Allan's Victory at Monza

Friday 02 May

VICTORY AT MONZA SETS UP LE MANS SERIES CHAMPIONSHIP BATTLE

Allan Simonsen isn't supersticious. But when you have two DNF's in a row, whilst leading each race (Dubai and Barcelona), with the same co-drivers it's a priority to try and get that monkey off your back. Not that he was questioning the ability of his team mates, rather the luck. All was vindicated last weekend in the second round of the 2008 Le Mans Series @ Monza, with the German Farnbacher Racing Porsche 997 GT3 RSR of Nielsen/Westbrook and Simonsen – they snatched the outright GT2 spoils.

The weekend started strongly with the trio setting the fastest time in the first practice session. With their regular engineer suddenly falling ill, it was left to the drivers to find the best setup.

As expected, the greatest challenge would initially come from the factory Dunlop supported Ferrari 430 of Virgo Motorsport, who shot to the top of the time sheets later in the day. They would go on to grab pole whilst the Danish/Danish/British Porsche combination, with Simonsen on qualifying duties, would only manage 6th place. With the leading GT2 almost 10kph faster down the long straights things were going to be tough. Simonsen was the elected start driver but a mix-up within the team saw Westbrook take on the role – he did a massive job bringing the car up to fourth before handing over to the younger Dane. Lars Erik Nielsen was also on fire – he was also keen to put Dubai and Barcelona behind him – and moved up through the pack to second. Westbrook took the final stint, finishing second behind Richard Lietz and Raymond Narac in the IMSA Performance/Matmut Porsche. No sooner had the champagne sprayed did news of disqualification of the IMSA car, for a technical infringement, elevating Simonsen and his team mates to the top podium position.

Allan was naturally pleased, "Finally we got the result we deserved but I didn't think we could have won on this track. Our car speed was down. We're running an 07 car with 08 upgrades so we need to find the extra bit. We ended up with a puncture whilst behind the safety car and that damaged the bodywork so needed extra time to repair it. But we got there in the end and luck was on our side this weekend. "I think just about everyone had a puncture though! I can't remember so many big crashes in a race and there was heaps a of debris about, what with Stephane Ortelli's shunt and the Audi/Creation accident at the beginning. And Virgo had three punctures so they didn't have a whole lot of luck this time around. "We'll go to Spa now on even ground and that will be a good fight"

The next Le Mans Series event is Round 3 at Spa, Belgium, on May 9–11. Spa is one of the world's greatest tracks and Simonsen regularly performs well there.

With Spa on the horizon we asked Allan a few questions about the famous Belgian track:

What are your favorite portions of the circuit? And why? Is it a difficult track? "Every true driver loves Spa. The entire place is magic. Getting it right through Eau Rouge is always a good feeling and its one of those corners that will always keep challenging you lap after lap. But actually my favourite part of the track is Blanchimont and to get that just right you have to be on it exiting Stavelot. The corners flow together and the car runs from one side of the track to the other – just perfect. But Spa is also tricky because there is a lot of elevation change and you can find rain at one part of the track and its dry at the other."

You must have a good feel for the changing grip level. "In some ways its a bit like Bathurst – you get a lot of wet/dry there are well. How to drive a GT car on this track? Are there pitfalls to avoid? If we were only driving GT cars I’d answer this differently. You need to be constantly looking in your mirrors for faster traffic yet run your own race. The prototypes are quite low and sometimes you can’t see them because they are that close and come up on you suddenly. When they go by can upset your aero quite a bit."

Have you a particular souvenir about one race in the past? Good, bad, perhaps funny? "In 2006 I was driving for the Italian Autorlando Sport Porsche Team and one of my friends in Australia, Jack Elsegood wanted to try his hand at Spa. So I organised a drive for him with JWA alongside Xavier Pompidou and Paul Daniels. I remember Jack asking if I had any tips about driving at Spa to which I said “just don’t run into me”. At the start of the race there was the most mega pile up at Raidillion and a prototype hit me pushing me into Jacks car. My car was out on the spot but they others went on to bring the car home the last place finisher. And last year I was 2 laps ahead in the lead and a safety car mix up ruined our race and we came second."

A week after Spa it's back to Monza for Round 2 of FIA GT. After his stellar opening round performance at Silverstone and the win last weekend at Monza, you can be sure the Gigawave Team will be totally upbeat about their chances!