Brazilian-born racing driver Thomas Erdos emerged with some credit at the end of a weekend that saw the FIA GT season open with a disjointed and somewhat confusing race, tinged with technical controversies and a spate of punctures.
Partnering Mike Newton once more in a Saleen S7-R - this year managed by the Wellingborough-based RML outfit - Erdos was consistently amongst the quickest drivers on the Monza circuit, posting impressive times in almost every practice session ahead of Saturday qualifying. "We've lost a little bit of pace since we were here for the test day," admitted Thomas, "but still fourth quickest overall. I feel it's going really well." The team had been experimenting with a new damper installation, which was already showing clear advantages, while the drivers were exploring the characteristics of a freshly prepared engine.
By Friday evening, however, all the hard work came under sudden and unexpected threat when FIA officials published an announcement: "Four Saleen cars - the Number 4 Konrad Motorsport, Number 5 Vitaphone Racing and Numbers 7 and 8 RML cars - will not be allowed to participate in qualifying, warm-up or the race, unless a favourable new inspection is passed before the FIA Technical Delegate." Quizzical glances flashed around the paddock at this unexpected turn. The explanation, when it came, was suitably bizarre. It transpired that the debate centred upon what, exactly, constituted a "bonnet". The Saleen is rear-engined, so is the bonnet the single panel protecting the spare wheel and luggage compartment at the front of the car, or the section at the back that covers the engine? Complexity was added by the fact that the rear panel is actually composed of four separate parts, including a central window, which can each be removed independently, as one piece, or in various combinations of the two. Last season the interpretation decreed that the front panel was the bonnet. This year, apparently, the understanding has been swapped, and the various sections that compose the engine cover must now be fixed together permanently as one item and removed, when necessary, with tools, not the usual up-and-over catches. "It seemed a very small thing, certainly nothing major," shrugged Erdos. "It was not a performance related issue, so we carried on as normal. I think everyone else was making more of a deal of it than we were, certainly in the media." Glad that's cleared up then.
Qualifying
So the Saleens returned to the fray. Up to this point the British-designed, American-built musclecars had looked to be enjoying a dominant start to the year, with Konrad Motorsport's pair vying with Erdos for the top slot, but the true nature of Ferrari's potential for 2004 came sweeping through like a red tide in qualifying, when Fabrizio Gollin composed (in his own words) 'the perfect lap' to snatch pole in the BMS Scuderia Italia 550 Maranello.
Two days of cold drizzle had spread into a third when Saturday dawned damp and miserable. Times from the day's first qualifying session were hardly inspiring, being two seconds or more off the practice pace. "We didn't run too strong," explained Erdos. "We knew the forecast, so held things for the afternoon. If other people wanted to push, fine, but we didn't see the point."
By the afternoon the conditions had indeed improved and times fell steadily. Erdos, who had completed a brief string of exploratory laps, pitted briefly before heading out to attempt a flyer on fresh tyres. "We don't have qualifiers, since you have to start the race with the same rubber, so they were standard race tyres," clarified Erdos. His second lap was a 1:44.973, which threw him up to third in the order, but just as he was gearing up to attempt something quicker there was a loud bang from the rear of the car. "It just snapped," said Erdos in surprise. "There was no warning whatsoever. I was coming into the first corner at the end of the straight, and the car suddenly skipped sideways. The right rear shaft had snapped and I was only getting drive to one wheel." He cruised gently back to pitlane, but with no chance of repair before the session closed Erdos had to be content with his earlier time.
Sure enough, as the period drew to a close his time was bettered by three others, dropping the #7 to sixth. "That was disappointing," he conceded, "but we've had several new developments that we've been trying on the car this weekend, and this is the first time they've all been applied together. It's not always easy to find the perfect settings for dampers, tyres and engine, and there are still things to be fine-tuned." Erdos wasn't especially downhearted. "From our point of view, everything is running well," he continued. "We've had excellent support from Dunlop this weekend, and the tyres have been great. We were quickest in the last session at the test here two week's ago, so perhaps I could have hoped to be a little further up in qualifying, but it's coming together well. We have a lot of guests from Dedicated Micros for the race, so we're looking forward to seeing them supporting us here at the first round in Monza. I hope we can give them something to cheer at!"
The following morning Erdos did exactly that, by emerging fastest during the official warm-up. "That went pretty well," he grinned. "You never know who's really pushing in the warm-up, so you mustn't read too much into it, but that was encouraging. It suggests we can fight well in the race."
The Race
Following the tradition established last season, Thomas Erdos would take the rolling start in the #7 RML Saleen. It went well. From sixth on the grid, he swept through to fourth before the end of the first lap, easing ahead of Coronel's Lister as they crossed the line and passing the #3 Ferrari 550 when Stefano Livio fluffed a gearchange. He tailed Uwe Alzen in the #5 Vitaphone Saleen for the next ten laps, until the German retired with a coolant problem. With Matteo Bobbi and Gollin one-two in the BMS Scuderia Italia 550s, it was third place for Erdos, but Livio had recovered from his error and was starting to pressurise the Saleen from fourth. At the start of lap 15 the Italian dived through into the first corner, followed a lap later by Coronel in the Lister Storm. Erdos had a problem.
The nature and extent of that problem became evident shortly afterwards. His next lap took an age to complete - over seven minutes in fact. A puncture had suddenly worsened and blown, with the damaged tyre now in danger of lacerating the car. What was worse, he suspected that the rear of the car was on fire. "The left rear blew as I was coming out of the second chicane. By the time I got to the Ascari Chicane I could see flames in my mirrors and feared that I had a fire. There was smoke everywhere from the tyre anyway, so it was difficult to tell, but I was sure the car was alight. I had to pull over by a marshal's post. I had images in my mind of the car in flames and getting ruined. I stopped right beside the next post with a red marker on the guardrail (denoting a fire control point) but the marshal didn't even have an extinguisher! Had the car truly been on fire it would probably have been destroyed. It was appalling."
Deducing that the flames were caused by over-run from the engine, and the smoke was just from the punctured tyre, he coaxed the Saleen gingerly back to the pits, watching helplessly as the leaders swept by three times. Any hope of a challenge was gone, but the race was only 21 laps old and there was still much to race for.
Erdos was four laps down on the front-runners by the time he came out racing again. He was instantly back in the action. In fact, he was soon setting the fastest race pace of anyone on track, sometimes by more than a second, and on lap 35 he powered past Bobbi, still leading in the #1 Ferrari 550, to claw back one of those lost laps. Rarely out of the 1:47s, this was an awesome performance, as he sliced through the traffic in a vain attempt to regain so much lost ground. "I was pushing hard, but passing the leader showed that we have a package that can be competitive," said Erdos later. "It proves that we're a team that can challenge at the front." On lap 46 he pitted once again, this time to hand over to Mike Newton.
Newton settled into a steady rhythm, and while not as rapid as his team-mate his laps were respectable by the standards of the field. With a string of times around the 1:49 mark, he handed the car back to Erdos on Lap 73 with no ground lost. The Brazilian was generous in his praise: "Today was probably Mike's best run ever in the FIA. He proved that his commitment to his driving is really paying off. It was a shame that the result didn't reflect the quality of his driving."
Erdos and the Saleen were back in the pits almost immediately. "There was a twitch at the rear as I accelerated out of the first chicane, and 'bang'. The left rear had punctured and I was only just out of the pits! The tyres were still cold, so I hadn't even been leaning on it," he said in disbelief. It was a quicker pitstop this time, but Erdos found himself a total of seven laps adrift of the lead. He was back up to race pace soon enough, but it was a brief flurry in the 1:47s. "I started pushing again," he explained, "but under heavy braking for turn one several laps later there was a big clanking noise from under the car. I had to pit again. The front anti-roll bar had broken, so the team removed it completely. I had to finish the rest of the race without one!"
He emerged after the stop to the unfamiliar ignominy of "last man running". Of the 24 starters, just thirteen were still racing. With just a handful of laps left to run, Erdos could do no more than pick up one place to cross the line a disappointed twelfth. "Those final laps weren't exactly fun," said Erdos with understatement. "The car was very roly, although I think we were still one of the fastest on the track. I was still trying to push, but the tail was all over the place, lots of oversteer." Pole-setter Gollin, meanwhile, had passed the #1 Ferrari 550 for the lead, celebrating his birthday by taking the chequered flag and home ground victory for BMS Scuderia Italia.
Five pitstops against the winner's two was what told against Erdos and Newton. "The crew did a wonderful job," acknowledged Erdos. "In that last stop they had the wheels off and whipped away that roll bar in seconds. They did a fantastic job throughout the weekend, and without a lot of sleep for several of them either!" They now look forward to Round 2 at Valencia on the 18th. "Hopefully we can carry on there where we've left off at Monza. We have to fine-tune the package a little, but in many respects we're in a very good position."
