Team Greenpower lined up in Silverstone 24 hours for the Citroën C1 Cup to gain experience to be able to arrange similar competitions in Scandinavia in the future.
They bought a car from Team Amigo and the purchase included that Team Amigo would take care of the car during the race. Team Greenpower started with the Norwegian drivers Aleksander Schjerpen (who has driven a lot internationally, including at Silverstone), Edward Sander Woldseth (promising driver with experience from Formula Basic and Formula Nordic), Daniel Böhler Störkersen (who has run the DS3 Cup in Denmark, but also GT in Asia) and two professional drivers: Will Bamber from New Zealand (who won the GT Championship in Asia 2018) and John Curran from Ireland (who also runs GT in Asia together with Bamber.)
They also had two mechanics; Nils-Erik Woldseth and Ole Martin Sörlie, coordinator Anders Grandahl, team owner Bård Bergsjö and journalist and photographer Bengt-Åce Gustavsson.
The team gathered at the hotel to get to know each other and to get information about the competition. Unfortunately, it turned out that only 60 of the 99 cars got the chance to run the training on Friday on the track! Unfortunately, as Team Greenpower belonged to those who had signed up late, they were not allowed to run the training, which was a significant handicap for the competition! Instead, the team had to walk around and check out the surroundings as the others trained.
At 21.00 the qualification started, which was run in the dark. All the drivers had to drive to start the race. After the first pass, the driver complained about the brakes, which needed to be bleeded. When the next man left, it had started to rain. That made it impossible to put in any good time and the team had to start from the 90th starting frame!
Now the starting position is not that important in a 24 hour race, but of course you always want to be as far ahead as possible. Schjerpen run the first stint of the competition and he picked placement after placement. After 1.5 hours it started to rain, which suited Schjerpen well, because then he passed even more drivers. When he drove into the depot after his stint, he had moved the team to 34th place!
Curran took over the wheel and drove the first night shift. When he entered the depot, they were in 35th place. Woldseth took over the wheel. He had only driven two laps when suddenly a car spun in front of him. He was forced to brake and unfortunately, he happened to put in the wrong gear. He blew the engine! He was towed back to the depot. Team Amigo threw themself over the car and changed the engine, but unfortunately it was the wrong type of ECU on the new engine, so they had to change the whole electrical system too! After three hours they were able to return to the competition, but then they were second to last in the competition…
Störkersen took over the wheel and he had to run behind the safety car for 45 minutes, then he got to race at a good pace for 45 minutes before having a spinn. When he got back on the track, he burned the clutch, which began to slip. He tried to get back to the depot but stopped just at the depot entrance. There was a short towing to the garage and the team changed both clutch and gearbox.
Then it became Bamber's turn to drive. Bamber did a very good stint where he fought with the race leader for 1.5 hours. They were clearly the fastest on the course! The driver of the leader car came to Bamber and thanked for good fight on the track! Scherpen was next. Soon he heard a bang in the car, which began to behave strangely. Half a lap later he saw his front wheel leave the car! It was just to park and wait for salvage ... In the depot they could see that three bolts had broken and then separated the whole rim! Two new wheels were quickly mounted and Schjerpen could drive on and he was one of the fastest in the entire field.
The team struggled but reached the finnish in 86th place. The placement was unimportant, the team was there to see and learn. They could state that if they had not had their mechanical problems they would have been at the top of the results list, but that is racing…
Everyone was happy and now the team looks forward to the 24-hour race on the classic SPA course in Belgium in October.
Bengt-Åce Gustavsson - www.racefoto.se
