Olli Caldwell and his teammates were back in action this weekend for third round of the European Le Mans Series at Motorland Aragon (Spain). In a supreme showing of raw pace across the weekend, the team were in with a promise of a strong points scoring finish until they were dealt a tough blow when racing got underway.
Making it’s first appearance on the calendar to host a thrilling ‘night race’ from dusk to twilight, the Aragon circuit features a mixture of long sweeping corners and slow tighter turns and noticeable 50 metre change in elevation. Olli was eager to get to work after the summer break.
The heat is on
With the summer heat baking the track to a blistering 55 degrees and inside the car reaching temperatures of 49 degrees Celsius on Thursday afternoon, it certainly added an additional element of endurance to the drivers when they completed their opening test day. Dealing with the added pressure the Inter Europol Competition squad managed to run through their run plans and complete their set-up tweaks ahead of the official practice sessions.
In a change to the regular schedule, the second practice session held on Friday evening was the only chance that the field had to get to grips with race conditions as it took place as darkness loomed over the track. Olli was the first to climb aboard the #43 Oreca-Gibson for the 1.5 hour session, pulling on his gloves ready to extract the most out of their LMP2 machinery.
Olli takes the reins
Out on track as the sun began to set over the spectacular Spanish countryside, soon enough Olli was the fastest car on track as he posted a sensational 1m48.316 lap, a time which proved to be enough to top the session. The Alpine Academy driver setting a lap faster than the best time set in FP1 and 0.143s adrift of his nearest rivals.
With confidence in the car, Olli reflected on his efforts:
“The car felt great and we were all able to get some good running in practice. It feels good to be the fastest on track. However the weather is very different for quali and the race, it’ll be much cooler and more overcast so we’ll have to see what happens.”
Jumping into the car on Saturday morning ahead of a bumper day of action, Olli took charge for qualifying. Following a slight squirm from cold tyres on his outlap, the British driver returned to the pits for fresh tyres, but unfortunately an early red flag halted any progress in the session as the #25 car stopped on track.
The session restarted with 11 minutes left to run, a new set of tyres bolted onto the #43 machine, the team opted to wait for a gap in the session to take their chances. Firing out of the pits with 6 minutes left of the session Olli got straight to work, looking to capitalise on his pace from the practice sessions. But with rain having cleaned the track it was unclear how the car would perform in the changed conditions.
After putting in an initial banker lap, Olli was fired up late into the session as he improved to 5th fastest. With the final laps beginning to trickle in the field were frantically fighting for the top spot, but margins proved to be narrow as some lap times were deleted for track limits. Olli put the hammer down and kept the car under control, improving his performance in each sector to seal 4th on the timing screen. However the #43 squad were soon boosted to P3 start position after a pole lap was deleted for track limits.
“Quali was super tight! The track improved massively with cooler temps but unfortunately our setup was not perfect and I was conscious to keep it safe inside track limits. I still managed a good lap and to put us in a good position to start from.
The race looks like it will have some changeable conditions. Hopefully Rui (Andrade) can get a good start and then will be trying to stay out of trouble to earn good points”
Torment strikes the trio
With qualifying only taking place that morning, it was soon time to take to the pre-grid ahead of the 4 hour race. Handing over starting honours to teammate Rui Andrade, Olli watched on from the garage as the pack stormed around the 5.344 km track ahead of the race start at 6pm local time.
Keeping a clean start, Rui maintained their 3rd place on the road and kept enough momentum to be in the charging lead pack whilst their rivals battled behind.
Running well in the opening stages, the team opted to box early for a short fuel stop in an alternate strategy to those ahead. Their gamble seemed to be pay off during Rui’s second stint as he made the leap to P2 and was chasing in the slipstream of the leader.
Olli readied himself in the garage to jump aboard for his stint as the race reached Lap 30, but in a terrible twist of misfortune his moment never materialised. As Rui was sent spinning into the barrier on Lap 32 by the #50 GT car who had blindly collided with the Inter Europol car as they neglected to see the green and yellow machine alongside them. A passenger to the incident, Rui fought to return the damaged Oreca back to the garage, but rear suspension damage brought a premature end to their race.
The team will be looking for better fortune in the next round of the European Le Mans Series which takes place next month at Spa-Francorchamps.
Olli Caldwell next heads to Fuji Speedway for what will be his first time racing in Japan, in the penultimate round of the FIA World Endurance Championship on 8-10th September.