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RML AD Group – Back on the Podium

RML AD Group has endured the most difficult season in a seven-year sportscar racing programme, but 2009 has ended on a high after Thomas Erdos, Mike Newton and the team’s Lola Mazda recorded a long overdue podium in the final round of the Le Mans Series at Silverstone.

Having gone the distance in just a single race before the weekend, the team took the brave decision to install a revised version of the AER-designed Mazda engine for the season-closing round at Silverstone. With the emphasis on reliability, the team concentrated on set-up and handling, and the RML Lola Mazda emerged second quickest in the weekend’s first day of practice. Tommy Erdos then qualified third for Sunday’s 1000 Kilometres, although the organisers’ response to the fitting of a new engine since the previous race at the Nürburgring was to impose a ten-place grid penalty.

Lining up on the eleventh row for the six-hour race, Thomas Erdos made an emphatic start, slicing through from 21st position to reach 12th overall and second in the LMP2 class within the first hour. It was a position he handed over to Mike Newton for the middle hours of the race, and the CEO of AD Group made the most of what would be his longest race stint of the season to consolidate the team’s grip on the podium. For the final two hours Thomas Erdos built on that foundation to establish a two-lap margin over third place that never looked challenged.

“It’s such a relief to be back on the podium again,” said Thomas Erdos. “We’ve been chasing this all year, and we’ve always had the pace, but never the reliability. Our emphasis today was on going the distance, so the engine wasn’t producing all the power it should be capable of. That meant we couldn’t match the Speedy [Team Sebah] car on pace alone, but we proved that it was a wise decision to try this version of the engine. A podium is a great reward for all the hard work the team has put in to this season, and to clinch second is just the icing on the cake.”

Ray Mallock, founder of RML, was in attendance. “With my commitments to the World Touring Car Championship, this has been my first opportunity to be at a Le Mans Series race this year, but it’s been the right one. At last we have a good result to end what has been a very disappointing season for Phil Barker [Team Manager] and the rest of the team. Today, the engine has run like clockwork, and the question now is, what might have happened if we’d had this kind of reliability all the way through the year? It’s a very positive way to end the season.”

Pauline Norstrom, Director of Worldwide Marketing for AD Group, was “absolutely ecstatic! I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to see Mike and Tommy on a podium, but this is the result the team has deserved all year. We didn’t want to believe it until we saw the car cross the line, but I’m delighted for the drivers, and I’m on cloud nine for the rest of the team.”

The one person who has borne the brunt of the year’s disappointment has been Mike Newton. On so many occasions this season the engine has failed within minutes of his taking over the car, but the final Le Mans Series weekend saw Mike complete more time on track than he’s managed in the whole of the rest of the year combined. “A win would have been too much of a fairytale,” he conceded, “but this is where we should have been all season, and it feels great!”

Over the coming months the team will be working with partners AER and Mazda to refine the two-litre turbocharged engine to achieve a unit that is not only reliable, but with the power to bring more rewards to a team that won the LMP2 Le Mans Series title in 2007, and has taken the class twice in the Le Mans 24 Hours

Pics - Peter May  & David Lord / Dailysportscar.

RML AD Group Resilient in the Face of Adversity

It was another deeply disappointing result in Round 4 of the 2009 Le Mans Series for RML AD Group last Sunday at the Nürburgring when the team’s Lola B08/86 suffered its seventh engine failure of the season. It has become a familiar pill to swallow for the two drivers; Mike Newton and Thomas Erdos, but made all the more bitter by the fact that the car had demonstrated once again that, reliability issues aside, the Lola chassis is a highly potent and competitive package.

Thomas Erdos started the six-hour race from third in class, and swiftly moved through into second place. From there he fought hard to keep on terms with this season’s dominant LMP2 car, the Quifel ASM Ginetta Zytek, piloted by Olivier Pla. For twenty minutes Tommy continued to take the fight to the leader, but “after a while it became evident that I couldn’t maintain that kind of pace,” he explained. “I was working my tyres very hard and I became concerned that they might not last for the second stint. I backed off a little, but that allowed the Oak Racing Pescarolo to gain. The team kept me aware of the situation, and I was able to pull away again without any difficulty.” From then on he looked after his Michelin tyres and was able to run them successfully for a full two stints, comfortably holding second, and easing out a lead of more than 30 seconds over third.

Ninety minutes into the race and Tommy headed for the pitlane and the routine pitstop that would see Mike Newton take over driving duties. The CEO of AD Group returned the Lola Mazda to the track after an exemplary pitstop – one of the quickest driver change and full service stops of any team in the race – but the telltale signs of trouble were already there. A small pool of oil was left behind on the tarmac. Mike completed just two timed laps before the severity of the problem became evident from the hazy mist tailing the car. He returned to the garage and the car’s retirement.

“The whole team is devastated by yet another non-finish,” said Thomas Erdos. “We’d had such a very good start to the race, and were running so strongly. We may not have had the outright pace of the Zytek, but we were a worthy second – top Lola, top Mazda, and very competitive. Right through to the end of my stint, there was no indication of any issues with the engine at all. It’s a very discouraging end to what had been a promising day.”

"We are all completely exasperated by the engine problems that have tainted this season," said Pauline Norstrom, Director of Worldwide Marketing for AD Group. "The commitment that AD Group and RML have put into the sportscar programme this year has gone totally unrewarded, and the team deserves better. We want to see a return to the kind of success that the iconic number 25 car has achieved so many times in previous years, and if that means a change in engine strategy then so be it."

Nobody was more disappointed by the Nürburgring weekend than Mike Newton, who has repeatedly seen his time on track curtailed by problems. He and the rest of the squad now have three weeks before the final round of the 2009 Le Mans Series season at Silverstone. “We will have to go away from here and give serious consideration to our options for the future,” he said. “We may have to adopt a different strategy for the race at Silverstone, but quite what that will be has yet to be decided.”

RML AD Group Turn the Corner in Algarve 1000 kms

Several minor delays curtailed what was still RML AD Group’s best result of the season in Round 3 of the Le Mans Series on Saturday night. Tommy Erdos drove a blistering opening stint to work through from 32nd on the grid to challenge for second in LMP2, but during Mike Newton’s middle stint in the RML Lola Mazda the car picked up a strange vibration, and in the final stages of the race a coolant leak and electrical issues added to the time lost.

Perhaps the strangest problem faced by the team was a metre-long scrap of Astroturf, which became trapped around part of the car’s suspension. Used to decorate the run-off on some corners around the Autodromo do Algarve, segments steadily disintegrated during the race and troubled several teams. This, combined with a coolant leak and a misfire – the latter solved by a costly seven-minute pitstop for replacement plugs and coil - would demand four additional pitstops, and cost the team an almost certain podium.

In a season when simply finishing a race has become an aspiration, to take the chequered flag in seventh was a bonus that netted two points towards a total that had started to look like a good score in the BBC’s cerebral quiz show QI. A blown engine in Round 1 secured a penalty of minus two, but any subsequent failure is scored at minus four, so RML faced the Algarve 1000 Kilometres ten points down. For the same reason, Tommy Erdos also started from the back of the grid after cumulative penalties totalling 20 grid positions were imposed on his front-row qualifying run, demoting the #25 Lola Mazda from row six to sixteen.

The team took these handicaps in good spirit and, fired by determination, Thomas Erdos drove a remarkable opening stint, taking nine cars on the first lap and reaching seventh in LMP2 inside eight. He continued to push, and as the race entered its second hour and darkness fell, he was lying third in class. A quick pitstop for fuel, and the Brazilian resumed the chase, closing to within three seconds of second place before completing his double-stint. “I was very pleased to have got us into a position where we could challenging for second after starting so well back,” he said. “We certainly demonstrated the underlying pace of the Lola Mazda. The guys put together such a good car for the race – it was simply delightful to drive - and that’s all credit to the team.”

Mike Newton, CEO of AD Group, drove two full stints and an extra splash-and-dash third in the middle of the race, but towards the end of his time in the cockpit he endured a vibration that steadily grew worse. “At first I assumed it was pick-up,” he said, but at the next pitstop the true cause was revealed. “The Astroturf was flapping around the front wheel and wishbone assembly, which combined with the normal tyre pick-up to create a severe vibration. That made my second stint very difficult, with driving in the dark being complicated by blurred vision from the juddering.”

The debris was successfully removed and Mike completed his spell at the wheel before handing back to Tommy for the concluding two hours. During that final stint the data technicians began to detect some severe temperature spikes and pressure irregularities in the cooling system. “The car was losing fluid, but it was hard to pinpoint exactly where it was coming from. The temperature and pressure started fluctuating wildly after that,” explained Team Manager Phil Barker. As a result, Tommy had to make four extra pitstops during the final period. “We kept pressure-filling the system, and after the second time we did that, the car did another 30 or 40 laps before it started again.”

Time lost in the pits is harder to recover on track, but Tommy was consistently one of the quickest in LMP2 as he worked back to 7th at the flag. “Those last laps were remarkable,” added Phil. “Without the water leak, we’d certainly have been fifth, or better, but it’s so galling. We started off down at the back of the grid, and yet fought through to third in class, and might have soon made it through to second.”

“Despite these niggly problems, we clearly had the pace,” said Mike. “We managed a clean, consistent, safe run, but that only serves to demonstrate just how competitive the LMP2 class is. You can’t afford to encounter even a very minor issue without falling back out of contention. One good point to come out of this race is that the engine felt very stable, and it’s certainly well run-in now, so hopefully it will be OK for the Nürburgring. We’ll also arrive there without facing any fresh penalties, which is a real bonus!”

Pauline Norstrom, Director of Worldwide Marketing for AD Group, the team’s principal sponsor, was impressed by the team’s performance. “We had been very pleased with qualifying on Friday,” she said, “but we’re even more delighted by the pace of the car in today’s race. Tommy made a solid run through to third in class, and was challenging for second, and that’s very encouraging. All credit to the team and both drivers.”

Tommy felt that the team had worked exceptionally hard for small return, but if a corner has been turned, than RML can look forward to the final races of the year with renewed optimism.

pic Peter May / Dailysportscar

RML AD Group’s 2009 Le Mans stalls on 18 hours

Mike Newton, Thomas Erdos, Chris Dyson and the entire RML pit crew, lead by Team Manager Phil Barker, suffered the frustration of a third engine failure of the season when the team's Lola B08/96 retired from last weekend's Le Mans 24 Hours. This time, however, the disappointment was even more intense, not only because the engine gave way during the most important race of the motorsport year, but also because the Lola Coupé had, until that point, excelled itself.

Aside from a brief glitch for a replacement set of plugs at 2:15 on Sunday morning, the car had run faultlessly for the best part of eighteen hours. “Everything was going so well, and the engine was pulling strongly and felt very good,” said Thomas Erdos. “We’d been able to run at a competitive pace throughout the race, and we were still in contention for a podium right up until the moment the engine let go.”

Erdos had taken the race start, and challenged hard for third in LMP2 throughout his opening triple stint, constantly harrying Jonny Kane in the #33 Speedy Racing Team Sebah Lola-Judd. Aside from the inevitable consequence of making out-of-sequence pitstops, the #25 Lola-Mazda retained fourth in class for more than ten hours, and while the pair of Porsche RS Spyders consolidated their hold on the top two positions, the two Lola coupés looked equally comfortable in third and fourth. “Until the lap before the engine let go, I was feeling really chuffed with the way the car was going,” admitted Thomas Erdos. “To be running so strongly at such a late stage in the 24 Hours is always a special feeling, and we were beginning to think we might make it.”

“The chassis is obviously excellent,” stated Ray Mallock, Founder and Chief Executive at RML. “Apart from the plug change and the eventual engine failure, the car ran like clockwork. After the problems we’ve experienced previously this year (in the Le Mans Series) it was perhaps expecting a great deal to hope for a better result here, but the team did a superb job – as usual – both in the garage and on the track.”

Mike Newton was perhaps the most disappointed of anyone within the team, and found it difficult to express his emotions. "It's terribly frustrating, when we'd been holding a strong fourth place, and closing on third," he said. "We knew that even the smallest problem for any of the cars ahead of us and we'd have been into a podium position, but as soon as I heard the noise from the engine, I knew it was all over."

His co-driver, Thomas Erdos, searched for something positive from the result. “Setting aside the enormous disappointment I feel now, we have to be encouraged by how much we’ve achieved," he said. "After the problems we've had previously this season in the Le Mans Series, if the engine had failed after just two or three hours, that would effectively have been the end of our season. Now we must consolidate, think through our strategy for the rest of the year, and see where we go from here."

"We also have to consider the team as a whole," said Mike Newton. "The guys do a great job, and they put their heart and soul into every aspect of their work. It's an absolute passion on their part, and the engineers and mechanics behind the scenes are the ones who make all this possible. In situations like this, their disappointment is every bit as great as ours as drivers, and over the coming weeks we will be working closely with Mazda to seek a resolution to the problems at AER.”

The exact nature of the fault will not be established until the unit can be taken back to the workshops and dismantled, but the RML Lola-Mazda covered a total of 273 laps of the 13.629 kilometre circuit at an average speed of 192 km/h; some 3721 kilometres in total. The class was eventually won by the Team Essex Porsche RS Spyder #31, with the Speedy Racing Team Sebah Lola #33 second, and the Oak Racing Pescarolo #24 a distant third.

pics David Lord / Dailysportscar

Déjà vu for RML AD Group in Spa

A month after retiring from Round 1 of the 2009 Le Mans Series in Barcelona with engine problems, Mike Newton and Thomas Erdos in the RML AD Group Lola Mazda pulled out of Round 2 at Spa when a second engine failed to go the distance. Just as he had in Barcelona, Thomas Erdos drove a faultless first stint, and worked through to be running third in class from a pitlane start in under half an hour. There appeared to be every chance of challenging for a podium finish until, eight minutes into Mike Newton’s mid-race stint, the engine died.

The retirement came at the end of an arduous three days for Wellingborough-based RML. Fastest in class by the end of Friday free practice, the prospects had looked excellent, but a first-lap accident for Mike Newton on Saturday morning left the team with extensive repairs to complete and no chance of participating in qualifying.

This meant starting the race from the pitlane, but having been penalised ten positions on the grid for replacing the blown engine after Barcelona, starting the race from the back of the field hardly mattered. However, when thick fog forced the abandonment of official warm-up on Sunday morning, the drivers faced a six-hour race in a car that hadn’t turned a wheel since a ground-up rebuild. It was testament to the skill and meticulous work of the RML mechanics that the car was on the button from the moment the lights turned green.

One car spinning off on the warm-up lap, followed by a first-corner incident, brought out the safety car and allowed Tommy to catch up on the tail-enders before the restart. He then sliced through the 50-car field, taking half of them inside five laps and reaching third in LMP2 within half an hour. “The car was just such a delight to drive,” said Erdos. “It was handling perfectly, and even though I didn’t have the top-end speed of some of the others, it felt strong, and I could challenge. It’s just amazing what the team did, rebuilding the car completely in an afternoon, and then to have it perform so well without any time to test it was remarkable.”

Early in his second stint Tommy caught a patch of oil at Rivage and took to the gravel, but he and the team recovered well from that, and the Brazilian went on to set the car’s fastest lap just before handing over to Mike Newton. The CEO of AD Group would manage a mere four laps before the engine let go on the run up towards Les Combes. “We’re so disappointed for the guys that our race ended this way,” said a disconsolate Thomas Erdos. “After all their efforts, they deserved so much better than this.”

The depth of RML’s disappointment and frustration is emphasised by the undeniable potential of the team’s Lola Mazda Coupé. Setting fastest lap in free practice on Friday and battling through to third in class from the back of the field confirms that the car has the pace, but so far the engine reliability that brought two class wins at Le Mans in 2005 and 2006 eludes RML in 2009.

pic David Lord / Dailysportscar

RML’s Lola Mazda Debut Cut Short

The race debut for RML’s Lola Mazda B09/86 ended in disappointment when the new car’s engine suffered a catastrophic failure after two-and-a-half hours of last weekend’s Barcelona 1000 Kilometres. The opening round of the 2009 Le Mans Series had started with promise, after Thomas Erdos fought through to the class lead from sixth on the grid, but a recurrence of the type of engine problem that has hampered so many of the turbo-engined cars since early 2008 cut short RML's race.

The Brazilian had wisely kept clear of trouble in the opening moments of the race, when there was some enthusiastic jostling into the first few corners. “We suspected that several of the cars in front of us after qualifying had been running softer compound tyres, and if that was the case, then the chances were that their initial pace would tail off as the race developed. We’d gone for a hard compound knowing that the track here is very abrasive, and if we waited, then our patience might be rewarded.”

The strategy worked well. Erdos remained in contention for the first half-hour, holding sixth place, and then started to ease forward. “I think we all suffered with poor grip levels at the start, but after the first pitstop, the Lola was transformed,” he said. “With fresh Michelins, it was like driving a different car altogether, and for the first time I think we all saw the potential of the car.” One by one he picked off the opposition, and with exactly two hours of the race completed, he took the class lead. “I simply settled down into a sensible rhythm that felt comfortable and suited the tyres. The car was handling so well and I could push easily.”

At just gone two o’clock, Tommy headed back down the pitlane to hand over to Mike Newton, CEO of AD Group. The driver change went well, but it was soon evident that all was not well with the car. “The engine was coughing and spluttering as I drove out of the pitlane, and it wasn’t picking up at all as I went through Turn 3. I managed to make it round as far as Turn 10, but that was it. The thing had just grenaded,” said a very despondent Mike Newton.

The team watched the monitors in disbelief as the car slowed to a halt, plumes of white smoke billowing from the exhaust. “It was all going so well!” exclaimed an incredulous Thomas Erdos. “There had been no indication of any problems with the engine at all, not even on my final in-lap,” but there was no denying the facts. RML AD Group’s race was over.

he data suggests that the problem is linked to similar failures in the past. “We now know that some of the other teams have expressed concerns,” explained Mike. “There appears to be an incompatibility between the bio-fuel formulation supplied to the teams and the technology associated with turbocharged engines.” RML suffered a number of such engine failures in 2008, and the performance of the turbo-powered cars at Barcelona would tend to indicate that the problem has persisted into the new season.

“We saw a flash of the car’s true potential today. If these issues could be resolved, it would be good to think we could carry that potential forward into the rest of the season,” said Mike Newton. His co-driver Thomas Erdos shared his frustration. “The car obviously has tremendous promise, but this is not the result we were hoping for.”