Motorbase Performance in anger: A weekend with the team

The Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship is one of the highest-profile touring car series in the world. This year, the grid boasts more than 30 cars per weekend, with some of the best names in the history of the championship now back in the new NGTC cars. TouringCarTimes went behind the scenes of the Silverstone event with Motorbase Performance, to understand and explain the work done by the teams which allows the fans to see exciting on-track activity.

One of the biggest news ahead of this season was the return of two former champions in Swiss Alain Menu, a race winner in the World Touring Car Championship and now driving a Volkswagen CC for team BMR, and Fabrizio Giovanardi, who won the championship twice with Vauxhall and now drives a Ford Focus for Motorbase Performance, who compete under the Airwaves Racing banner.

The team actually runs three cars, with Giovanardi partnered by Mat Jackson, a veteran in the team as the Brit is now in his fifth season with Motorbase, and Jack Clarke, a 25-year-old former Formula 2 racer. The latter races under the Crabbie’s Racing banner, but the car is obviously run by Motorbase Performance as well, making it a three-car team.

The weekend starts on Friday for teams and drivers, as they meet up at the track and have a technical meeting before the racing starts. Sitting at a table in a room in one of the team’s trucks will be all the engineers and the drivers, although they may not do it at the same time. The Silverstone meeting was particularly important, as the Rockingham event had been generally positive for the team, and more testing carried out during the week proved to be important for the outcome of the weekend.

During the meeting, all three engineers go deep into the details of what the set up of the cars is going to be like. The driver is aware of everything going on with his car, so he knows the direction in which the team is going and is able to give a more precise and detailed feedback. As a result, the drivers feel ready for the challenge of the weekend, and more secure on a technical level, as well as keeping the whole team close, which is not easy with a three-car effort such as Motorbase are putting in the 2014 championship.

David Bartrum is the team owner. He has been in the business for over 25 years in different guises and set up the Motorbase Performance team in 2004. Despite a new name and a new activity, Bartrum was able to keep most of his well-trusted mechanics. “I have known these people for so many years,” said Bartrum. “I feel this is the right way to run a team. There is no magic formula to do it well. My attitude is to keep the team like a family. Although some of the mechanics are freelance and only work with us during racing weekends, everybody knows each other pretty well. What I like to do, apart from looking for the professional level required, is trying to bring in people who have the same view on the sport as we do. It is obviously a business, but it’s run with passion and dedication. Those who are not fit for our mentality will stand out as ‘different’, which will lead them to leaving the team, so we only keep mechanics and engineers who share our philosophy.”

The racing weekend actually starts at breakfast on Saturday morning. Bartrum will call for the attention of the whole crew and do a brief speech, telling the drivers about their off-track duties as well as reminding the timetable. At Silverstone he introduced four ‘special guests’ -three extra mechanics from the National College for MotorSport were greeted by the team, as the Northamptonshire track hosts a number of motorsport education institutes. The other person introduced by Bartrum was… me! It was a very nice move from the team owner, as the whole crew knew who I was and why I would be in the garage asking questions. The boys seemed happy to have me on board, and I was treated like one of them straight away.

Shortly after that, though, it was time for the serious business, the first Free Practice session. The level of the field is very high in the BTCC, particularly this year as more teams and drivers entered the championship, making it even more competitive. The nature of the layout of the track, which is very short, makes the gaps in qualifying particularly close. This situation set the standards to a higher level, and professionalism is the order of the day. The first thing to do on a BTCC weekend is scrubbing the tyres. With a limited number of tyres, as well as carrying some used in previous events, it is very important to have the material ready for use. Everyone is on the edge all the time, this is as much as the BTCC requires to compete at the front.

Scrubbing can take up to 20 minutes, but it is vital. After having done the job, the drivers can start pushing and looking for performances. At the end of the session Jackson made it into the top ten with P8, Clarke came 14th, whereas Giovanardi elected to stop after 11 laps due to differential issues. The loss of track activity was a hard hit for the Italian.

In Free Practice 2 the situation did not change much for the double BTCC Champion, who ended up 20th with a huge oversteer issue. Mat Jackson came closer to the top by claiming fifth, while Jack Clarke was 18th for Crabbie’s Racing. After each session, all three drivers and engineers will sit at the table in the truck and talk about the issues encountered during the activities on track. As a result, each driver knows what his team-mate is doing. At Motorbase, Jackson and Clarke have a completely different driving style – and therefore setup needs – compared to Giovanardi, who also brakes with his right foot, whereas the other two are used to left-foot braking. The job is inevitably more difficult for the Italian and his crew, because a lot of things that work for the other two drivers may not be to Giovanardi’s liking.

The team therefore took different directions for each driver for qualifying. Jackson continued his strong results by claiming fourth, as little as 0.091s off the pace. Clarke had a lap time disallowed for having exceeded the track limits, but was still able to grab 12th place on the grid. A difficult weekend continued for Giovanardi, who finished the session in 19th and even spun trying to force the limits of the car.

 An interesting feature seen during qualifying is the X-pattern switch used to warm the tyres up. With warming blankets not allowed in the BTCC, it is essential to have warm tyres all around the car. With almost all of the corners turning to the right at Silverstone, the teams fit the tyre designed to be the front left – the one which receives more stress – on the right rear to start with. The driver warms the tyres up on track, then returns to the pits where the crew switch tyres according to an X pattern, meaning that the front left tyre will go to the right rear and vice versa. This procedure allows all of the tyres to be at the right temperature when performance is needed out of them.

Back to the moments just after qualifying, the atmosphere was not tense at all. A good performance from Jackson and Clarke brought smiles on the faces, but there were concerns over Giovanardi, who had also spun during the session. The Italian was struggling to understand the behaviour of the car, which he felt was oversteering and, above all, quite unpredictable. Setup changes made between the last Free Practice session and Qualifying even took some traction away from the #7 Ford Focus, leaving the driver with a lack of traction on the front end and a very “nervous” and snappy rear.

The obvious fact was that the setup used by Jackson and Clarke did not work for Giovanardi’s driving style. The Italian does not like oversteer at all, and this is the complete opposite of what Mat Jackson does. The Brit likes a very free rear end, which meant that the setup they had was perfect for him, which showed in the results.

Giovanardi decided for some setup changes which would make the car more similar to what he had at Rockingham, which turned out to be good in the first race.

The Italian is obviously very competitive and does not like to struggle, so the result did get in the way of his morale. For a while. Giovanardi is able to put things in perspective quite quickly, though, and this allows him to focus on the job he has to do. Once qualifying was finished, the driver spent a lot of time analysing the data from his team-mates and comparing them with his own, which enabled him and the team to understand the issues to be solved.

Race 1 turned out to be much better in fact, as the Italian made up for seven places to come 12th, overtaking team-mate Jack Clarke in the process. The team was in a good mood however, as Jackson made it on the podium from fourth. With an encouraging performance from Giovanardi, who seemed to have found a setup which suited him, and Jackson’s podium, everyone in the team was smiling.

Jack Clarke was particularly tired after the first race. The Brit was litterally steaming after the race, which led to some hilarious moments in the truck as Jack waited for the adrenaline to drop a little. He came 13th, just behind Giovanardi, and fought hard with the likes of Gordon Shedden, Matt Neal and Andrew Jordan, plus his team-mate Giovanardi, which left him satisfied after the race.

Before going on to the second race, there is a matter which deserves to be explored, and that is the guests and hospitality team at Motorbase. Silverstone is obviously a very popular venue, not only for the regular fans but for the guests as well. As a result, the team had more than 80 guests to take care of on race day.

With the drivers in full focus on the racing side, it is vital that the hospitality team takes care of the guests, allowing the drivers to keep them happy by signing autographs, taking pictures or having a chat with them, while leaving enough time to focus on the racing. It is not as easy as it seems: all guests are taken to a garage tour, they are shown around the car and I’ve seen how much they love it. The amount of work behind it is huge though, from catering to a very precise and tight schedule to leave all the guests happy and at the same time allowing them to enjoy the weekend without getting in the way of the team’s duties.

Back to the second race of the day, all three drivers had elected to use soft tyres. This was a reason to worry for the team, because the drivers who used that compound in Race 1 had dramatically dropped in performance. The engineers decided for some changes, but with the different solutions for each car used to suit the different driving styles, it was quite difficult and there was a major concern over tyres ruining the chances of a good result in Race 2, as well as jeopardizing the chances for Race 3 if things didn’t go as planned.

Race 2 was actually quite tricky for Jackson, who had to fight against his car and defend from the charging Aron Smith in his Volkswagen CC. The Brit came a good fourth, but the protagonist in the garage was definitely Giovanardi. The soft tyres worked very well on the Italian’s Focus, and after a cautious start and the first few laps spent saving the tyres, the double BTCC champion decided it was time to go flat out, which he did. From 12th on the grid, the Italian went up to sixth, but his last overtaking move on MG’s Sam Tordoff proved to be useless as West Surrey Racing’s Rob Collard had a shocking crash, which also involved Jack Clarke.

The Ford was sliding on the track after having made contact with the Honda Civic Tourer driven by Gordon Shedden, and Collard tried to avoid Clarke and pass him. Unfortunately the Focus was not under control due to the contact, and the car slid to the right just when Collard was passing. The accident was unlucky as much as it was scary, as the BMW 1 Series started rolling. Collard emerged bruised from the accident, but was substantially okay. He was airlifted to hospital for further checks, but it was good to see how safe the NGTC cars are.

As the team started fixing Clarke’s car, whose front right was quite damaged, there was a reason to celebrate in the garage. Jack had been classified tenth, as the red flag caused by his own accident brought the standings back by one lap, leaving the Brit the last possible pole sitter for Race 3 and the designated person to draw the number which would have decided the Race 3 grid.

Jack took the #7 ball, which meant Giovanardi was on pole position for the race. The team celebrated as I went personally in the truck to announce the driver he was on pole. He looked happy and gave Bartrum five when he said “this time you have to do it!”, referring to the bad luck the Italian suffered when he started twice from pole this year, once suffering from a mechanical failure at Thruxton – which did not stop him from taking a podium finish – and being forced out of the race after a contact with Honda’s Andrew Jordan at Croft.

Unfortunately for the Italian, the third race of the day in Silverstone would not be an exception. The car went back to what it was in qualifying, which made it very difficult to drive for the Italian. An engine failure for Sam Tordoff right on the grid meant the race was not started until the oil left by the MG was be cleared. At the start Giovanardi retained the lead, but lost it very soon to team-mate Jackson as the Safety Car came out. The Brit was so narrowly ahead that Giovanardi actually thought he was ahead, and they were ordered to switch positions under Safety Car.

Jackson made the most out of the restart, as Giovanardi was tapped from behind by Smith at the last corner. The incident meant championship leader Colin Turkington passed Smith before the line, which imposed the BMW driver to let the Volkswagen through again. Smith soon overtook Giovanardi, which triggered a very entertaining duel between the Italian and Turkington. This lasted almost through the whole race, as Giovanardi pulled out a spectacular defensive drive against a very quick opponent.

The dream of having two Motorbase drivers on the podium faded when one of the classic BTCC laps unfolded towards the end of the race. Turkington passed Giovanardi into Brooklands, but the Italian managed to get back in front of the BMW into Luffield. At Copse, however, Alain Menu passed them both, leaving all three drivers to occupy the track side by side into Becketts.

Giovanardi went a bit wide and Turkington was on the inside, while Menu elected to stay out of trouble. All three drivers had made very clean moves in the corner, but Jason Plato tapped the BMW from behind and the championship leader cannoned straight into the Ford Focus, leaving Giovanardi down in eleventh with just a handful of laps to go.

The team celebrated Jackson, whose dominant win confirmed the strength of the Focus at Silverstone. In spite of the damages picked up in Race 2, Clarke finished 13th, which was a bit disappointing for him as he felt he could have done more. Giovanardi was instead left thinking about what could have been as he got out of his damaged Focus.

After the race, there is not much time left to spend at the track. What is impressive is how dedicated the mechanics are. All three drivers wouldn’t leave the track until they thanked the crew and management of the team, which is not something you always get. It shows how much of a family the team has become for these people. Back to Giovanardi’s weekend, the Italian was philosophical about the result, although he was left thinking he has a kind of “pole position curse”, as he was hit by bad luck all three times he was on pole this year.

Away from the track, it was great to see that the mechanics like to hang out together. The hotel receptionists grew to liking them despite the noise, and I felt treated like a team member myself. I talked for hours to the mechanics, the sports director, even David Bartrum. Motorbase are a professional bunch of easy-going and friendly people.

The British Touring Car Championship is a very high profile championship and has a huge fan base, which comes from the spectacular racing we see on track, but also from the hard work done by the people who work behind behind the scenes. We hope this insight shows how precious the work carried out by the teams is.