Page 167 - Bespoke Issue

in December saw the cars roll onto the grid with temperatures only just out of single gures.
The Asian Le Mans series, much like the European Le Mans series is part of and actively used as a route into the race that is as much a brand as it is an event - the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The four round Asian series had its inaugural season in 2009 and is run by the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO) as part of the Le Mans series, so when Paddock Life were invited by team sponsors OneLife to attend a race, we though why not? It’s only a 30-hour trip each way, for a two day race event, but at least the weather will be good. So, we packed up our kit and arrived in Bangkok where the OneLife team had arranged a limo van to drive us for 5 hours to Buri Ram.
Arriving at 2am on the Friday, we were booked into the Amari United Hotel, which sits on the same plot as the Chang International motor racing circuit,
which is right next to the Buriram Thunder Castle, a purpose built stadium (and conference centre) that is the home of Thailands’ Buriram United football club. The modern hotel is built around a central pool area and sports themed, but the one thing that is absolutely traditional is the fantastic Thai service and hospitality, greeted with a smile (even at 2am) and shown to our rooms we were to meet our hosts for a respectably timed breakfast at 10am.
The timing of our epic journey seemed to work quite well for the jet lag, or lack of it as after a good nights sleep we were ready to go to the circuit directly after breakfast. Arriving in the paddock the most noticeable thing was the lack of the usual circus of team trucks, motorhomes and support race paddocks. Although the region has always loved motorsport it is very much an emerging market. Once signed in and equipped with all the right passes we explored the paddock and found garage 15, the home of Algarve Pro Racing who
run the #25 OneLife LMP2 car. We were warmly greeted by John Graham, the veteran racing driver who had connected the OneLife funding to the team.
John has been racing since 1981, recently moving to Asian Le Mans from Nascar, but has driven in a wide range of series during his career, raced the infamous Paris Dakar Raid, had podium nishes at both 24 Hours of Daytona, Petit Le Mans and 12 Hours of Sebring as well as 9 starts in the 24 Hours of Le Mans with a class win in 2000. Graham sees this series as his was back to another Le Mans 24 start. A 24-hour race requires immense levels of mental and physical tness from the drivers, physically it is very different from today’s F1 drivers who are at the level of any top sportsman, it is a very different discipline being con ned in a small, hit cockpit for driver stints of up to 2 hours, performing at out for even the 6 hours of this race.
The cars are out on the circuit for free practice as we arrive, it’s not a huge eld of LMP2 and LMP3 prototype class cars, of 2 Oreca and 8 Ligier chassis with the power provided by Nissan or Gibson engines the twelve cars are split across 4 classes LMP2, LMP3, GT and GT Cup. In the GTE class, which as it sounds is GT cars, there were only four entrants at this round. An Audi R8 LMS , a Ferrari 488 GT3, a Porsche 997 Cup and a BMW M6 GT3 and on the small tight course of the Chang circuit there was less 8 seconds between lap the times of the two classes. Support races were provided by Special AWD and single seater Formula 4-SEA.
So, once we had the schedules and had picked up our scooter it was back the Amari to catch up with our hosts (and maybe a little poolside siesta) before returning to the circuit for qualifying. Dinner that evening was a fairly big affair with a buffet laid out in the central pool and bar area with fantastically white dressed tables as the OneLife community guests arrived from all over the Asian continent. This was our rst opportunity to meet the team behind the sponsor.
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WORDS CRAIG BLAKE-JONES IMAGES JENNIFER SCHAUERTE