In 2010 Albuquerque was signed with Audi Sport Italia and had campaigned the R8 LMS in that market. His quick-to-learn skillset positioned him well for the ROC where you might be driving a KTM X-bow in one heat and what looks like a NASCAR style stock car the next. It also served him well in qualifying for the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona this year when he placed his #24 Alex Job Racing Weathertech Audi R8 GRAND-AM sixth on the GT grid.
“Fifth,” he corrected me when I mention it to him the night before the race. One of the Porsches was penalized and the Weathertech crew had moved up a spot. Still, I couldn’t help but noting silently in my head, if not aloud, that the Porsches make up spots 1, 2, 3 and 4. There was over half a second between the lap time of the pole sitting Porsche (1:47.631) and Filipe’s #24 R8 GRAND-AM (1:48.282). On a 3.56 mile course like Daytona’s road configuration, the deficit is glaring.
“I hear it was a clean run,” I told him.
I was trying to get a gage on whether Audi was sandbagging, i.e. not running flat out and saving some reserve as a surprise during the race. Ever since I’d arrived in Daytona I’d heard complaints from some of the Audi Sport staff and a few contacts at the APR Motorsport garage where two R8 GRAND-AMs dubbed “Heidi” and “Dixie” were being prepped for the 24-hour enduro. The main complaint was with the top speed – lower than their competition thanks to a more aggressive governor applied to the Audis. The Porsches seemed to have a clear advantage at the ‘Roar Before the 24’ test days a few weeks earlier and the Audi teams hoped for some of the series’ famous performance balancing in order to level the field. That balance never happened and as such the Porsches were said to pull strong in the back half of the course, walking away from the R8 as soon as they left the “bus stop” – a gnarly chicane seemingly designed by Greyhound. The advantage was said to be a half a second – not a whole lot of time when you’re counting one Mississippis, but a vast chasm when you’re multiplying it out over 24 hours.
“There was no traffic,” Filipe replied to my question. “I couldn’t have done it better. Okay, maybe .2 seconds… maybe…”
Low 48s were as good as it got for the Audi R8 at Daytona. There was no suggestion of sand bagging. Just miles up the road from the grand swathe of oceanfront known as Daytona Beach, the Audi teams were devoid of any sand and letting it all hang out.
So pace wasn’t going to be on Audi’s side, but they weren’t at a total loss. Audi Sport customer racing is run by Brad Kettler in North America. A longtime engineer for Audi in Le Mans, Kettler knows a thing or two about how to win a 24-hour race. He and the Audi teams had tested the cars… a lot. They knew that while they may have had a speed disadvantage, the R8 looked to be better on tires and also on fuel. If they conserved the tires, they found they could make them not only last, but retain consistent handling throughout.
As Kettler tells it, the unrelenting process of prepping the four Audi R8 GRAND-AMs for the Rolex 24 began back on December 11. His team in western Ohio logged sixteen hours a day including Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. About 100 hours of work were performed on each car just to get the Audis to the Roar Before the 24 test session in early January. Even more went into them after that.
As work progressed on the cars, the effort became all-hands on deck. Audi Sport customer racing’s main staff from Germany arrived and so too did personnel from the three privateer teams. The group swelled to 47 bodies working out of Kettler’s facility in Ohio. They all labored side by side, compared work and learned from each other. The camaraderie built during those days was obvious to anyone in Daytona who saw the team hanging about near the four side-by-side team garages in those days just before the race.
A new group in the Audi mix was the staff of Alex Job Racing. Audi had approached this well-established team about fielding a second car via former APR driver Dion von Moltke who also won Sebring last year in a Job-run car. This year the team also returned to GRAND-AM with a Porsche 911 and with one driver Cooper MacNeil whose dad owns Weathertech. The sponsorship carried over to the Audi, but sponsorship wasn’t the only benefit. The two-car Job effort offered the Audi guys a chance to compare and contrast the R8 and the 911 up close in testing. Audi supplied Albuqurque, Mortara and Jarvis to the roster. Along with von Moltke, the group formed one of the most formidable driver lineups on the GT grid.
As he claimed, Filipe adapted quickly to the R8 GRAND-AM. While the R8 GRAND-AM’s cockpit may look the same as the GT3-spec R8 LMS with which he has logged his fair share of races, the similarity caused him no worry or confusion. He would start the race for his team on Saturday afternoon having nailed the fastest Audi lap time in qualifying.
That start was about 23 hours and 58 minutes ago. Filipe is now again out in the car. His teammates Oliver Jarvis, Edoardo Mortara and Dion von Moltke are huddled around one of the TV screens watching him lap Daytona. The anticipation is so thick you can cut it with a concession stand plastic spork. The crowd inside the Alex Job Racing pit tent is growing quite thick, as everyone who is anyone related to the team has made their way here. You can see the three drivers here are fighting to constrain their enthusiasm over what looks to be an imminent win. No one wants to prematurely celebrate and jinx Filipe as he blasts through the bus stop one last time.
In very obvious contrast to the excitement readily displayed on the faces and in the actions of the three expectant drivers is the cool intent look on the face of Romolo Liebchen. The head of the Audi Sport customer racing program stands just to the right of the gushing trio, but he’s as cool as a Jedi master waiting for the moment to strike. He’s fixated on the same monitors in the Alex Job pits as are the eyes within the crowd around him, but he might as well be alone.
Of course he’s not alone. Liebchen’s cohorts from Audi Sport customer racing are here in force. From Kettler’s Ohio-based team to a large detail of Neckarsulm’s finest crew and engineers… even Audi Sport boss Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich and quattro GmbH chief Frank van Meel. They’re all here in order to set a pace, lead by example and win the race. From the look of those glowing monitors, they may very well pull it off.
Things looked most dire for Audi at the start of the race. The Porsches had taken off and began to build the expected gap. Opponents were putting 5-6 car lengths on the Audis when leaving the bus stop.
The Audi team banked on a strategy of waiting, something Kettler in particular had seen work very effectively in Le Mans when that course of action employed by the factory LMP teams in races where slower and more reliable Audis beat faster rivals year-after-year. As the clock ticked on, the team was confident that the lead being built by the Porsches would erode.
The Audi crew found they could run 75 laps on a set of tires and stay consistent in the mid-to-low 49s and even down into the 48s for the more dominating drivers in the group. While that wasn’t quite as fast as the Porsches, the number of laps they were able to pull out of a set of rubber was a distinct advantage.
Inside the cockpit of each of the four R8 GRAND-AMs, the team set an interesting tack for the drivers. Each would attack the lap rather than trying to eat into the Porsches’ lead. There was an effort in the conservation of the car itself and keeping it out of close battles that could possibly see the cars get damaged and cost the teams precious time in the pits or, worse, the garage. The Ferraris and the Porsches were going for it, so the Audi teams decided to leave the battling to their opponents. Perhaps the two opponents might take each other out and leave the race to adui. For the four R8 GRAND-AMs, the battling would come later in the race.
Kettler would later point out to SPEED that the competition started to show a chink in its armor round about midnight. For all of their speed, the Porsches were not as good with fuel nor with tires. In the pits, Kettler noticed that some of the 911s were coming in every 20-25 laps, throwing on tires and taking 25 seconds of fuel. Seeing this, the team knew they had a chance and turned up the heat.
Throughout the nighttime hours the lap times began to come back into Audi’s range. As expected, the leads began to erode.
With the pressure mounting from the hard-charging R8s, the Porsches had to dial it up a notch. At this pace their weakness with tires and fuel stripped them of their advantage even more quickly. By then it was too late. There was no time to react or adjust strategy. The Audis were on the move.
While fuel consumption was one advantage of the R8 GRAND-AM, fuel capacity was another. Ingolstadt has logged countless 24-hour victories in Le Mans, Spa, Nurburgring and more. They’d also filled and emptied the cars nearly 50 times back in the Audi Sport customer racing facility in Ohio. As a result the team was extremely aware of how much fuel they need for a lap and knew precisely how much fuel the car would take when they put it in. It allowed them to go harder and longer with less error in judgment of what was left. There’s nothing worse than leaving more fuel in the tank that could have been used when you’ve got competitors lapping the circuit at full speed and under a green flag.
Even with all that preparation, difficulties can and will arise during a race. In the middle of the night there was an issue with the brakes on the #24 car, but then at that moment a break of another kind caused a yellow flag and afforded the team time to pit and swap them out. Even with this bit of lucky timing, time was lost.
As the race progressed, the cars were moved to three different fuel strategies in order to assure better placement as the Rolex 24 throttled towards a climactic end. The #24 Weathertech car played the part of “rabbit”. It had run strong and despite a delay when spun by another car during Mortara’s triple stint, the Italian still managed to hand the car over to von Moltke on lap 385 with the lead having been recaptured. von Moltke had his own near miss by another aggressive driver but managed to keep the car in the top three for most of his turn. When he finally handed over to Albuqurque to take it home, the car was running fifth.
The #52 APR Motorsport car dubbed “Heidi” by the German members of its crew was stopped once it was within the final number of laps that it could do on one tank. From that point on, that car would be in position to challenge anything ahead of it.
Rum Bum, at this point, was similar to #24 in that it didn’t have enough to get home and a yellow flag would have served it well. The winning Weathertech R8 had built up enough of a lead that it was able to come in and get a splash of fuel to finish things out. Not so for Rum Bum.
That these three independent teams were operating on synchronized strategy at all is a testament to Audi Sport customer racing. This was an effort greater than any one team – even the two-car APR Motorsport effort, of which only their black car dubbed “Dixie” by the Alabama-based crew is a full time effort in the Rolex GRAND-AM series. Overall, Audi Sport was running the race. Kettler and Germans viewed this was a teachable moment.
It wasn’t just a matter of being hard asses when it came to shutting down phones and curbing pit-side Facebook check-ins… though this happened. Audi Sport really wanted to lend their experience with such races – from the mixed German crews by the wall to the data acquisition staff further from the pits. Success meant a first-ever Audi victory in Daytona and it meant one very influential selling point for the R8 GRAND-AM racecar as Audi pitches it to other teams in the series.
Of course, if victory was to be realized, the teams would have to stop logging forced stop-and-gos. Penalties were assessed that effected each of the leading Audis but it was an achingly long three minute penalty for ‘avoidable contact’ leveled at the #24 with just three hours left that may have been felt the most.
The final hours saw the advantage swing towards the Weathertech R8. Its drivers set a pace in that latter portion that was completely dominant. For a short while there, the #24 R8 also ran 1-2 with its sister Weathertech/Job Porsche 911, but fuel strategy didn’t work for the 911 and it had to drop back for a final 6th place at the end.
Following a penalty and with an hour and a half remaining, a yellow flag went up on lap 633. Team strategist on the #24 Greg Fordahl made the call to keep Albuquerque out so that when the leaders pitted for fuel he was able to jump back on the lead lap and moved to 7th. Then Filipe turned on the heat even more, making quick work of the field and moving up to 5th. The leaders came in for fuel again and again Fordahl kept Filipe out where he could build up a lead and maybe… just maybe… enough that he’d be able to come in himself and take a splash of fuel should he need to.
By the time the #24 finally pitted it had a 41 second lead over its Alex Job Racing Porsche 911 counterpart. Ten seconds of fuel went into the car and Filipe again went out with the required task of fending off his hard-charging opposition going into turn 1 and then continue that over the final four laps.
For Filipe, his last stint was run to the max. “It was crazy. The last three hours were crazy. We got the penalty and we didn’t know why. When I got in the car, no one really believed we could win. They said ‘get in the car and push like hell.’ I did. I was doing qualifying laps. I didn’t care about the tires, I didn’t care about anything, I was just pushing. The gearbox was starting to act funny, so I just kept pushing it. When we had the splash, I thought I was going to come out in the middle. When I got out ahead of them I was OK.”
Gearbox issues can be catastrophic. When word circulates around the Alex Job pits that this is going on, there is a look of major concern. Out on course and at the wheel of the #24 R8, Filipe is finding it manageable. Simply triggering the paddle on the wheel should normally induce a gear change but that’s not working. Albuquerque quickly adjusts his style, using the clutch pedal that is typically only used to engage first gear when leaving the pits. It is an unnatural action to use a pedal and a paddle rather than a gear lever but, as mentioned, Filipe is a quick study. His lap times don’t reveal the problem that’s already been communicated over the radio.
In that last fuel window, Kettler will claim they knew that they were taking a risk with Rum Bum by leaving it out. It would be a gamble and there would be a possibility the car might make it… and you have to wonder if it may have. After the fact you watch the replays on YouTube and you see Markus Winkelhock at the wheel of the #13 still defending quite a bit and pushing it. It looks like he’s trying to retain 2nd and stay ahead of Rene Rast in the APR R8 behind him. Had he let Rene pass and conserved, maybe he’d have made it. On that we’ll never know.
Back in the pits there’s an air of giddiness. The R8s now are running 1-2-3… so much better a result than anyone would have prognosticated. That there’s a lot riding on this back in Ingolstadt and the Audi board of management is likely watching the feed – the big dogs in the pit are staying close to each other. Ullrich is off to the side between the Job and Rum Bum pit tents watching a screen with some senior-looking Germans. van Meel is intently watching the front straight, ears covered by a team headset through which he’s intently listening. Various Audi of America marketing executives are perched by monitors in the APR tent as well – watching and listening closely. Atop the APR team platform owner Stephen Hooks is glued to the monitor with a newfound respect… maybe even awe for the performance Rene Rast is putting in as he aggressively tries to better the Alabama teams position on the podium.
Mortara, Jarvis and von Moltke decide they want to watch the finish first hand and vacate their spot by the monitors. “Don’t go over the wall,” Olly yells to the other two as they move from behind the data rig, leaving Romolo Liebchen in his Jedi stance.
If Brad Kettler had an indication of Rum Bum’s impending empty tank in his calculations, witnessing the eventuality of an empty tank even more clearly now is Markus Winkelhock. “Winky” knew he had to use the fuel sparingly with as much as an hour left in the race. However, in the last few laps the competition including APR’s “Heidi” was breathing down his neck. With just two laps to go the fuel alarm in his #13 R8 GRAND-AM began to go off. Markus had to turn up the wick and that meant using more of the preciously little fuel left in his yellow R8. Now, the German is looking at front straight with the finish line right in front of his eyes when the fuel finally cuts out and a long coast begins. Rum Bum also had been hit with a penalty that had cost it two laps and the Bahamanian-inspired yellow and blue Audi had fought back hard to regain its podium-contending position by this final moment. It is a tragic end.
Rast blows past, and so do a few more. As “Heidi” and Rene go on to take that much-wanted second place on the podium, several others also get past and the Rum Bum R8 coasts across the finish.
Of course the celebration in the conjoining Audi tents can’t be held back. Everyone is ecstatic, including the Rum Bum squad sandwiched between its two victorious neighbors. While Filipe Albuquerque earns his Daytona stripes by doing massive smoky donuts, tears of joy are being shed in the pits. It is a moment of realization of a hard-earned prize and also of slight disbelief for all but those most in tune with the strategy. Whatever group you may be part of, you can’t miss the elation if you are in that tent.
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