Motor Sport
Ferrari 2024 Le Mans: Two in a Row
That’s back-to-back for Ferrari at Lemans, having won last year and backing it up again just over the past weekend for 2024. If you look back over the list of winners at Le Mans, there have been numerous times that car marques have won twice in a row, even four or five times in a row, sometimes with the same driver. Only 14 seconds behind the Ferrari, Toyota was nipping at its heels the whole day, er… and night. It’s great to have a red car with the prancing horse back on top, Toyota having won 5 consecutive years running from 2018–2022.
So what makes the Ferrari 499P or Toyota GR010 Hybrid race car so fast? Great aerodynamics, strong reliability, excellent brakes, and epic performance. The Ferrari 499P uses a mid-to-rear internal combustion engine (ICE), as well as a front-mounted electric motor. These two powerplants combine to develop a maximum output of 500 kW to comply with the Le Mans race regulations of 29 Oct 2022. The front-mounted electric motor, rated at 200 kW, draws its necessary electric power from a Formula 1-derived 900 V battery that recharges during deceleration and braking. It provides power at speeds over 190 km/h. The hybrid power is linked and fed though to a seven-speed sequential transmission. The car was clocked just shy of 350 km/h, and the 0–100 km/h time takes about as much time as it does to complete this sentence!
Le Mans 2024 was the 92nd 24-Hour Le Mans endurance race, and the fourth round of the 2024 FIA World Endurance Championship. The race began on 15th June 2024 and ended 16th June 2024 at the Circuit de la Sarthe track in Le Mans, France, which, in its present configuration, is 13.626 km long, making it one of the longest circuits in the world. What makes this such an exciting event is that 85% of the lap time is spent on full throttle. This, of course, puts immense pressure on the engine and the drivetrain’s components, and only cars that can withstand this torrid test of reliability can make it through the race and perhaps even win. Brakes and suspension components also take a lot of abuse, as the race cars must slow from well over 300 km/h to around 100 km/h as quickly and as efficiently as possible to make it round the sharp corner at the village of Mulsanne.
Constant overnight rain created long periods where drivers were forced to drive with caution in the difficult conditions, thus having to limit their top speed at times. Ferrari were able to overcome the wet conditions at Le Mans 2024 to beat Toyota and win the 24-hour race, yet it was another Ferrari 499P that took out third place as well. It was as much a shout-out to the incredible skill of the drivers as it was to the marque. Porsche took out fourth position, coming just over a second behind Ferrari’s number 51 car, while Toyota’s number eight car finished an impressive fifth.
A Rally With A Difference that Makes A Difference
Bendigo to Pooncarie to Milparinka to Innaminka to Betoota to Isisford to Beylando Crossing and then to Townsville; now that sounds like an insane adventure! It’s an adventure just waiting for you to register, and it’s an adventure you could be on during 18th–26th October in spring 2024. Then there’s another one in autumn 2025. Are AWDs, 4WDs or any buses allowed on this rally? No, only vehicles with 2WD can be entered.
But that’s nuts! Yes, but it’s also a blast. These car rallies have been happening for quite some time now, and they were first brought into being by James Freeman. He is somewhat of a legend round these parts, as, sadly, James lost both of his parents to cancer just 12 months apart from each other. This was devastating and a really heavy burden for James to carry, as you can imagine, but James and his family nursed their parents through the last stages of their lives. In order to bounce back on top of things and to help him to make a difference, he carefully planned and instigated the first Shitbox Rally. The Shitbox Rally is a car rally that is all about having fun while raising money for cancer research.
Can I enter a new car that I buy from Private Fleet? No way! There is a $1,500 car value/budget rule, and it is the main rule that the Shitbox Rally organizers have stipulated. There are “penalties” for any cars not meeting the criteria! But yes, you can decorate your car. The crazier the decorations the better, and this is a big part of the rally’s fun. Just the bonnet and two front doors are needed for the rally sponsors’ and organiser’s stickers, so these are the areas you need to keep clear.
You do not have to have had a run in with cancer to enter the Shitbox Rally, but the truth is that many of the entrants have been affected by cancer in one way or another, whether it be from losing parents, family, or close friends from cancer; or people that they know of that have battled or are battling cancer. This car rally is all about raising awareness and money for the Cancer Council, but it is also about wanting to offer support and a friendly ear to those that have suffered or are suffering.
This sounds like my favourite sort of motorsport. This is not so much a race, but rather a challenge to achieve the unthinkable. That is to drive cars worth just $1,500 across Australia via some of its most formidable roads; and it’s all in the name of charity. I might see you there one day, as I line up in an old BYD Dolphin at the starting line of the mighty Shitbox Rally (at some point in the future, because these cars are brand new to the market at the time of writing). That might not go so well because I don’t think there’s many charging stations out there!
If you race me to the Shitbox Rally, then you’ll definitely have first bragging rights. What a blast!
Visit the official website at
https://www.shitboxrally.com.au/
Celebrating Women In Motorsport
It wasn’t that long ago that we celebrated International Women’s Day. This got me thinking about the number of women involved in motorsport. Are there any at present? If so, who are they? After a little research, it was revealed that there are some amazing female stars.
It’s great to see that there are many women enjoying motorsport trackside as well as women competing in racing, and they are having loads of fun along the way. Women are actively involved in various roles as motor racing volunteers, as motor racing mechanics and engineers, and as racers; in fact, you name it, and there will be women involved.
My recent experience of watching motorsport live brought me to the South Island of New Zealand in early February 2024. Yep, it was cold, but watching motorcycle racing at Teretonga Park Raceway near Invercargill was a blast. I can highly recommend the Burt Munroe as a great way to enjoy all things with two wheels, meeting heaps of great people while doing so. Yes, the rain did play a role in the day’s proceedings, but there was still a full day’s racing enjoyed by all. Winning her race in the motorcycling NZ Supersport 300, Billee Fuller, showed the boys how it gets done, covering the distance with precision and lightning quick times in the damp conditions.
Very much a level playing field, motorsport does enable men and women to compete together. Back here in Australia, Brianna Barker races on the drag strip in her own AMC Rambler Hornet. She grew up in the drag racing scene and wanted to jump in and give it a go herself. She loves the sensation of going fast over the quarter mile in around 12 seconds or less.
Erebus Motorsport’s Betty Klimenko in Australian’s V8 Supercars has had a lot of racing success. Last year, she became the first female majority team owner to win the Supercars drivers’ and teams’ championship. This followed her team’s memorable Bathurst 1000 win in 2017.
Renee Gracie has been racing cars ever since 2013. Last year, Renee raced in the Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia series held at the 2023 Perth SuperSprint meet. Renee raced in an Audi R8 GT3 LMS Ultra car and finished top of the racing board. She was first in the GT Trophy Class, where in all of the 7 races that she contested she won.
Now on to something a little different. Not all of us have the talent to race a car over all types of road surfaces, but this is Molly Taylor’s playground. Molly has been racing in rally cars for quite some time, where she debuted proper in the Australian Rally Championship in 2007. She won the F16 class, a feat she repeated in 2008.
In 2016, Molly Taylor, with co-driver Bill Hayes, became the first female driver to win the Australian Rally Championship, also being the youngest driver to do so at the time.
Mid-2020, Molly joined the Extreme E international electric rally car series. The Extreme E racing series commenced in 2021, and since then she has partnered with Johan Kristoffersson with the Rosberg X Racing team. The pair won 3 of the 5 rounds of the season, on their way to becoming the overall series champions.
In 2022, Molly Taylor joined JBXE and raced in the 2022 Desert X-Prix series.
Even at last month’s Thrifty Bathurst 500, women made up 65 of the full-time staff working on the ground between V8 Supercars and the Supercars’ teams alone. Among the foremost women in the Australian Supercars is Romy Mayer, a key player in PremiAir Nulon Racing’s rapid ascent of the ladder. Romy is one of the sport’s leading race engineers.
Driving a car is most definitely not just a man’s game!
A Big Weekend At Bathurst
It was a big weekend of racing that happened at Bathurst. The 2024 Repco Bathurst 12 Hour race proved to be an eventful and exciting race, and it was a dominant performance from Matt Campbell, Ayhancan Guven, and Laurens Vanthoor who all drove faultlessly to take out the win in their yellow Manthey EMA Porsche race car, number 912.
The race was fraught with changeable weather throughout the day, meaning that a skilful pit crew needed to remain on the ball for selecting the right tyre for the driving conditions. There were numerous cars involved in crashes with or without other race cars, and against barriers that forced the teams out of the race. At multiple stages, the skies opened up, lashing down torrential rain that made driving quickly extremely risky in the wet. Throughout the day, these changing conditions made it very important for the teams’ pit crews to match up their car with the right tyre, enabling them to be set-up for successfully completing the race.
It was less than three seconds between first and second place, with team number 75 and its drivers (K. Habul, J. Gounon, and L. Stolz) guiding their SunEnergy1 Mercedes-AMG into second place. And it was less than four seconds behind the race leader and team number 22; drivers L. Talbot, K. van der Linde, and C. Haase bringing their Wash It/Jamec Team MPC Audi home for third place.
The excitement didn’t end there. Previously, in the build-up to the big race, a new closed-cockpit race record was set by Jules Gounon driving an unrestricted Mercedes-AMG GT3 car. Gounon, the three-time defending 12 Hour Bathurst race winner, clocked a 1 minute and 56.6054 second lap. Though this was an unofficial lap record (official lap records are set during racing itself), his time was quicker than the previous closed-cockpit track record (1 minute and 58.690 seconds) set in 2019 by Luke Youlden in a Brabham BT62. During this fastest lap for closed-cockpit cars, Gounon, in the Mercedes-AMG GT3, was hitting 270 km/h on Mountain Straight, 200 km/h into the Cutting, 240 km/h into McPhillamy, and 302 km/h into The Chase. This bid for a race record was part of Mercedes-AMG’s celebration of its 130th anniversary of being involved in motorsport.
And if you think that reading about it is exciting enough, try and take yourself there next year to actually watch at least some of it live. Motorsport is a lot more exciting when seen live in person, where you can feel the air shake, smell the fumes and see what those speeds actually look like as the vehicles pass you. Or if the full 12 hours of Bathurst isn’t for you, then check out another motorsport event – something that should be on every car enthusiast’s bucket list.
Or just enjoy the highlights reel:
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