Raceblog
December 4, 2008 |
After running wingman to the #7 car and helping them get their drivers’ championship, we thought this might be our race. Sascha has been so strong at Laguna the last couple of years; I was really confident we had the right guy for the task at hand, but the chips just didn’t fall our way with the way that the strategy ran. I felt really bad for him, we had high hopes of victory there. In saying that, we were able to stay on track and provide support to the #7 and the #5 and help bring the manufacturers’ championship home by just one point against the very competitive Acura contingent. All in all it was sort of bittersweet once again, but the theme of this year has been really fighting the Acuras and it came down to one point—I think that’s really symbolic of how close the whole season has been. Driving the road cars. In the meantime, I can talk about my integration into Porsche Cars North America the last couple of years. From a business standpoint it has really multiplied and a lot of that is owed to the opportunity that Bob Carlson has given me. A huge part of my job as a racing driver is fueled from the road car sales and marketing and it’s great to learn that side of the company. It’s terrific to be involved in such a tight knit group of guys like Hurley Haywood, Derek Bell, Chip Robinson and Dave Murry, guys that have been involved for so many years. For me to come in as a young buck and be given the trust of PCNA to be a part of the road car side of the business and media launches has been a great opportunity. We’ve been really busy. Starting just before the final race of the season at Laguna, we launched the new 911 with PDK and DFI up at Salt Lake. To be out at Miller Motorsport Park and up at Park City was a great event in itself and a very big one. We had five waves of journalists, 36 hours per group, coming through and it was great to be a core part of that. We then moved to the Boxster launch of the same PDK and DFI technology and that was just this last week. It was actually the international debut, so it was another new experience handling it from a world level. There was so much involvement from Weissach and Zuffenhausen. That event was in Willow Springs. Klaus Bischof, who takes care of Porsche’s museum cars, came over with Roadster #1, Porsche’s first 356 to ever hit the road, and Hurley Haywood brought the 914-6 and the 550 from the Brumos Collection. All of this was to give the guests a hands-on history lesson in our mid-engine heritage as a company. From there we went straight with our international group of journalists back to Los Angeles for the opening day of the auto show where we presented the new Boxster and Cayman to the media at the auto show. It was another new experience for me. Wolfgang Dürheimer was there to launch the car and it’s always great to work alongside him because as head of R&D and therefore motorsports at Weissach, he combines not only the road car development but all of the motorsport activities. It’s always great working alongside him and we have a great bond. That’s what I’ve been doing as of late and the next thing coming up is the Legends Course at Porsche’s Sport Driving School—another new experience for me and one that is just completely humbling. I am just honored to be asked to be a part of the Legends group with Brian Redman, Vic Elford, Derek and Hurley. These are guys that were winning the world’s greatest sports car races in the heyday before I was even born. Even to share a cocktail or the racetrack with them is going to be an unbelievable experience for me. To work alongside them in a curriculum with some of the Porsche Sport Driving School’s elite students and graduates is going to be a great one for December. Send your comments and questions to Patrick at askpatrick@pca.org. Although he can’t respond individually, he’ll get to as many as possible in his blog. |
October 18, 2008 |
For me, the race was straightforward. The battles were as intense as in any sprint race I’ve ever been involved with in my career, but my two double stints went very cleanly and successfully. Adding a third car was a strategic decision to run a rabbit, if you will— another strategy to fight off the forces of the Acura contingent who had been arguably dominant through the summer races. But I think the real improvement and glory came from just a tremendous amount of work and progress from the engineering staffs in Weissach and in Mooresville. The times that we did in qualifying and during the race were some two seconds a lap faster than we had ever gone around there and it really just shows how much progressive improvement has taken place at the height of the competition. It is a tremendous endorsement of what LMP2 has become—sort of the Formula One of sports car racing, in my opinion. The pace of development is just so intense from race to race. We did two separate full multi-car tests at Road Atlanta before the race week even started at Petit and I think the results showed what had been accomplished. Laguna Seca. The battle continues into Laguna. The initial plan was to fight for this championship all the way to the end of the season and fortunately we got it done for Porsche ahead of schedule, but there is still a manufacturers’ title on the line and we are fighting hard for third place in the championship with the #6 car. So again, we are going to go out and put the #5 car as the rabbit, and have the #7 and the #6 stick to their championship plans. Ask Patrick Q: How does a team decide who starts the race and who finishes it? A: I think each individual car decides differently on how drivers are picked for qualifying and starting the race. It’s something that goes into our strategy depending on the length of the race and really just how the driver combination sees it. We’re lucky on the #6 car that a lot of input is asked of Sascha and me and we have a great rapport. We attack the race together and a lot of the time it’s a toss up. It’s six of one and half a dozen of the other. So we talk about how each one is feeling and make the decision. Of course, the start of a race is always touchy because you can really set the tone for the race but also a lot can be lost in the start. Traditionally this year I’ve felt really confident in starting the races and Sascha is very, very solid. So I don’t know what we’ll do for this weekend but I’m thinking that this being Sascha’s strongest track on the calendar that mostly likely we’ll try to have him in at the end to go for broke at the very finish. He’ll be qualifying. We predetermine who qualifies before the season starts and a lot of the time the qualifying driver starts, but it just depends really on driver lineup. If there is a clear cut number one and number two, then usually the number one will go in at the end of the race if he is having the stronger of the weekends. But with Sascha and me, it’s more of a fifty-fifty thing and we just talk it out. Send your comments and questions to Patrick at askpatrick@pca.org. Although he can’t respond individually, he’ll get to as many as possible in his blog. |
September 12, 2008 |
To finish third at Mosport was a great feeling after being off the podium for a couple of races and it came down to the last lap as to whether we were going to make it on fuel. We had calculated it perfectly, so it was a nail-biter but it was a lot of fun. I don’t think there was a liter of fuel left in our tank when we coasted back to the pit, so it was certainly icing on the cake to get it so right. Detroit. Then, of course, it was back to back weekends from Mosport to Detroit. Detroit is just a great track for so many reasons, the venue and the layout, but street courses are something that I find suits my driving style because they are low grip, high risk circuits and they take a methodical, technical approach rather than a banzai, ‘close your eyes and hold it flat out’ track. I enjoy driving in the rain, driving street circuits and even dirt cars— races where there is a little bit more of a drift to the car. The old days of Formula 5000 and Formula One when you could see the cars without technical assistance and the drivers hanging it out – I love that stuff. The weekend began very differently in that I had a new teammate just before I arrived. Although it was a new teammate for the season, it was a familiar face in Ryan Briscoe. Ryan and I grew up racing together; we met in Belgium in 1996 as 14-year-old rivals from opposite ends of the world in the Junior Karting World Championship. We became close friends and roommates a couple of years later as teammates in the factory CRG Karting Team, which is kind of the Penske of karting in international caliber racing. Since
I knew I had to get down to business, that there was minimal track time because street circuit venues always have limited time on the circuit. Both practice sessions were washed out, so we ran minimal laps in the rain, had a good balance in the rain but the weather was changing all day. It peaked into dry weather just before qualifying. Ryan was planning to qualify because of his experience there last year in the RS Spyder and also the sessions were dry for his IRL practice. But at the last moment Roger thought that it would be better if I got in the car to get some dry laps as that would be my only time to learn the track in the dry before the race. To say the least I was somewhat disappointed with fifth on the grid. We had split the setups between the #7 and the #6 based on having no dry running and needing to find a balance for the race. Unfortunately, our direction was the wrong one but a lot of the lack of pace came from me just having to go out there and learn the track in the RS Spyder. It requires a phenomenally different style from how it’s driven in a GT car. The #7 car was one place ahead of us on the grid, so my objective in the race was to run wingman to him on the start because we had the factory Audis just behind us; they are very quick on the straights but in overall pace if we can get a gap, we can maintain our position ahead of them. The race went pretty straightforward for us for the most part. The #7 car guys had an unfortunate coming together with a GT car but in the end, we also had a suspected puncture at the end of the race at which point we had a late pit stop with Ryan in the car which dropped us from third to fifth in class. It was not the result I had hoped for with the street course, but it was a great experience driving the Spyder and the venue was second to none. Being in the Motor City and with the Penske-promoted race, there were tons of PR activities all through the weekend. On Thursday night we helicoptered over to the Henry Ford Museum—Ryan, Helio Castroneves, Scott Dixon and myself—and we attended a charity gala function. It was nice to be at the Henry Ford Museum for the first time and I spent most of the cocktail hour sneaking around the back of the ropes to check out everything that they had there in the historic halls. Petit Le Mans. Looking toward Petit Le Mans, the pressure has never been so great. The Acuras have closed in the last three races and it is way too close for comfort. In saying that, I think we’ll be good at Petit. We have a well developed car there and I think that where we might lack a little bit of pace we make up with strategy and fast pit stops. Obviously it’s a ten hour race. That means lots more pit stops and strategy will play a role. It’s exciting that we have new additions to the field, especially in the prototype class with the Peugeots and the new Zytek. I think there’ll be a different atmosphere out on the track with the new drivers and teams. Atlanta is always a special event because of the passionate fans and the close following that Porsche has with their North American base being there. I always look forward to the race. It’s a great mix between sprint and endurance and the atmosphere always gives me that extra charge. Q: What do you think of the new DFI engine? A: The DFI is something that everybody wants—more horsepower without increased fuel consumption. Not only did we maintain our mileage but we increased it, so that’s a testament to new age technology and all of the work that the engineers at Porsche have done. In today’s world, efficiency is very important in racing where fuel mileage is so crucial, but it also translates into the road cars of today. The current economy and high fuel prices have put a premium on increased fuel efficiency. It’s a great thing to have more performance without a fuel penalty and I think that’s what the ALMS and sports car racing is all about. Not only marketing Porsches and other marques but also developing technology for the road. And that time crossover is shorter and shorter every year. What we develop on the race cars is put into the road cars sometimes within the same calendar year where it once was a four or five year cycle between race track and road. That’s a very interesting process of progress. Send your comments and questions to Patrick at askpatrick@pca.org. Although he can’t respond individually, he’ll get to as many as possible in his blog. |
August 19, 2008 |
Road America. Reflecting back on the race, it was certainly a tough pill to swallow. We had a tough week from the get-go with a few technical issues that we needed to get out of the way in the limited testing that we had leading up to the race. It just felt like we were one step behind after we got put behind the eight ball in the beginning of the week, and that made it extra challenging. Qualifying was a tough one; there were a few corners that are taken just flat on new tires, but because of the delays, we weren’t able to perform a mock qualifying in our practice. So I made the decision to go for it in qualifying, sort of just shut my eyes and find out what the car could do and unfortunately I got it a little bit wrong on what was my key lap. I paid for it a little bit in the overall positions in qualifying but what I knew was that we had a good balance in our setup and I was ready to hammer it through the high-speed corners in the race. With the race being four hours, it gave us a bit of time to have a lot of strategy to play a key role, with plenty of pit stops and action. This year’s ALMS has been pretty exciting with all the different competitive cars in different classes and there have been a number of incidents and contact, so we were thinking there would be plenty of yellows and that’s how it turned out. The team had a great strategy. We went with a split strategy between the two cars and chose to stop a little bit more frequently early in the race, push our fuel windows forward and make sure that we didn’t have to stop for any unnecessary splashes of fuel at the end of the race. I got in the car for about the last two and a half hours of the four-hour race and I knew I’d be in until the end. I just focused on staying clean through the middle of the race and let the team, with their awesome pit stops and strategy, move me up and it played out. We were up into a solid second position after a good fight with the Patron Highcroft car in the pits and then later on the track with the #20 Dyson car that Butch Leitzinger was driving. We had a pretty rough battle, but we were finally able to get past and pull away to quite a solid gap in second place. With about eight laps to go it was time to be a team player and, unfortunately, with the yellow flags falling when they did, it meant that we had to give up a couple of spots under yellow. It is never easy, but there’s no secret that we race as a team, as Porsche, and as Penske. With the way the season started out at Sebring for us, it’s been really difficult to make up those extra points given and so I’ve said in my past few blogs that it is all about striving for every position that we can through the race. It’s starting to pay off with the little bit of extra aggression that we’re able to factor in, but this time it was about the big picture. It’s us versus them—them being the Acuras—and we were able to minimize the advance that they made on the #7 car with their victory. Beyond Mosport. This later part of the season is going to be as much of a challenge against the Acuras as it ever has been since the inception of this RS Spyder program. But as a team and as a factory we’re ready to throw off the gloves and fight it out. I think we have teamwork on our side and certainly the joint venture between Penske and Porsche means that every single mind is working as hard as it can right now and there are developments that we want to push forward with and fight these Acuras. These races we have toward the end of the year are certainly diverse—Mosport being one of the most old-school, historic tracks, certainly more back-to-back high speed corners than anywhere we race. It will be tricky with traffic as the track is extraordinarily narrow, and the speed differentials are intensified based on the high aerodynamic downforce that the prototypes produce. Of course, the faster you go, the more aerodynamic downforce you make. We then push on to Detroit which I think will be one of the highlight races for me this year. Street races are a great equalizer and a real treat to drive with the Spyder. Belle Isle a great, great venue, and it has been revitalized by Roger Penske and all of his staff. Detroit is a place that welcomes us with open arms and lots of smiles, and the fan support there is fantastic. It’s also a shared weekend with IndyCars, so it’s a spectacle that we all look forward to. I drove there for the first time last year with Flying Lizards, with Darren Law, and we had a great run and a great time together. It was the first time I had run on the track and I really enjoyed it. Through the end of the year we push on to our final stretch which will be Petit Le Mans, which adds a little bit of the endurance aspect that we haven’t seen since Sebring, and then the finale, which is always a great one, at Laguna Seca. So there are plenty of races to come and they are all very different. It’s an exciting way to hit the home stretch. There’s still plenty of opposition and plenty of motivation; by no means is there any margin of safety looking back on the season. We’re all looking forward and we’ve got a chunk of points that are there and we are as motivated as ever. Q: What gauges are you scanning while on the track at high speeds? How are you interpreting the numbers? A: The technology these days means that there is a certain element of security in the way the feedback from the car is analyzed. Live telemetry and all of the feedback going back to the engineers—a group of five sets of eyes on the screen at any one time—means that they pretty much know what’s going on from the mechanical side of the car, the engine, even air pressures, ride heights. So that’s great security that technology allows and actually frees the drivers to do what we need to do, which is drive to the very sheer limit. Personally for me, the shift lights and revs are number one, keeping an eye on my oil and water temperatures and pressures is something that I do routinely. We have also a live split time that’s displayed on our dash based off of a chosen reference lap. It’s a pretty solid lap that was chosen from either one of the two cars during the week or from any of the data from the past years. We log that in as our base line lap time and then we have a running split of whether we’re above or below that split so that we can see how our lap is progressing. When you get into traffic or into a situation where you have to pace yourself, it’s a very useful tool. You can’t be fixated on it for too long, though, because things happen so quickly in an LMP2 car and traffic is where your eyes need to be most of the time. The last thing on the list of interesting tools is our fuel consumption reading. This is a number on our dash which tells us our fuel remaining and also the average fuel consumption per lap. If we get into a situation of having to what we call “make” fuel or save fuel, then we’ll use this to gauge how much fuel we’re using on average per lap and try to make that number lower. That can be a tricky process but at this high level we’re looking for every little liter, which is different from any other team I’ve raced with. So there’s certainly a lot going on in the cockpit, but we have great contact and communication with our engineers and our strategists and we get plenty of feedback and direction from the team. As long as you know where to look and when to look, things are pretty clear cut. Send your comments and questions to Patrick at askpatrick@pca.org. Although he can’t respond individually, he’ll get to as many as possible in his blog. |
July 16, 2008 |
Lime Rock. Lime Rock was a fantastic race. I thought they did a great job with the track and smoothed it out;it made it really nice to drive.I prefer the original layout, but hey, it was the same for everyone. I hadn’t been there in a prototype before so it was nice to get out there and get down to business. The start of the race was exciting. My goal was to keep it clean and just protect the car. I knew that traffic was going to be the whole name of the game for the end result. I succeeded in keeping the car absolutely clean and in working order and at the same time I was able lead my whole stint, so mission accomplished. Unfortunately there was a miscue on when the pits were open for our pit stop, but after the fact it didn’t really play into the result because we ended up coming back in for a splash of fuel before the race went back to green on the extended yellow. From there Sascha did a great job of bringing the car back up through the field and we ended up on the podium. The strategy at Lime Rock played out perfectly because we actually ran out of fuel as we crossed the line, so it couldn’t have been judged any closer. We were able to move up two spots from fifth into a tie for third in the points. So everything was relatively positive at the end, but I’m still just salivating for that first win and I can taste it now. We led a lot of the sessions and the race and we know we’ve got the car and the strategy, so we just need all that to come together. We’re hopeful for the next couple of races that the #6 will be on the top step. Each time I get in the car it’s a little more effortless and natural. As I gain experience in the program I can trust my instincts and experience more. A lot of that comes down to seat time, but also all the testing we’ve done during the season has been instrumental in my learning how to tune the car the way I want it. Getting that extended amount of time behind the wheel is so important. On a race weekend, it’s tough to get enough driving time. At Lime Rock there were so many yellow flags during practice that it was really hard to get into a rhythm. It was important to be sure that absolutely every lap that you had out there was used to improve the car and that’s what we tried to do. Coming back to Lime Rock as a track, I like the tight nature of the track and the close racing. My only preference would be to run the original West Bend next year if we come back. I think the new chicane in turn five replacing the uphill is an improvement but they need to widen No-name Straight and run without the West Bend chicane and I think it will be same old Lime Rock with a modern twist. We need a Northeast Grand Prix because it is such a key demographic for our series and the heritage at Lime Rock is something that can’t be ignored in our sport. There are a lot of new, great, flat, safe, long race tracks in the world but I’m one to keep some of the original tracks on the calendar. The competition is fierce. It’s been known since race one that the Acuras are on their game; they have huge resources both human and technical and they are really spicing up the P2 category. I think it’s a great thing. It’s positive for everyone involved and it certainly has us working as hard as we ever have. These days you’ve got to run a near perfect race for any hope of a podium finish. In saying all that, I wouldn’t want to be in any other car than a Porsche and Penske is the team to run this RS Spyder to its third LMP 2 title in a row! Now we’re at Mid Ohio. It’s a different kind of track in a way, but in a way it’s not. It will still be a lot about traffic management at Mid Ohio, but there will be some other key things. It’s all about that balance of how much aero to run to create grip but limit drag! Certainly the way the starts have gone at Mid Ohio races over the past years, qualifying will be really key in staying out of trouble on the opening couple of laps. It’s one of my favorite tracks on the whole calendar, so I’m happy to be here and looking forward to the race. |
July 9, 2008 |
On the way to Lime Rock. We’re preparing for the ALMS race at Lime Rock now and you’ve sent some questions about the track and driver preparation for the race. I thought I’d devote this blog entry to answering those questions. Q: Are you looking forward to the new track layout and surface at Lime Rock? A: From the looks of the photos and the plans for the new layout at Lime Rock, it’s definitely going to be a different racetrack. The original Lime Rock configuration was one of my favorites, but for less obvious reasons. The high-speed, multi-surface flow and all the heritage that the track exuded was a lot of fun and certainly one of the most challenging tracks I’ve been to since joining the ALMS in 2003. In saying that, safety and passing zones weren’t in abundance, and I think that was Skip Barber’s plan when deciding to update the new circuit. It’s new for everyone and excited to get out there Friday morning. Q: What is it like driving the GT car versus the LMP2 car in the rain? What do you do to say cool on hot sunny days? A: First and foremost, in a prototype you quickly realize that in the rain you no longer have a roof over your head or a windshield. You’re now in the natural elements. The biggest thing is that the LMP2 car sits a lot lower to the ground and has a lot more aerodynamics from underneath, so in the standing water, whenever there is an extreme amount of water, the LMP2 car is a lot more adversely affected and has a tendency to aquaplane, which gets very interesting. But in saying that, in the high speed corners the downforce of the car means that you’re still carrying as much or more speed through the corner in the wet as you would in the dry with a GT car. That helps put into perspective just how much grip is created by the aerodynamics of the prototypes. Q: Is that technology for both the LMP2 car and the GT car? A: That’s for the GT car. For the LMP2 car, heat isn’t really a factor unless you’re stationary in the pits during practice, qualifying and when you’re doing set up and such. When you’re moving, there’s such a high flow of air that it really helps a lot. One interesting thing about driving an open-top prototype is the aerodynamics of the driver’s helmet itself. It’s amazing just how small an opening or external aerodynamic piece on the helmet can make a large difference at high speed in terms of the stability of the car as a whole. The helmet has three forces of nature you’re always fighting—the first is having an application of cooling come through the vents, and the second two are aerodynamic. There’s lift that can be generated, where the helmet feels like it’s being pulled off your head, and there’s buffeting, where the head will shake at a high frequency. So, we’ve worked hard to develop pieces for the helmet that give the downforce and stability in the car while maintaining the highest level of protection for the driver, and not upsetting the overall aerodynamics of the car. All of this really comes into play with high-downforce cars like the prototypes, and has to do with airflow to the rear wing when you’re above 150mph or so. Send your comments and questions to Patrick at askpatrick@pca.org. Although he can’t respond individually, he’ll get to as many as possible in his blog. |
June 27, 2008 |
Pole lap. It is a challenge at Le Mans when you go for the one perfect lap because the tire has an optimum performance that’s only there for a small window. Usually it is the first timed lap so you go out kind of cold turkey and try to lay down a perfect lap on one of the longest tracks there is. And you have to do it at such a high rate of speed that there’s a tremendous amount of risk not only in overdriving the lap, or making a mistake that could harm your lap time at minimum, but also hurt the car for the race—so it’s a very tricky balance. The irony of it was that we weren’t really planning on chasing the pole. Our main objective was getting our car set up for the race and that went so smoothly that we were ahead of schedule, enjoying ourselves at dinner break on the final evening of qualifying. In a little bit of jest but in some competitive spirit we all looked at each other and one of the team bosses, Franck Rava ( who co-runs the team with Raymond Narac, the third driver on the team) looked at me and said, “What do you think about going out there and putting in a lap that would be under four minutes?” And I said that I could promise one thing…I’d give it my best shot. Little did I know that we’d go almost two seconds under four minutes, but it was such a sweet feeling to do that. Usually qualifying is primarily a matter of preparation for the race and that’s how I’ve always seen it. But there’s something that’s extra special about Le Mans and I just thoroughly enjoyed the quest for the pole with it being over four laps and such varying track and weather conditions. It’s a science to time it well with only a limited number of tires. We only had two sets for the whole eight hours that we could really go for qualifying on. So when you get that one lap, there is sure a lot of energy that goes into it and there are sure a lot of eyes on the screen when you do go out for that lap. But I’ll tell you, when it goes well, like it did right before the dinner break on Wednesday when we knocked Jörg off the pole, and then again with Wolf on the second night, it was sure a wild eerie feeling—just pounding the steering wheel with excitement when we passed the start-finish line and the crew barely able relate the information to you they’re so happy. It was extra sweet. The start. Sitting on that success, knowing that it’s a 24 hour race and that pole position doesn’t really mean a lot, was fun but our real focus was on the race and certainly we were confident, but things were difficult even before the race started. The accident. So when I got back in the car for my second stint, starting the third hour of competition, I was just on my out lap when things went wrong. With tire warmers allowed at the 24 hours of Le Mans, when the car gets dropped off the jacks you are at racing speed when you come out of the pits, there’s no really working up to it. So it was just straight back into it and I came up on two cars fighting for position about halfway through my first lap, going down into Indianapolis. I came up on them quite quickly because they had been jostling for position and I was letting them sort their differences out. I was following the Flying Lizard car and he was accelerating past the Ferrari and I decided to go in his lane and tag along behind him. Just as I peeked past the Ferrari who was on my right, the Porsche ahead of me was hard, hard, hard on the brakes. It caught me completely by surprise because that’s not a section of race track where I do any braking. Out of complete surprise and with that much speed, I jerked to the right to avoid running into the back of him while sliding in front of the Ferrari, but at that high rate of speed and with that much steering input, it sent my car sideways and in doing so, on the correction I sideswiped into the side of the #80 car, purely trying to avoid him. He didn’t see me and continued to begin his turn into the right-hander. We brushed wheel to wheel and went into the gravel and unfortunately because of the high rate of speed, the car suffered a damaged front suspension that didn’t allow me to even get the car back to the pit lane. The aftermath. It was a tremendous, tremendous negative experience. I had never failed to bring a race car back to the pits in my whole career with Porsche. I can’t think of any other time I’ve ever experienced that other than a time when the whole wheel assembly fell off of my car at Mosport in 2005 and at that point we had won the race because it was the last lap and we were actually a lap up on the rest of the field. To be standing on the side of the track while the rest of the cars are going around—I’ve never had that feeling and it’s just completely empty. I was basically just in shock. I didn’t have a lot of emotion other than being extremely surprised and just heartbroken. I couldn’t stop thinking about the team, how much time and money and preparation they had put into the car. To go out that early was such a tough one. In saying all that, I knew that’s what makes Le Mans the race it is. Not just the high of all the preparation and being on pole but also the possibility of having the race track swallow you up. That’s what makes that place so challenging. The speeds are so high. I I truly believe that such misunderstandings happen race by race but at much lower speeds and so it really takes just a small lift or a little bit of a steering input. At 200 mph, it’s so different. To put it into perspective, it’s a little bit like watching Talladega with a sprint cup competitor where just a little bit of a correction or avoidance turns into something so big. And that’s exactly what it was. It was a tough one. Ask Patrick: Q: When you were moved to the back of the grid at Le Mans, how do you take bad news like that and set it completely aside? A: I believe in sport psychology and something that you are taught in sport psychology whether you’re a hockey goalkeeper or a golfer on the PGA tour or a football player, you only have one thing that’s in your control and that’s getting the very best out of yourself on race day or game day. There are so many factors out there that can affect your outcome or result. And so you cannot be affected by the end result. You can only be affected by your personal performance on that day. And so I try to take that philosophy into my racing and it allows me to focus on what I do, which is to try to drive as fast as I can behind the wheel. There are days when the refueling procedure gets you sent to the back or that just trying to avoid two other cars that are in a battle sends you off the track into the gravel trap and the day is over. There are so many things that can happen like that that are outside of your control. But I’ve tried to learn not to waste mental energy on what I can’t change. And that was a huge thing this year at Le Mans. An extreme high and an extreme low. How qualifying and preparation seemed to be going so well and then the most extreme result that we could have imagined which would be being out of the race just two hours in. Send your comments and questions to Patrick at askpatrick@pca.org. Although he can’t respond individually, he’ll get to as many as possible in his blog. |
June 11, 2008 |
There is the language barrier, of course. It keeps my French tip-top and it’s great to be over there the whole month and to be immersed again in the Le Mans culture where I lived in 1999. Every June from 2004 on has been that way. So I get stuck right back in there and have the privilege of having a role in the team, not only as a driver. I share my game knowledge of strategy and engineering with the team who have very open ears to me and my experience, knowing that I’ve been at Le Mans a little bit longer than they have—but not by much. So I take on a more extended role than I would do in an LMP2 situation. That’s a great feeling and a little of extra responsibility but very rewarding when the outcome is as it was last year. The other factor is that working for a French team at Le Mans adds a little bit of an extra home court advantage. The fans are behind us as a French team and they are very interested in what we are doing. The local media is very interested in us and who we are. Going up against the huge contingent of Ferraris this year, most of them from other countries, we really carry a home team flag and for an American to do that with a French organization at a French race is a special feeling. Go Speed Racer. Speed Racer is obviously a special movie for 2008 and it has a great Le Mans flavor behind it. Men’s Health magazine had the idea to put Matthew Fox, who plays Racer X in the movie, on their cover for a recent issue. They wanted to do a story that was a bit more individual and creative and they wanted to say, “OK, Mr. Fox, we see that you can drive a car on a green screen, but can you drive a real race car?” And his answer was “I have no experience driving on a race track or in a race car, but I’d love to have a go.” And that’s where I was fortunate to be involved, as his pro for the day, if you will. It was a bit more than instructing, it was the two of us out on the track for a day with two brand new 911s, a 911 Turbo and a GT3, on the Streets of Willow, which I think, is one of the most underrated race tracks in the country. It was just an ultimate experience and a great opportunity for him to have a driver, two cars and a racetrack all to himself. For me it was neat to work with a guy who is so accomplished in his own right, but very down to earth, in good shape, methodical, and a perfect student. And for a guy that’s as successful and has such celebrity as he does, that says a lot about who he is. We really had a good time and we’ve stayed in touch since then. To be in a publication like Men’s Health, of course,was a great opportunity for me. Ask Patrick A: Actually, it’s a normal June Le Mans break and I’m used to that with the ALMS. From the RS Spyder standpoint, we’ll be out testing and the Penske guys are never ever on vacation. There’s no rest. I’m in regular contact with my engineers and my team managers and we’re working behind the scenes to better ourselves every single time we hit the track. I’ll be in the car in June for a couple of days of testing and we’re already hard at work on pushing forward. It’s a process of constant improvement. That’s really how championships are won. It’s super to have all those resources and to know I’ve got the best team behind me. We’ll be working intermittently between racing at Le Mans on Lime Rock and we’ll hit the ground running at Lime Rock and just continue our drive toward a championship. Send your comments and questions to Patrick at askpatrick@pca.org. Although he can’t respond individually, he’ll get to as many as possible in his blog. |
May 30, 2008 |
Salt Lake City. From the drop of the green flag of the first session of the weekend we knew we had a tremendous battle on our hands, mainly with the We got right down to business and really hammered through a lot of different set up options and improvements in handling, and we shared that responsibility between the 6 and the 7 cars. Between the two Penske Spyders we can get so much accomplished by sharing the work instead of what some teams might do, which is go in completely opposite directions in their own philosophies of engineering and driver style. That close relationship between the two cars and the open book of information we share meant that we really narrowed the gap and by the time of the final test before qualifying we were up on top. Qualifying was a lot like Long Beach in that it was ultra tight, but the performance of my car and what I did out on the track was very different from Long Beach in that I felt that I got every little last bit out of what we had to work with and it just wasn’t enough. I knew from my experience in Long Beach that the competitive nature of the LMP2 class and the nature of how the car reacts on empty fuel and new tires meant that my performance as a qualifier for the second time around had improved, but I didn’t have much to show for it being fifth on the grid. But I also knew from Long Beach that if you’re in the top five you’ve got a shot at victory and I had a much more positive outlook going into the race. Our focus was on getting the most out of our car because we hadn’t started the weekend quite the way we would have liked to and that was based on the track changing so much. The desert atmosphere changes a race track more than any other type of environment. The heat, wind direction and also the sand that blows across the track meant that we had a completely different race track than when we tested there right before Long Beach. So we didn’t have our eyes much on the Audis but we knew as always they’d be a threat in the race because of the variable traffic. That’s something that’s a big help for them because of the added torque and horsepower. When you’re navigating through traffic, you have lots of points where you have to lift and adjust line and react to a lot of compromising situations as the prototype cars, and that’s where the Audis really have an advantage over us.
What I knew when I got in the car was that we were just around the top five. Sascha had been pushed off early in the race by a GT2 car and he did a great job to keep his head on straight and just focus on the job at hand which was navigating through traffic and getting back up into a solid position before turning the car over to me. When I got in the car, we were further back from the overall leader than we wanted to be and so I knew I had a lot of work to do. But I was really confident in our strategy and so I knew my job was to get in and drive absolutely as fast and consistently as I could and not worry about the other cars or about where I was on the track for position—just try to put in the most solid hour of driving time that I could. I knew there was a good chance that it would go green all the way to the end, so it was less about racing for position and more about just pure hard driving, navigating through traffic, being solid, executing every single pass and trying to narrow that gap to the cars ahead of us. So my sprint started from the time the car dropped off the jacks, and everything went to plan. The strategy was very close but absolutely perfect, and we came home with a one-two overall and couldn’t have asked for more.
Ask Patrick: Q: Does race strategy unfold as the race goes on—in real time, so to speak? A: Absolutely. It can’t all be planned in advance. Everything that is done from the drop of the green flag and even before the drop of the green flag is based around the number of pit stops that you’re going to need to make. When you have a race with a lot of green flag laps, that plays an even more important part. To answer your question, yes, real time strategy is the game. We’re looking at x amount of fuel in the tank, with x amount of miles that we need to cover and the variable of how much time we’ll spend under yellow, because that eats into the race time and your consumption of fuel changes under yellow. We do keep an eye on what the other guys are doing, but the number one battle in endurance racing is being the best you can be as a driver and as a team. Send your comments and questions to Patrick at askpatrick@pca.org. Although he can’t respond individually, he’ll get to as many as possible in his blog. |
May 7, 2008 |
I think there were a lot of firsts for me: my first time qualifying for an LMP2 car, first time taking a restart at the head of an ALMS field, peeling through the traffic in the overall lead. All those things were just great to get under my belt. With all the qualifying I’ve done in my career, it may not seem like a big feat, but qualifying a Porsche RS Spyder is a whole new ballgame. It’s hard to explain, but driving one of these cars on new tires and a light fuel load is like driving a whole different racecar. The performance you gain with the combination of fresh rubber and minimal weight gets you a responsiveness that exceeds anything I’ve ever driven. You almost have to take the mindset that you’re driving a new car on a new racetrack. My mom and dad were there along with another group of about 25 close friends and relatives. They all camp out between turn one and turn five, right on that little peninsula, and they have a good cheering section going. It’s always great knowing that they’re there. It’s good that they get to see the race up close and personal. Because my family lives out on the West Coast, they don’t get to come to a lot of races, so it’s always fun to give them a good show. Someone asked me if my mom is comfortable watching me race—she is. She is very supportive and trusting and really positive about my driving. She’s been around it since the start (about 20 years ago) so she’s got a pretty thick skin, but I’m sure she’s more nervous than she lets me believe. The start. I was somewhat bummed out to be fourth on the grid. I saw in my practice times and in reviewing the data from qualifying that my own consistency let me down in qualifying. With two and a half tenths spreading the first five or six cars, it was a tough pill to swallow to be fourth on the grid because I really felt like I had a car that could put me on the front row. I knew that the start was going to be very important. The long straight on Shoreline is what we fear most when racing with the Audis. Those guys just have so much horsepower and torque on starts and restarts that straight-aways are definitely not our strong suit. So I knew that I had to be ready on the start. I don’t think there’s a tighter corner on the whole ALMS calendar than coming out of the last corner at Long Beach, and the way you get out of that corner is imperative for the start. What I wanted to do, being in fourth and having the two Audis a row behind me, was back them up a little bit. Give the first three cars a chance to get down the straight a bit and then pack up as we came to the start—try to time it perfectly so that we’re all even as we went across the start line but I’d have a little more momentum on my side. At the start, as they were sort of jostling each other, I snuck up the outside of all three of them. It was an enthusiastic move but I felt like I was releasing brake pressure as I came towards the apex and I was able to leave a car width to the inside for Timo. It looked very touch and go on the TV replay but I felt pretty controlled in how it worked, so it was one of those moves where you don’t expect it and you don’t plan it and it just all works out. Timo came up to me when we both got out of our cars after our stints and pulled me off my timing stand. He kind of had a deer-in-the-headlights look and said, “Where did you come from?” That was fun because we have a good relationship. It’s very competitive between the #6 and the #7 cars but it’s very healthy and we have a lot of respect and we race each other very clean. The golden rule in professional motorsport is that you don’t take your teammate out.
Second half of the race. There were more yellow flags in the second portion of the race and yellow flag situations are an advantage for the Audis. The thicker the traffic is the more advantage there is for them as well. Unfortunately a GT car that had a failure in front of us caught us out. The Panoz had something let go in their drive train; that happened in front of Sascha and he made contact trying to avoid that. I think we showed toward the end of the race that Sascha was the fastest car on the track, but the strategies were different. The Audis pitted earlier than we did and went for track position and clear track while we ran closer to the end of our fuel window. I actually had a puncture while I was in the lead and that’s what forced me to stop when I did. It was lucky timing that when the puncture came we were in our fuel window and we ducked into the pits. There was quite a lot of adversity past the halfway mark that we overcame. So though it’s tough to lead and not win, the race was certainly a fun one just to get those laps led under my belt and to know what it feels like. Between races. After Long Beach, I went to VIR and raced a GT car. I also went to Salt Lake to do some coaching with some of my IMSA Cup clients. I work alongside Dennis Aase in his squad of IMSA Cup drivers, as well as other teams. I find it’s very rewarding and there’s a great element of giving back to work with guys that are newer to the 911 Cup car scene. All my experience leading up to ALMS racing was in Cup cars and it’s always been a part of my yearly activities, through the RSR, DP and now LMP2 years. I stay active in the club scene and also with the IMSA Cup as well as the Yokohama Drivers Challenge in Cup cars.
And then there is always the tedious invoicing and paperwork that goes along with the job of a driver. It’s not all about being behind the wheel, so I try to balance my day with plenty of that and also we’ve been working hard on building my website up a little bit more. We’re in a pilot phase of offering a couple of pieces of my own merchandise with Troy Lee Designs, Shock Doctor and CDOC. We’re trying a couple different designs, putting them out there and getting a response from my core fan group. A lot of them are PCA members and my visits with the local PCA corrals at each of the races are places where I can get some feedback from them. Le Mans. I’m penciled in to be at Le Mans, although the team hasn’t been decided yet. This will be my fifth consecutive 24 Hours of Le Mans. In between the pre-test and the race there’s some time off and we have one of our quarterly fitness checks in Potsdam with Porsche’s team of doctors and trainers. So we go back there for checks and then drop into Weissach and visit all the engineers and mechanics that make everything work behind the scenes. It’s a fun month and a great time to catch up with old friends in Europe and to have a little bit of time in between the pre-test and the race. Obviously the race is a whole week’s worth of events. It’s not just about showing up for the weekend. It starts very early in the week with tech and the drivers’ parade. And the element of testing is so unusual at Le Mans. Practice can be from 8 to 12 in the evening and with debriefs you usually don’t leave the track until well after 2 a.m. You really have to have a different mindset as to how you operate during the week of Le Mans. You get onto an interesting sleep schedule with the Salt Lake City. Next up, though, is Salt Lake. We pre-tested there just before Long Beach. There is a new layout on the circuit this year, a little bit shorter and more of a perimeter run. Salt Lake is such a unique race track with its fast flowing very smooth and quick corners. It’s an unbelievable facility, but definitely takes a different driving style. Our test went really well, so we’re optimistic for the race.
|
April 17, 2008 |
I believe that so much of racing is all about opportunity and to have an opportunity like this with Porsche’s flagship prototype program and Penske Racing is something that I am elated about, but at the same time I know that these are very rare opportunities and because of that I’m extra motivated and really excited about the year. I’m looking forward to being in the RS Spyder for the whole season, after having had samples of it over the past couple of years both in long distance races and in a lot of the testing programs. I know that it is a different role that I fill now, being a main driver together with Sascha Maassen in the #6 car, compared to before when I was a third driver. Then I was coming in to be a support driver and to swing for par. Now I’m out there trying to come well under par, so it’s exciting and certainly a challenge that I’m ready for. I’ve driven for a number of organizations under the Porsche flag since starting with Porsche in 2003, and they have been superb and unbelievably professional, but I think they would all agree with me that Roger Penske’s organization pretty much sets the standard in North American racing. That’s something that a driver looking to make a name in sports car racing like myself is completely attracted to and humbled to be a part of. There is a vibe and an energy that I’ve never experienced in my career. I guess I just can say that it’s unbelievably professional. They go that extra little way in everything they do and when all of that adds up, it really sets the bar. The routine. On race weekend, the plate is completely full from Thursday morning until the checkered flag falls and even after the checkered flag in the days passing. The amount of preparation and debriefing that goes into every session and every time the car hits the track is much higher than I’ve dealt with in the past and that forces you to look at every little detail even that much closer. I really see that as a positive. It’s more demanding on time, but it’s definitely feasible and it just takes a little bit of a different mind set and a little bit more organization. The team of people behind the scenes from Porsche and Penske have us very well scheduled and organized. It’s really one of those things where the scale moves evenly because as the requirements increase and the time is filled in, the organizational level rises. Before we show up at the track for the weekend the schedule is in place and we have a time table that we carry around our necks with our pit pass that tells us where we need to be at what time. It’s exciting for me at the moment because with the reception of the motorsport world of my new role, it’s great to fulfill requests of media and, of course, give back to our sponsors and partners. Sebring. At Sebring, I didn’t get to drive during the race because our car suffered a mechanical problem very early. That was a disappointment, for sure. Not because of my own personal hope to get to physically drive the car—I’ve spent plenty of time in an RS Spyder—it was more the disappointment of starting the championship without getting any points on the board, not only starting with a zero but because Sebring pays more points than a normal race that made it sting a little bit more. But I’ve learned that with the highs and lows of motorsport you can’t let your emotion or confidence be affected by outcome. It has to be based on your own personal performance during the week. Things outside of your control, such as a small mechanical failure—the adversity of racing—I’ve trained myself to not let that affect my emotional state. So although it was disappointing, it was something that I’ve felt before, though very rarely in my career with Porsche. But it is something that I’ve faced. It’s not fun to not finish, but I don’t feel like I’m any further behind the eight ball without getting the time at Sebring. I’ve done the 12 hours of Sebring before and I was plenty comfortable in the car before the race started. St. Petersburg. There was more unknown for me at St. Pete than there was at Sebring because I hadn’t been on a temporary street course with the RS Spyder. How it would be being the overtaking car on a tight temporary circuit? I’d never driven the track and I knew that there were only two times that the car was going to be on the track before we’d be into qualifying and the race. So that was a wild one; it played on my consciousness for a while, but after the first session at eight in the morning of the first day of the weekend, when I got out of the race car I knew that we were in it. I had a good feeling going into the weekend and when I got out of the race car after only a limited number of laps, I knew that I had what it was going to take to not only get through the weekend but to do my best to put my own effort into getting that car as close to the top step of the podium as possible. And, of course, the Penske team had a great day, winning the LMP2 class and Sascha and I came home third.
Then it's off to Long Beach, about an hour south of home. The weekend starts with a track walk and pre-race preparation, meetings with the engineers, strategy discussions on qualifying and racing and our set up. Sascha and I spend the majority of the weekend together and we are working hard and discussing the race all through the down time. Whether it’s getting lunch at the track or dinner away from the track, we’re talking about the variables of the race—the car setup, how we think we can move forward, and so it’s so important to have that relationship with a teammate. I’ve been like that since I started in endurance racing and luckily my teammates have felt the same, so we really share a bond. You have to know your teammate well; you need to have that open communication and comfort to tell it how it is and to always be on the same page. And it’s almost to the point of knowing what your teammate is thinking before he even says it. Sascha and I are as close in driving style as anybody I’ve ever driven with in my career. We like the same kind of setup and have a similar driving style. Some guys drive the car with the rear end hanging out, some guys carry lots of rolling speed through the corner, and there’s a lot of compromising in set up and how you drive a car. Working with Sascha has required the least amount of adjustment I’ve ever needed to make with a full time teammate and that’s great. We think a lot alike—how we attack a weekend, a stint, qualifying and all the rest of it and that helps a lot. But where we’re different is that Sascha has a lot to offer me in his experience as a top flight professional racing driver. He’s been at this game for a while and he’s got tremendous success both with Porsche and in his previous career, as well as being one of the most winning drivers in the ALMS history. He leads a lot by example but he also takes the time to stop and say, hey, this is something I thought about last night or this is something I found on the data—and that’s the ultimate teammate you want. There are teammates out there that don’t have enough inner security and their number one objective is to first demoralize the person that’s sharing the same equipment with them. That’s the furthest thing from what Sascha is and I’d like to think that I’m the same way. So far it’s only been two races and it’s been a great experience and I can see that our bond and the relationship with our engineers is only going to get stronger as the year goes on. We’re in a little bit of a hole in the championship based on the first two races. We’re up against our teammates and the rest of a really competitive field with the Dyson cars and the Acura contingent, but I always rooted for the underdog when I was a little kid and, without overstating it, that’s where we’re are at the moment. We’ve got to attack the rest of the season, go for wins and forget about all the rest of it.
|
Looking back on the season, I see it as having been a tremendous opportunity—just so much knowledge and insight and wisdom that I was able to put in my toolbox, running in the company of the drivers and all the team members in the RS Spyder program with Penske and DHL. Certainly the objective always was to win races but I learned that this business is more a team sport than some people might think, me included. Because of that I feel like I am so much more experienced and a stronger driver. I can’t remember learning this much in any given time frame of my career. So I am very happy to have had the opportunity—it has been a great, great experience.
Petit Le Mans. Petit was the ideal weekend. To lock out the podium—not only to lock out qualifying one-two-three but to emulate that in the race,was in my eyes defying odds with the competition that’s been in LMP2 this year. With that, the team and driver championship are locked up and that was mission accomplished for us. I think it was a brilliant race by every member of the team from Porsche and Penske. To completely dominate the podium in such a competitive year—we couldn’t ask for much more. Locking up the championship for Romain and Timo was fantastic, too. 
Earlier, I had started the race and all went well in my stint. Everything went to plan; I got a solid start and kept it clean for the first hour and a half. Mosport is an insanely quick circuit, which makes passing tough in the prototypes. I was able to snooker the De Ferran car on the start and then hold off the quicker LMP1 field cars… all in all, mission accomplished. I turned the controls over to Sascha and then followed the race as closely as I could. During the race we have a closed circuit intercom system that runs between all our #6 guys so we are able to hear one another on an open mike. It’s amazing the communication between the strategist, whether that’s Roger or John Erickson, our team manager, and our key players who are our assistant engineers. They’re the real fuel mileage and number calculation guys— John and Robbie—and they’re the real background support who really do a tremendous number of high stress, lightning fast calculations… talk about pressure! They can tell the strategist what to tell the driver over the radio about how it’s going to play out. And I’m a third factor, a kind of wild card factor, as the driver who’s not in the car, who can relate to what the active driver wants to know, when and how much information over the radio. It’s a great experience for me to be so active in how the race plays out whereas in previous programs I’ve just sort of stepped out of the car and done my best to rehydrate myself and cheer my teammate on. It’s fun to be a different part of the team—certainly I have a very minimal role there, speaking only when spoken to, but it’s great to follow along and be a part of it when needed.
then we’ve crossed paths in Germany and again when he came stateside in 2005. We raced the Rolex 24 together and we’ve always kept in close contact and, of course, we’ve both raced for Penske the last couple of years. We shared a car at Sebring this season also. We’re sized very similarly and we know how to work together, so it was a pretty seamless transition, but it was bittersweet in that everything that I had done this year was with Sascha and it was a tough adjustment there.
Most of the competition is here and will be running both today and tomorrow like we are and there are a few including Audi that will run just tomorrow. There is a gap of a couple of days and then we’re into the official program which starts Friday. Toronto’s not a bad place to have to kill a couple of days. Sascha and I enjoy the city a lot and we look forward to a couple of days between the promoter test day and the race weekend to enjoy the diverse culture and cuisine and do a few media events with the local Porsche dealers and also an annual Hugo Boss dinner. 
We had a positive week from the time we hit the track; the car was great to drive and we steadily improved the handling. Qualifying was a great experience and a struggle all in one. It was great to lead for most of the session but we just missed the window and put too much air pressure in, so we weren’t able to push for time at the end of the session and two Acuras just nicked us right at the end. Still, it was great to be toward the sharp end of the grid and we knew that we had a good race car.
corporate event for Synergy Racing and Bank of America with a great group of passionate fellow Porsche owners. It was just a great day of fun out on the track. On Tuesday I was scheduled for an afternoon talk on safety versus performance at the Heritage and Historic Display. The first thing I noticed was the huge collection of amazing cars. It was a challenge to stay focused on my job at hand—I was tempted to just walk around and check out the incredible collection of Porsches. Quickly I realized that there was quite a turnout of fellow enthusiasts and I had to get my head in the game. The one hour discussion and Q & A session was epic to say the least and turned into a terrific afternoon of give and take with fellow PCA members. 
Le Mans. Le Mans was tough. I think it was the greatest example of the highs and lows of motorsport. I knew what to expect after having four consecutive finishes with two of those being wins and another one being a podium, so it was a hard one to accept the final results this year. In hind sight, though, the whole month was just an excellent experience. It was really exciting to be back again with the IMSA guys for a second year, knowing everybody that much better. It went pretty smoothly and to lead the charge and put in that pole position lap and the lap record was really sweet. Being able to let that soak in during the Friday break before the race started on Saturday afternoon was different from most races where you go from qualifying straight into the race. It was great.
There are a couple of elements to the start of the 24 hours of Le Mans. Qualifying up front, besides bragging rights, is really about staying out of trouble and the further you are up on the grid, the less danger you have of cars with problems ahead of you or less experienced drivers affecting you. But also there’s the need to get through that traffic, after I knew I was going to start last, so that I could get up into the clean air with the top three runners. In the beginning of the race, you have no traffic, because everybody is running on clear track. You don’t have the classes running amongst each other. So it’s really about pushing hard in that first hour because that’s the only time you have clear track to put in really quick laps and to really establish where you settle into your first quarter of the race. So first and foremost it was all about getting through cleanly and protecting the car, but once we got stretched out after the first lap, I just started working at picking off competitors one by one, getting firmly up into the top three as quickly as possible and did my best to keep within striking distance. 
Acura opposition who have been our main focus this year. You throw a couple of Audis and an Intersport car into the mix and you’ve got ten cars that realistically can win the race. That’s a lot of positive energy amongst the whole ALMS paddock and especially in the LMP2 class. In saying that, we started a little bit behind the eight ball at the beginning of the week from a pace standpoint. The Acuras had been there testing as recently as early that week and we felt that we had quite a bit of work to do after the first day of testing. 
My stint. We’d fallen down I believe to tenth place through the opening half of the race, so I knew that I had my work cut out for me when I got in the car, but I also knew that Penske had a perfectly planned strategy up their sleeve on fuel mileage. I spent the first half of the race listening on the radio to our guys, my engineers and Roger, who is really our main strategist. I was listening in to them and hearing, “We’re looking good. When Patrick gets in the car we’re going to be able to make it to the end.” I knew and so did my engineering staff that there were quite a few cars that weren’t good to go to the end, but we were because of when we decided to take on fuel early in the race. We had a long term view on the race and I think that’s a big advantage in running with the Penske team because they are always looking to the end of the race. It’s not so much about leading the first laps or being the leader at halfway or any of that; it’s all about how this is all going to pan out and where we’re going to capitalize and outsmart the competition. 
It’s a great feeling to have such confidence in your team that all you need to worry about is getting in and driving to your absolute limit. You look at the time sheets and you look at the fastest laps you’d see that we weren’t dominant over one lap, but we were the best team of the day. It’s very rewarding when you beat people through teamwork, through perseverance, through everything clicking from the strategy to the pit stops to the drivers. That’s how you win championships and that’s a really good indication of who I’m working with and how professional they are. The #66 Acura car might have been the quickest car of the day, but they finished third and that’s indicative of the ultra competitive nature of LMP2 right now. In saying that, we don’t know how fast we could have gone if we’d needed to. We were playing a chess game out there and it wasn’t about flexing our muscle or taking unneeded risks in traffic, so there was a little bit left on the table if we needed it but we were watching the other cars and seeing what they were doing and just tried to play it smart. I think that’s the perfect race. 
getting to drive at Sebring. Although St. Pete was an interesting race for us to come from behind, starting up front at Long Beach and taking the lead from Turn One and leading for my whole stint was a great booster for my confidence and team morale for the #6 car. Long Beach was certainly a fight with Lucas Luhr’s Audi and my teammate Timo’s RS Spyder. The Acuras were there looming in the background too. 
It was great to go side by side through the corner and have a Penske one-two coming out of Turn One. It was great to run up front and to learn how to navigate through the traffic. I find that as you are the first car to come up through the slower GT cars, you really set the tone. It is a bit of a surprise for them when you get to them so quickly and after that they’re more aware of what’s behind them. But as the first guy coming up, you always have to take that extra little bit of care that they see you. At the same time, with the Audi breathing down our necks, we had to be very strategic in how we got through the traffic, somehow make holes that aren’t always apparent and then try to run from them through the infield. In the end, the first priority was to stay ahead of the Acura contingent and to bring the car home to Sascha in one piece. It felt great to lead overall, but that wasn’t my primary objective. Don’t get me wrong, it was great to lead, but the racer in me wants to lead and win every race. 
In between my travels to Salt Lake, it’s just been a lot of fitness training—out on the kayak a lot as the weather is really nice down here. We go out for a one hour kayak run up the coast at a moderate pace to train body core stability. Practicing keeping a stable core while paddling up the Intercoastal into Tampa Bay is good training for being in the racecar and stabilizing your core against the g-forces. 
aim to be well rested and to have your body clock pretty adjusted to the wild hours of Le Mans. It’s a sleep and work combination that is unique.
Some might imagine that puts extra pressure on a driver, but to me, driving for an organization that’s as professional and prepared as they are can be as pressure releasing as it can be pressure creating. You know that every single detail has been looked at, from the preparation of the car to the way that the team operates. That means that as a driver you are expected to perform and rarely will the successes be altered by team mistakes. And where it takes the pressure off is that you know you’re sitting in the best race car on the grid so you’re not asked to over-compensate or drive outside of your talents because you’ve got such a great team on your side and such an amazing car that’s been built and prepped by Porsche and Penske. 
Teamwork. Between now and Long Beach, I’ll fly to Salt Lake City for pre-testing for the upcoming Salt Lake race. So Monday I’ll be all day in the race car with Sascha—two of us take over the testing duties in the private tests. I’m the majority of the 50 percent of drivers for most of the tests because I’m the rookie in the team. So we’ll go from one day in Salt Lake and then we’ll travel to California where Sascha and I will meet up with Jörg Bergmeister. Jörg has been my teammate for the last few years and Sascha is my new teammate and Jörg and Sascha are close friends. All three of us are going to meet up in my home town and do a little bit of sightseeing and I’ll show them where I was born and raised. 
Long Beach will be special because it’s in front of friends and family. I was born and raised about an hour from the track and grew up there as a go-kart kid, looking up to my heroes that raced with CART. We came off a pretty trying weekend at St. Pete and finished on the podium. With everything that we faced at the beginning of the race at St. Pete, I know that if we can get clean through the beginning of the race and qualifying, we’re going to have even a better result than a third place. In saying that, there are always a lot of unknowns in motorsport and especially on a street course, but it’s a track that I know and it’s a track I feel that I excel on and really enjoy driving. So I can’t wait. It couldn’t come soon enough and I’m looking forward to it.