Speeding into Shanghai

The Shanghai International Circuit in Jiading district is best-known for hosting the Formula One (F1), an event that is seen throughout the world and is increasingly attracting Chinese fans to the roar and excitement of the top-level motor sport.

 On September 28, the circuit saw another major international event that could also start attracting a growing number of fans in China. The World Endurance Championship (WEC), organized by the International Automobile Federation, involves eight rounds of races in North America, South America, the Middle East, Asia and Europe and includes the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans. Le Mans is the world's oldest endurance sports car race and since 1923 has been held annually near the town of Le Mans in France.

For this, the last round of the year, 25 race teams and more than 100 drivers came to Shanghai. Eventually, after the grueling exciting six-hour race, the Toyota team was the first to encounter the checkered flag although Audi won the overall championship.

In Shanghai too, the only Chinese driver in the field, Cheng Congfu stood proudly on the podium alongside teammates of the Swiss Rebellion Racing team.

Ordinary and extraordinary

The races include four classes of vehicles, LMP1, LMP2, LMGTE Pro and LMGTE Am. Le Mans Prototypes (LMP) are open or closed cockpit cars developed exclusively for on-track competitions. The vehicles have a minimum weight of 900 kilograms and an engine capacity of up to 3.4 liters. Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance (LMGTE) cars have two doors, two or more seats and can be driven legally on the open road and are available for sale. The minimum weight for these vehicles is 1,250 kilograms and they have a maximum engine capacity of 5.5 liters.

Alastair Moffitt, the communications manager for Toyota motor sports, explained that all the cars are capable of hitting more than 300 kilometers per hour on a straight stretch, but have to brake to 40 kilometers per hour when making turns.

"It is a six-hour test of endurance for man and machine and how well they can collaborate," said Marty Pass, the Audi team public relations manager. He said the 24 Hours of Le Mans race on its own was the equivalent of all the 20 international rounds of the F1 championship.

Which is why many leading car manufacturers, like Porsche, Ferrari and Lotus like to get involved in the races even if they're just providing engines or technical support to other teams. Manufacturers use the races to test state-of-the-art technology that will appear in sports cars and standard vehicles later, he said.

Pass said that this year several teams had been using diesel/petrol hybrid engines that converted usually wasted energy from brakes into electricity. This fuel-efficient technology will be improved and adapted for on-the-road cars in the future.

Most of the drivers in the endurance championship are professionals, who drive other lower-level races in Europe and North America - most of these events do not last as long and involve lower-powered vehicles but the leading drivers go on to compete in the endurance series.

There are also "gentlemen drivers" - amateurs who usually own race teams and they have been driving in the LMP2 and LMGTE Am groups since the 1950s.

Though the "gentlemen drivers" have licences from professional driving schools and are certified by the International Automobile Federation, they usually spend about a sixth of the time the professionals spend in the driving seat. And they can cause some problems for the professionals in the final ranking. "But on the other hand, these people pour money in to support their team and advance the sport," Stephan Gervais, the communications manager for the Rebellion Racing team, told the Global Times.

One of these "gentlemen drivers" is Tracy Krohn, a 59-year-old entrepreneur, who never dreamed when he left high school that he would not only own a race team but drive as well. "Why not try? If you have a dream, you should work constantly to realize it," the towering American said. He hopes to keep driving until he is 80.

As a child Krohn was always fascinated by machinery and was intrigued by the roar of engines. In those days he dreamed of working on an oil rig. That was one dream that came true but was not as enjoyable as it had once appeared.

After he left high school, he was offered a job on an offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. At first it was exciting but a 14-hour boat trip to reach the rig left him feeling "tired and obnoxious."

The value of learning

Worked as a roustabout, he wore rubber clothing and spent his days cleaning waste and grease. "It made me realize the value of learning," he told the Global Times.

After six months on the rig, he cleaned up and went to study petroleum engineering at the Louisiana State University in the 1970s. After graduating he worked briefly as an engineer in offshore oil rigs and founded his own company in 1984 with a $20,000 deposit. Since then Krohn and his partner have bought offshore properties and his business flourished.

"Despite many failures, you have to be exceptionally focused and never give up," the billionaire confided in an office in his team's busy workshop. He believes in applying the same principles of running a business to racing a car.

"First you need to define your enemy, and then you come up with several mathematical solutions. You pick the best and apply it to the universe." He said he appreciated the classic work The Art of War by Sun Tzu, a Chinese military strategist from the Spring and Autumn Period (770BC-476BC) and used his strategies to tackle almost every problem he encountered in business or racing. "I call him the military engineer."

During a race, Krohn said, the worst enemy for a driver was being emotional, which quickly leads to mistakes and danger. "When I am trying to overtake the car in front of me, it is mostly possible when we are turning. If you brake later than your opponent, then you might get into the lead when you come out of the turn," he explained.

But sometimes drivers are too obsessed with winning and don't brake at the right time which can just increase the gap to the leading car or even cause the car to go out of control.

He and his team watch replays of the races and review their strategy after a race, making calculations and discussing how to best implement their tactics. The car Krohn and his two teammates drive is a green Ferrari with a customized V8 engine that provides 465 bhp, two to three times as much as an ordinary family car.

Inside the two-door sedan, there is a single seat, with rows of buttons on the steering wheel which control the accelerator, brakes and gears. The chassis is made of aluminum, carbon fiber and Kevlar and weighs 250 kilograms, around one third of an ordinary car of the same size but stronger. It has a 90-liter fuel tank. "During a race, you have no time to think, but have to respond immediately. So you have to rely very much on your experience and be very patient," Krohn said.　　

Team strategy

In a six-hour race, driving fast or hanging on the lead will not necessarily lead to triumph. Because each car has to have several pit stops during the race to change tires, refuel or swap drivers, winning is about team strategy.

In the center of Krohn Racing team's workshop stands the data center where data engineer Joshua Folet follows the race, looking at the large monitor screens that provide instant data from scores of sensors located throughout the car.

"It's all about mathematics," said Folet. He said functions, formulas and statistics not only help them to understand what was happening currently but also gave them the ability to predict what could occur in the future, which helped the team manager adjust tactics.

Folet pointed to a zigzag form on one of the screens and explained: "Normally the tire pressure goes down in line with the time until we replace a new one, but in real time when the line deviates from the expected, I know something is wrong and have to warn the manager immediately."

Team manager and race engineer David Brown said it was extremely difficult to make the right decisions with so much data pouring in constantly. Generally he focuses on tire pressure and how much fuel is left to decide how the car is running while at the same time keeping an eye on the rival cars and their positions. He lets other engineers report to him if there are other problems.

He is the man making the decisions on the pit stops - how much fuel is needed and the sort of tires that should be fitted. He delivers his orders through the team's radio channels.

Having worked with the F1 Williams team for 15 years, Brown enjoys the current racing even though his car is constantly outrun by the LMP1 and LMP2 cars which have more power. "There is just a technical gap with those teams, but our desire to win is just as strong as theirs and I enjoy beating the other cars in our class," he said.

A Chinese first

Cheng Congfu, the first Chinese driver to stand on the winner's podium, said he was proud and will battle to win a championship prize in the future. Born in 1984, the Beijing native learnt how to drive karts when he was 11. He went to high school in the UK and obtained a degree in automotive engineering from Oxford University.　

"The most difficult thing is understanding the cars and the race," he told the Global Times. He said he left China when he was young because he felt there was little he could learn here about racing. In Europe he learnt racing theory and went to training camps with peers before competing in various levels of car sports leagues. There is little of this sort of racing in China.

And Cheng said Chinese spectators were not yet educated about the skills involved. "Very few of them know what we are doing, while the majority still get excited about who is faster, or expect to see spectacular crashes," he said, pointing to the few keen fans scattered through the grandstands.

"It will take years for the sport to become popular in China and it needs to involve many different talents. It will be difficult but at least we have started with a top-class race here. My job will always be to drive to win," Cheng said.　

Toyota's Moffitt said the endurance race series was popular in Europe and the 24 Hours of Le Mans attracted the most media coverage of any race in Europe - 2,000 journalists and photographers from all over the world go to cover the race.