Thank Frankel it’s Friday: Big V8s and an un‑balanced diet at the Spa Six Hours

I know all this because he would otherwise have not been in sunny Spain with a highly professional race team, but at a soaking Spa-Francorchamps with me. For this is the weekend I do the Spa Six Hours, as I have since 2004 with I think just two exceptions. Every year Chris, myself and my brother share a Ford Falcon in a race with this year more than a dozen Ford GT40s at one end of the grid and sundry MGBs at the other. There was even a Mini Countryman.

The contrast between the two races and how they are approached are interesting. What do they have in common? Well both are similar distance endurance events populated by racing cars derived from road going product, both attract the top drivers in their respective fields and both are held at genuinely excellent circuits. Beyond that I’m starting to struggle.

In Blancpain the cars are either nearly new or brand new and meticulously prepared by a large team or smartly branded mechanics. Our Falcon is 54 years old and prepared by Vernon who is genuinely, some might say freakishly good at his job, but always has more work on than he can reasonably be expected to do.

In Blancpain the cars turn up in immaculately liveried trucks with workshops on board. At Spa we tow the Falcon behind an elderly van and work on the car in our allocated single car pit in the old garage complex.

In Blancpain there will be masseuses, physios, cooks and possibly even sports psychologists. At Spa we have Vernon whose fingers can work magic on a truculent 289cu in V8, but are not known for their muscle manipulation skills, not their ability to rustle up a pasta salad from nowhere. Still he’s good for the mind: we all know he’s worked himself into the ground to get us here and none of us wants to see that work go to waste.

In Blancpain drivers exist on specially formulated carbohydrate-rich diets with rigorous hydration regimes to keep them in peak physical form. At Spa we exist on Haribo, Pot Noodle and Diet Coke. None of that full fat stuff for athletes like us.

In Blancpain every tenth of a second counts. Drivers spend more time looking at data than driving the car, scientifically unpicking every phase of every corner to unlock more pace. At Spa I don’t think we’re allowed telemetry on our cars and even if we were, there’d not be much point poring over the data because you could easily lose ten minutes queuing for fuel in the middle of the race. Indeed, this year I did.

In Blancpain, where you finish really matters. At Spa, it scarcely matters at all, at least not for us. Yes we want to do well as the limited resources at our disposal allow, but in this 110-car race, we could have the run of our lives and still not make the top 30. So whether you come 46^th or 64^th, is not what really counts. What really counts is that we all get a go and have a proper race with similarly quick competitors. For me this year there was a 911 which was being driven superbly well, but whose speed through the corners was exactly cancelled out by the Falcon’s brawn on the straights. We shadow boxed for a bit until I engaged, and then spent a few laps slithering around on a damp track never more than a few feet apart and often quite a lot less than that. It was superb fun.