Team Bruichladdich finish in top 5 at Hungaroring

Islay’s Team Bruichladdich have scored their second successive top-five finish in the Le Man Series at the Hungaroring 1,000kms, the fourth round of the 2010 Series – endurance racing for greyhounds

And this was quite a race in terms of the record books.

For the first time in the history of the series, an LM P2 prototype car took the overall win in the race.  The series includes these and the more powerful LM P1 cars (LM P  decodes as Le Mans Prototype), wiht an overall winner, normally an LMP1 and class winners for each.

More than that, in the 2010 Hungaroring race, six LM P2s took all the first six places in the race, with Team Bruichladdich in fifth overall. Their Zytek O0S is piloted by Tim Greaves, Karim Ojjeh and Thor-Christian Ebbesvik.

So how did the LM P2s do so very well in this race?

This was largely down to two factors:

• the mechanical problems that hit the 5  LM P1s in the race
• the nature of the circuit – a tight, twisting circuit where greater power has little room to make its presence felt – and in the case of Team Bruichladdich, Karin Ojjeh likes the circuit.

Twisty circuits like Valencia, Portimao and the Hugaroring suit the LM P2.

Of the 2010 Hungaroring Ojjeh says: ‘I had a really good feeling right from the start’ – evident in his lap time of 1m 41.78s.

However, technical hitches in the two free qualifying sessions had cost the team grid position. They had an oil leak they thought they’d resolved but it happened again and necessitated an engine change. This meant that there was little time left for fine tuning.

Nevertheless, they qualified seventh in the LM P2 class and thier overall finish shows how well they improved that in the race itself.

Ebbesvik did the first stint, in what is described as a fairly hectic start, with a minor ‘coming together’ with another car in the first few laps.

Ojjeh was second in the hot seat, finding the Zetek progressively  more unpredictable in handling. (Somehow, ‘unpredictable’ is a more terrifying concept than ‘difficult’.) Ojjeh says ‘…suddenly it went haywire. First of all the rear began to slide around, followed by the front. I had to radio the pits to say that I was having to cope with heavy understeer in the fast corners’.

The team mechanics got to work and, after Greaves’ stint, when Ebbesvik got back in the car, it was going great. The  Norwegian had a secure 4th place and was chasing a fast Lola HPD coupe entered by RML when ‘…another couple of collisions made it very difficult to drive to the chequered flag’.

Team Bruichladdich’s fifth overall place here, after its podium finish at the Algarve 1,000kms, keeps open the chance of a third finish in the 2010 series in the LM P2 class.  Ojjeh says: ‘We’re respectively 6 and 1 points behind the two OAK Racing Pescarolos’

The outcome will be decided in the Silverstone 1,000kms, the last round of the series this season – a race also the first ever event counting towards the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup.

This will produced several new entries at LM  P1, where Ojjeh sees the LM P2 entries remaining the same as at present.

Team Bruichladdich’s reliability – the bright white Zytek 09S has retired only once in the season to date – is a significant advantage, with the harmonious teamwork between Greaves, Ojjeh and Ebbesvik another key reliability.

Their challenge is to finish ahead of the Oaks, and in the top three, along with Strakka Racing and RML.

We’ll be looking out for them. A top 3 Le Man Series finish would be a feather that would look pretty natty in Islay’s cap as well as in it’s Bruichladdich distillery’s.