Inside Team Saintéloc At The Spa 24: Part 2

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It’s race day, and in typical Spa fashion, it’s wet, very wet. The mood has shifted with the clouds and the tragic events of the Formula Regional race during the morning after an incident on the Kemmel Straight claimed the life of Dilano van ‘t Hoff.

The change in atmosphere is palpable, as everybody’s thoughts, including my own, are understandably with Dilano’s family and friends. I also cannot imagine how the family members that are here supporting other drivers are feeling. This was a stark reminder of the darker side of our sport, which is always in the back of our minds.

But the show must go on, and after the pre-race festivities are cancelled as a mark of respect, the race begins under safety car with a drying track.

All is calm in the first hour of the race. Too calm?

*****

The opening hours of the race are a lesson for me in how quickly it can all unravel for a team. Saintéloc’s Audis start far back on the grid, and their ability to fight through the field is quickly blunted, with both cars losing time early to a combination of human error and poor luck.

With track limit penalties already rolling in during the second hour, it all becomes frantic. The first sign that this race isn’t going to be plain sailing comes before the second round of stops when moments before the #25 comes in, the driver’s bottle is nowhere to be found and, crucially, is not filled with water.

There’s panic. “VITE, VITE, VITE!!” Shouts Frédéric as he and one of his crew members sprint up to the #25 car’s pit box. I follow him and catch him shaking his head as the car pulls in. It’s all fixed just in time, but this is not ideal, and it proves to be the first of a string of moments where the stress levels of everyone on the strategy desk would boil over.

After the #26’s second pit stop, I stroll out of the garage to check the sky for more rain and see what goes on in the tyre and parts marquees behind the pits during a race. But before I can stick my head into the tent piled high with fresh Pirellis, the mechanic in charge of the #26’s tyre warming tent sprints out of the back of the garage, ordering members of the public to keep out of the way.

It’s an early unscheduled stop for Erwan Bastard, who has only just been strapped in for his first stint. He comes in for a rapid change of tyres before rejoining the race. With a clap of the hands, it’s all systems go for the mechanics, who all know that at any time, they can be called into action.

A puncture is the culprit, I’m told at first. Later though, during a quiet moment with a member of the #26 crew, I find out that it was, in fact, an error at the second pit stop. One of the front tyres was fitted to the rear, and a rear tyre was mounted on the front.

It would be easy to chuckle as an observer or get angry as a member of the team, but the reality is that human errors do play a part in long races like this and they can be costly.

“Are you ok?” I ask Frédéric as he stands up from his desk and strolls out the back.

“Not really. This is crazy, but this is the race. We’ve made too many mistakes,” he admits.

We’ve made too many mistakes

It wouldn’t be the only error either, as the #25 also suffers a similar tyre-related issue at an early stop. These things happen, and I keep reminding myself of Frederic’s wise words: “You have to be accountable and move on.”

No team is immune.

*****

To make matters worse for the #25 crew, in a bid to vault the car up the order, the team opts to pit the car early for an undercut. But a full-course yellow is called out moments later. This costs the car a lap when the Pro cars ahead dive into the pits while the #25 is forced to trundle around with its speed limited.

Can this get any worse, I think, as I watch over the strategy desk?

After five hours, I study the timing screens. At the top, it’s an Audi 1-2, meanwhile, Saintéloc’s Pro car is a lap down and the #26 is ninth in the Silver Cup.

Clearly, the answer is ‘yes’.

Frédéric steps away from his desk once more and removes his headset—more bad news. “The car balance on the #25 is off when the track is fully green. We are out of the performance window and, therefore, out of the game. We will have to hope things change when the track rubbers in,” he explains.

Surely they can make some sort of adjustments to the car’s set-up? There must be options, right?

“We’d have to come in for a technical stop, which would cost further time.” Ah.

The team has been here before though. In 2017 it won from two laps down.

“Early in the race, we had issues, and everyone from Audi came in to shake our hands and thank us,” I recall Frédéric telling me earlier in the week. “They thought we were out of it. Then through the night, we fought back and took the lead in the morning.

“I remember turning around close to the end of the race and noticing that the back of the garage was filled with Audi staff, who all looked shocked. ‘How the **** have you done this?’ They asked me.”

Right now, though, all Frédéric can do is ask the drivers to make tweaks to the traction control and ABS settings in the car while they chase the race and work tirelessly to find any opportunity to gain that lap back.

Any decisions like that, plus details on strategy, are reported to Audi Mission Control via the radio, so the staff upstairs can monitor how the race is panning out and chip in with suggestions. It’s a full-time job managing the radio communication between the pit box and Audi’s support staff.

*****

It’s not as full-on a task as monitoring the group chats between teams and SRO though, I come to learn.

Frédéric passed me his phone early in the week to let me see the group chats between teams. There are three to keep tabs on during the build-up and the 24 hours itself: one for general queries, one for track limits and one for timekeeping.

How on earth do the teams cope with this? That’s my first thought. Surely, you must need someone permanently glued to these threads because they are pinging all the time?

The more I read and the more I observe Frédéric trying to keep on top of it all, it seems to me like more of a source of stress and frustration, rather than assistance. This is especially the case during the race, when the team managers become more tired and short-tempered.

Without naming anyone, it was interesting to see how many teams thought it was an appropriate space to lobby the stewards about penalties, order backmakers to stop blocking their front-running cars and in general, complain about track limits.

Some teams come across as reasonable and polite, others barbed and short-fused. Some threads are constructive; others descend into full-blown arguments, with lashings of sarcasm and aggression.

“In French, we have an expression to describe these chats,” Frédéric tells me.

“Oh yeah? What’s that in English?”

“Toilet paper.” He chuckles.

*****

Going into the race, I had no idea the teams spent so much time communicating with one another. I also had no idea that Audi Sport boss Chris Reinke keeps an open dialogue with other customer racing heads during the race.

With the night hours underway, the Saintéloc garage is beginning to get quieter. Friends and family have departed and the mechanics are falling asleep between stints, but the strategy desk is still a hive of activity.

I get a tap on the shoulder. It’s Chris, who has spent the whole race so far moving between garages, checking in on his teams.

He’s generous with his time as we watch a safety car period play out. Our chat is wide-ranging and I try to get a feel for his role during the race. In addition to ensuring each team is calm and operating well as a unit, he also takes messages from other teams.

“This is normal,” he explains. “When the #63 (Lamborghini) came in for mechanical work earlier, I immediately left them a message asking what was wrong. They told me, and when they ask me what was up with my cars, I tell them.

“It’s about respect. We all respect each other, and it’s not about showing off. I feel sorry for the other teams when it goes wrong. They’re all friends, and I know how hard it can be.”

The conversation is cut short by a request from another garage. As he dashes off into the night I’m in awe of his stamina. He’s so engaged with the race and cares so much about the success of his teams. You could be fooled into thinking some of them are members of his actual family the way he talks about them.

The night hours at Spa prove to be chaotic; a multitude of incidents sees the bottom of the timing become a virtual graveyard, littered with retired cars.

Thankfully, both of Saintéloc’s Audis emerge unscathed as the sun rises and the end of the race closes in. Frustratingly though, the #25 has been unable to get back onto the lead lap and the #26’s hopes of a class win look slim.

*****

Sunday lunchtime is upon us, and there are only a handful of hours left. It’s at this point it dawns on me how isolated you feel in a garage at a race like this.

I have no real sense of what’s going on at the head of the field, I can’t tell you how many fans are in the stands, and I haven’t been taking any notice of the constant stream of rival cars passing the garage on their way to pit-out. The point is, I’m not properly involved and still find myself fully immersed on the Saintéloc R8s and their story.

There’s a brief moment where the strategists cheer with just under five hours to go; the #26 has finally climbed onto the bottom of the first timing screen. It’s the little victories that count at this point.

As the #25 battles for a place in the top 20, the focus in the garage shifts to delivering a podium for the Silver Cup crew, who are in with a chance now as a car in the top three drops back with a trip to the garage. To my surprise, team owner Sébastien Chetail offers me the chance to take a seat at his desk for the run to the flag.

“It’s your turn, Frédéric has had to put up with me for over 23 hours,” he jokes as he steps away.

This gives me a real sense of the intensity involved in getting a car home. Everyone is shattered but soldiering on, still totally focused on the bank of screens, agonising over every potential outcome.

Everyone is shattered but soldiering on, still totally focused on the bank of screens, agonising over every potential outcome

By this point, Frédéric has resorted to eating sugar straight from a sachet to stay alert. I remember asking him earlier in the week just how hard it is to go without sleep during the race.

“It’s like being at a discotheque,” he described. “If the music is good, you don’t realise the time, and all of a sudden, it’s 6 am. If the music is bad, you can’t wait to leave and need a lot of coffee to stay awake.”

*****

Lucky for the team, the music is good, and it’s going down to the wire. The #26 is on its final warning for track limits as the final hour begins but is up to third. Another 30-second penalty could throw a set of trophies away, as the car sitting fourth is just 33 seconds behind. It’s down to the driver behind the wheel now to keep it clean and bring it home.

In the end, it’s the chasing #56 Dinamic Porsche that gets penalised in the run to the chequered flag, and a sigh of relief travels through the garage. It’s almost over.

We hear a cheer next door as the Tresor Orange 1 Audi crew completes its final stop. The finish is in sight. This means my time with the team is coming to an end too, so I soak up the ambience as it becomes clearer that we’ll all be heading to the podium celebrations after the race.

The garage erupts as the #26 crosses the line. It’s a fighting third in the Silver Cup for the car, and after 529 laps, 30th overall. The Pro crew don’t end up with the outcome they planned for, but 16th overall is enough to warrant celebrations. Everyone is shaking hands and hugging, even I get some emotional embraces from mechanics and drivers.

With the race over and the surviving cars lined up in Parc fermé, we head to the fan village to see the Silver Cup podium. Erwan Bastard, Paul Evrard, Gregoire Demoustier, and Antoine Doquin are cheered onto the podium by the team and the hordes of fans present for the post-race celebrations. They deserved this one, the team did too.

As I arrive back at the garage, the crew members that didn’t make it to the podium are already dismantling everything. They’ve been up 30 hours, and there’s still the not-so-small task of packing up four garages ready for departure tonight. Do these guys ever stop?

It’s time to say my goodbyes to Frédéric, Sébastien and as many members of the team as I can find. At this point, they look borderline delirious after such a long week. I thank them for their hospitality and head back to the Audi support truck.

It’s that point of a 24-hour race where you are passed the point of questioning why we do this in the first place. It’s time to start thinking about the next one. For Saintéloc, and after a BMW overall win, Audi too, there is unfinished business after another gruelling contest.

This experience has given me a small taste of glory, and I leave the circuit wanting more. I have a newfound understanding of what people mean when refer to racing as an ‘addiction’.

“Just what was it like in here the year you won it?” I ask Frédéric as I shake his hand a final time.

“You really cannot imagine…”

Images courtesy of Audi