Following Sebring, we wrote an article looking at Action Express Racing's final couple of hours, and the fact they had the pace to win, but being off-sequence compared to the Porsches stopped them challenging for the win.
Phil Oakley
It turns out there was more than meets the eye to these final few hours, with the pitstop sequence issue not down to strategy.
Action Express's race strategist, Peter Baron, got in touch to explain more. Here's what he told us:
'It was an interesting race for us in clean air. Our car was great. We were able to lead because of circumstances. We got passed by the #7 [Porsche] for the lead with around two hours to go or something like that. Then, immediately after that, like a couple of laps later, #6 [Porsche] showed a very impressive exit out of turn 7 that had us all scratching our heads and they got by us going into [turn] 10.
'When our driver said he had a very good exit out of seven and doesn't know what happened. So then we fell back to third, right? Then we were on plan to just make it as a two stop race with two hours, 50 minutes to go in the race.
'And then if you look at all the stints, the number of stints and fuel milage. We were consistently, I would say one second to the good on pit stop time compared to the Porsches with our fuel saving, our energy saving, and we were quite good with that, with our performance.
'But then it was the next to last stop that we had an unscheduled pit stop, that forced us to pit four laps early than what we wanted to. Our intent was to run a full stint, but we had to pit four laps sooner.
'That was by no means a strategy decision. So that happened. And then the following pit stop we had an extra 10 seconds added to our stop working on a repair. So we went from third to fourth with that one.
'So then when the final yellow comes out, we're in fourth, the BMW's third. And when you look at Sebring last year, there was a late run with new tyres at the end of race that got Deletraz the win over the 01 [Cadillac] car.
'So we figured for sure the first two Porsches are staying out, but most of it, there's going to be a mix with cars behind it, whether they come in for tyres or not.
'And we just said, heck, the BMW is coming in. We'll just come in. We'll beat them. We knew we had a fuel advantage on them and anybody else that comes in, maybe it's a tyre fight to the end. You know, let's stick her up and hopefully we could salvage something to improve on our fourth place where we were at that time.
'And it turns out there were a lot of lapped cars in there that we thought maybe they'd be fighting for position on the same lap and might come in anyway. And, you know, they all stayed out.
'So we dropped back and had too many lapped cars to contend with.
'But it was alright; we came into that last pit round fourth where we stopped for tyres and we finished fourth.
'It was an unfortunate set of circumstances that caused us to go from contending to the lead. The Porsches are very good in the time that they need to be very good.
'And our performance was very consistent. Their performance peaked, I would say in the last bit of the race, and it just left it as a tough one for us.'
So, it wasn't a strategy error as we originally had thought, but an 'unspecified issue' as Baron put it. He declined to go into more detail on that, just saying it forced them to make an unscheduled stop, four laps earlier than they were planning to come in.
Contrary to Jack Aitken's post-race statement that the team 'had to take a splash', Baron said they 'would have made it on fuel energy'.
He added that it may have been 'a bit tight, so we added a very minor splash just to be safe. But we would not have pitted for that. Tyres were the reason.'
Looking at the timing data in order to corroborate Baron's explanation, it does line up.
Frederik Vesti pitted the #31 Cadillac on lap 262, under yellow, along with the two Porsches. The race went green again on lap 266 before another immediate yellow, going green again on lap 271.
Vesti lead until lap 289, apart from a lap where Nick Tandy in the #7 Porsche passed him, then Vesti got the lap back. Tandy then passed him on lap 289.
Vesti pitted on lap 293, while the Porsches pitted on lap 297. This is the '4 laps earlier than scheduled' which Baron mentioned. At this point, Earl Bamber replaced Vesti, until the end of the race.
Jaminet then passed Bamber on lap 300, demoting the Kiwi to third. The #25 BMW, which had had Marco Wittmann at the wheel, pitted on lap 316, with Robin Frijns replacing Wittmann.
Bamber would pit six laps later, but got jumped by Frijns because, as Baron said, they needed to repair the car which set them back 10 seconds.
This put Bamber in fourth, where he remained until the final caution period of the race. Bamber pitted at this point, along with Frijns, to take new tyres under the caution in an attempt to beat the Porsches, who were on an older, used set by this point.
Bamber exited ahead of Frijns, but Neel Jani, in the #5 Proton Porsche had not pitted under caution, passing Bamber as a result for position. Some lapped cars, who hadn't stopped either, also got by, although not for position.
In the end, as Baron relates, they weren't able to chase the Porsches down, finishing fourth having overtaken Jani with just over 10 minutes to go.
So there you have it — the full story behind why the #31 Cadillac wasn't able to challenge for the win in the final hour of the race. Sorry to Action Express for accusing them of a strategy error. We hope this sets the record straight!
Feature image: Jacob Saddler
