adds: "After all the months spent securing sponsorship, setting up the team and preparing the car, it was great to finally go racing. We’re up and running – and we can’t wait to get on the track at Silverstone.”
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Released on behalf of Noble Group-GruppeM Racing by Two Up Front - Asia’s sports PR specialists.