10th September 2004 - Nissan's don't like the wet?

[DLG] Based on the latest race result from Motegi, it would seem that Nissan's don't like the wet. I can quite understand it - if it buckets down with rain here in the UK, creating a load of spray on the motorway, mine has a habit of ingesting spray and not firing properly, leading to an embarrassing drop off in power. Or is it just the drivers?

no rather the opposite, we run very well in the wet usually.... this race a bit of a cock-up.... we missed pole by 0.011 of a second ( having held it for most o f the last session w/ Motoyama...)  Eriks car in dire trouble 9 kph down on straight ... qual 16th behind the Ferrari!!   engine change for race sorted it out , but then broken input shaft in wup ...
Krumm 13th as running 100kg success ballast... in race wet start , everyone on intermediates... Motoyama chose softs, all our other cars on medium inters... after pole car fell off Motoyama led until lap 15 then tires died and went backwards, at pit stop on lap 24 was 8th just ahead of Kaneishi(in Erik's car) on detaching refuelling hose tank flap jammed spewing fuel all over exhausts... fire extinguisher moment lost him @ 8 seconds.. exited pit just after Erik, track had only one (damp line , so Lyons lost another 3 or 4 seconds behind Erik as neither could move off-line... eventually got past and stormed up to third place 2.2 seconds behind winner and 1.3 secs behind second.. on the basis that if my aunt had a moustache shed be my uncle, should have won race without pitstop mishap... Krumm ended up 8th, making up for time lost when co-driver Masami spun on first stint , also had second fastest lap as late pit and clear laps after stop... this means that despite taking off 20 kgs for 8th place, has earned 10kgs golden weight for next race, so Autopolis on 90kgs ballast... Erik 7th on target, despite evil handling car as dampers mistakenly set when panic changing box after warm-up... finger trouble...so 3 points and 40 kgs for next race... has slid from second 4 points behind leader to 4th 10 points behind, Krumm 5th one point behind Erik ; team Hoshino car now out of it as Ide fell off in stint ... zero points and 50kgs , as no weight dropped as all golden weight (fastest lap and pole weight stays for the year) championship situation OK as Motoyama one point behind Wakisaka and both of them on 80 kgs....  regards RD


29th January 2006 - FD04 Rebuilt

Presentation from December.


Alex Ribeiro, Emerson Fittipaldi, Wilson Fittipaldi, Ingo Hoffman.



the previous restoration FD01 is a runner, FD04 has unrebuilt engine... target is to take them to Goodwood this year..  regards RDV





30th January 2006

[DLG] In the first image with yourself in the car, who are the people standing up. There is Alex Ribeiro on the left, and I recognise the guy in the red shirt from an image you sent me before, although I don't know his name, with Ingo Hoffman to the right of him.

Guy in red shirt is Darci de Medeiros, who did the rebuild of the car, appropriate, as he was a mechanic for Wilson on the Dacon Karman Guia Porsche days, then came to work at Fittipaldi in Brasil, then came to the UK when we had out F2 team, and finally worked on the F1team. After the team stopped in Europe he was chief mechanic on Christians Fttipaldis FFord in Brasil, then F3.... a long time Fitti associate..
 
On back row also Dana's president, the gent in the dark suit...he had been a sponsor of the team in the 70s , and now financed the rebuild of the FD01, Fd04 and next on schedule is to find a 05a ...other two chaps work at Darci's w/shop, on the rebuild.
 
Sitting on wheel with the long hair is Odilon Franco, who was one of my draftsmen at Fitti , he now works at the CTA (Centro Tecnico da Aeronautica) , where we used the wind tunnel... great drafstaman, but flipped his wig after the Reading music festival... (we used to be based in Caversham)... methinks too much acid... seems better now, last time I saw him he was being carted away in a straight jacket after stripping all his clothes off and standing on the roof of the factory at Interlagos on a sunday refusing to unlock the doors because it was the lord's day, and we were miserable sinners attempting to work...
 
Jo Ramirez says delicately in his book that "he'd taken a different route and become a laid back hippie."
 
Whilst out there also went to the wedding of Roberta, Wilsons daughter, who married the son of Antonio Carlos Avalone, who raced in F5000 in Europe, then built Lola can Am cars in Brasil under licence... see the Lola heritage page on their site for some shots,  and also continuing the racing links , Tatiana , Emerson's daughter, is Max Papis girlfriend, both also at the wedding.. great to meet all the old mob, including Geraldinho , our welder , who used to weld without goggles ( and isnt blind!! ) ... am beginning to suspect am not a kid anymore...   regards RDV 


14th March 2006 - Mentioned by Anthony Reid

[DLG] In the April edition of Motorsport, Anthony Reid is crediting Laurent Aiello's 1999 BTCC championship to the work he did in 1998 with Alec Poole, Ray Mallock and yourself. Would that have been when you were Technical Director and Chief Enginer for Nissan Motorsport Europe?

yes, I designed the car, why , who said otherwise?
NME designed , built and gave the cars to Team Rosberg, RML and Nismo to run, plus Nissan Spain, Nissan Australia, and Sweden. Same car basics were put into the South African car, I think it was called the Sentra there... 5 championships in a row with DeVilliers, whe now drives for VW in rally-raids.
We did win the 98 manufacturers in 98 in UK , and yes, Anthony was a cornerstone of the development, I worked with him in 97 in Germany and 98 in BTCC.
He left us in 99 to go to Ford lured by twice the money... wrong choice methinks , we had a very good combination ... the Mondeo was the Reynard based development, a bit of a lame duck.
regards  RDV


15th March 2006 - Season started well.. this Sunday first GT race

Latest update: after leading the GT  tests,  off to F Nippon pre season tests... running 4 cars and on Treluyers car directly, out testing for the last three weeks... roll on the races...

Test at Fuji a bit perturbed for Treluyer, had a puncture braking at end of straight and spun off into wall at 297kph... lost most of session rebuilding car... still, led 6 out of 8 sessions so far, didn't bother running first day at Suzuka, just bedding tires as massive rain , then greasy track... regards, RDV



18th March 2006 - JGTC, Suzuka

Oh well... didnt keep Hondas at bay... second row with Michael and Satoshi, and Benoit had problems warming tyre in superlap.... slight excursion so 8th... arghh, Murphy stikes again... after dominating winter , free practice and sandbagging first qualy... sank to low end of field... there you are , another wasted day in my life.... regards RD



16th April 2006 - F.Nippon at Suzuka

Formula Nippon not boring, more going on than 3-ring circus... at start Satoshi Motoyama stalled on startline, and Tsugio Matsuda lost 3 places at start due to wheelspin... Benoit on other hand, had too good a start... so much so that he got a drive through penalty, after having disappeared into the distance to the tune of 8 seconds after 5 laps...
 
not a problem, after joining the race again in 13th place, motored rapidly up the placings, pulling back over a second a lap over the leaders, and after 12 laps was up to 5th, then coming in for tires and fuel in an early stop to not get tangled up in the 4way fight for the lead.... alas Murphy , ever present , gave him a 46 second pit stop when front left wheelnut jammed, instead of the usual 15 second one... rejoined in 19th place, and drove an angry but inspired race and not pitting for wets in a shower that slowed pace to 2'30 for a couple of laps, causing several spins and pitting of many cars for wets to finaly grab 3rd place at the last corner of the last lap... also had fastest lap, in fact 7 of the ten fastest laps...
 
a meager 4 points for a stunning drive in the car that was the class of the field ( he said modestly...)
 
..so still leading teams championship , but slipped to second in drivers, one point behind Loic Duval , who scored a lucky first win in a chaotic race... .... Motegi next round... cheers RD


2nd August 2006 - Snobs

Hey!  Finally found a photo of my first racing car design, this is the Snobs I did for Celidonio, using the engine and gearbox of his rolled Karmann Guia-Corvair.... 



Inspiration really Ferrari P3... all curves etc... airbox doubled as scoop for aircooled corvair engine, midships,effect was spoiled a bit by Celidonio changing his seat to a bolt upright style... he was used to the carreteras... you can see by head in relation to the roll-hoop... was a good car.. unfortunately destroyed... regards RD


13th February 2007 - Lobo


Another shot of Camillo's carretera.... last week at Interlagos, with a bunch of other cars. Camillo was known as O Lobo do Caninde.....The wolf from Caninde (a part of Sao Paulo where he lived and had his workshop) ..



19th November 2007 - Formula Nippon, Drivers Championship - 1st


First and second Drivers Championship; first and third Teams Championship,  F Nippon  2007, this Sunday teams 4th 2007 win with Satoshi Motoyama.



26th November 2007 - 1000 Km de Buenos Aires, 1971




Emerson's drive in the Bagration Team 917 with Reuteman...Friday he pulped the Alfa T33 he was supposed to drive with Hezemans, after puncture caused by steel bristles left on track after road sweeper had cleaned it..many other cars punctured also. Car retired after 43 laps when running 6th if I remember... Regards RD

The BUA F Ford series was a brainstorm by John 'Spider'  Webb, (Brands Hatch organiser), was a sort of trying to introduce FFord to S America piggybacking on Emerson's champ win in the UK, and backed by Ford and British United Airways...BUA supplying tickets and transport for cars and equipment, Ford backing the series and supplying the tow cars (Jeepsters, Ford was amalgamated with Renault-Willys in Brasil) for the motley lot of two car trailers that traipsed them around Brasil. Incidentally that's when Emerson met soon-to-be wife Maria Helena Dowding, a BUA hostess or such...Webb seemingly just put pins on a map of Brasil to chose venues, and had races at one week intervals, not being aware of Brasilian roads up north, so between Curitiba(3rd race) and Fortaleza(last), cars were taken by transporter trucks 4500 kms, 3000 of which on dirt and gravel roads..even leaving Curitiba on the evening of race, they only arrived in the early morning of the Sunday..race day, by which time Webb was in custody, held by an enraged Mayor and chief of police, who reckoned they had been swindled by the gringos...
 
There is a plethora of tales to be told, and the state of Jeepsters returned to Ford after the odyssey was something to be seen, including Lanfranchis one peppered by machine gun bullets after he'd failed to stop at a military barrier between states (remember this was in full dictatorship, and with urban guerrillas), one with the entire back door missing, a couple of rolled ones, and the mysterious disappearance of a Ford Galaxy used by the organisers... this supposedly down to the notorious Cardoso, same chap involved in the Shadow missing monocoque saga.. a real character...
 
As for Mr, Walkingshaw, didn't leave a favorable impression on me, seemed a dour wheeler dealer, if not crook, resembled a Glasgow Gorbals tough, was very chummy with Erick Dimmock, one of the press contingent. Other notables were Reg James, and it didn't strike me at the time as not very up to the happenings in the UK, but explains the presence of Mr.R.Biggs in the paddock and at the bar in Rio hotel. Ronnie was actually quite amusing, and invited team to probably Rio's (and the world's!) only British restaurant.
 
I was in the Lotus team, driving up to Fortaleza with Ashley, Dave Baldwin and the Holbay chappie... interesting drive....presume it was just as interesting for all the contingent, was amused mainly by Lanfranchi, a great character, and the fast ones were Emmo, (cr)Ashley, Ray Allen, Bueno (in the SMART Stirling Moss Racing Team Merlyns with Ashcar), Wilson and Marivaldo in the 4th Lotus, Casari had a good race result, and Walkinshaw actually 4th when car didn't stop with its chronic fuel pickup problem and the Loti overheated at the first race in Rio. Race was also enlivened by the aerobatics of the Brasilian equivalent of the Red Arrows, who comprehensively beat-up the pit straight, smoke generators and all, unfortunately with Brasilian timing, just as the cars were starting... first laps a bit fraught, with NA AT6 buzzing racing cars 15 feet off the ground laying smoke trails....good value..



11th November 2008 - JGTC Champion


One more year, one more championship....



23rd January 2009 - Leaving Japan

[DLG] I see that there is a little sidebar in Autosport this week saying that you are leaving Nissan Motorsports to pursue "other opportunities" and that you aim to engineer a car at the Indy 500.

Back home in France...finally!

Had been planning to leave Japan for some time now, spending only 30--35 days at home a year definitely not enough, plus with 9 GT championships won and 5 F Nippon not much to do...as the GT design is frozen by regs for 3 years, so must use same car...13 years was quite long for something that was meant to be a winter programme in '96...was intending to consult for Nissan on the FIA GT1 programme in Europe this year, but that is also wishy-washy...might still happen but with the economy being what it is we shall have to wait...

Fundamentally had an agreement with Pescarolo from last year to design the 2010 LMP1 to new regs, working more or less full time on that, so had already notified Nismo that wasn't going to stay in Japan, but again, with the crash that's on hold also...as usual, I have a good sense of timing!

Nevermind, it's time to do something else, was getting stale in Japan, 13 years is a long time doing the same things, so concentrating in setting up a Dakar deal for next year, I love the race, trying to guest engineer in the Indy 5oo (one I still haven't done..), just the 500, not whole IRL championship...argh, living in Indianapolis? No way... and will also be doing GT3 in Brasil with a couple of GT40's (the new one) with Emerson and Wilson...of course you know that these Fitti programmes can also be dodgy, so will not rely too much on being paid...

But, always better one year too soon than too late...great to leave Japan on top as 08 champion  in GT and Nippon, and looking forward finally to having time to do the races and programmes I've always wanted to do but tied down to other work, enjoyable as it might have been...now looking seriously about getting my pilots licence before I get too old, air planes and flying have always been my first loves..

Will probably be going to Brazil in the next couple of months, if you have any questions about S American races or anything else, might be a good time to make your list for when I'm in loco
regards RD


4th March 2009

Things moving along, at Pescarolo we have new toy, a Pug908HDI-FAP to race in this years Le Mans, am negotiating with a couple of IRL team to guest at the Indy 500, plus tech advisor for the A1GP Brasil team...started with a bang, second place with my first race with them...

Also getting involved in the Fittipaldis GT3 team in Brasil, plus working on getting a Dakar team together for end of year...so much for sabbatical year..


10th March 2009

..yes Peug will be interesting, but doing most of the work on simulation and data analysis from the wind tunnel tests with new 40% model of Pesca LMP1...car will have a lot more downforce and be less pitch-sensitive, it was a bit delicate to drive in the sprint races...got some good gains in drag, so Le Mans this year could be interesting...

The news is that will finally be doing the Indy 500 as a guest engineer, haven't sorted out which team yet, but four opportunities, something I've been wanting to do for years to round off CV...



18th May 2010 - Interlagos, 70 years old...

At Suzuka having finished first day of testing...last week at Sugo having come straight from paddock at Spa 100km race...and back Friday to Magny Cours for 24 hour simulation pre-Le Mans...rather busy and suffering with Jpn Dunlop tires...they are black and round but not a patch on the Bridgestones, I don't expect to win any races here this year....

Nice to have Nismo being sporting and keeping me company at back of grid, LOL...so far poor Benoit hasnt arrived once in front of me, even in LMP, despite being in an Audi, as I keep rubbing in....

Pescarolo now dead as a doornail, Oak doing quite well...we bought all the molds, patterns, drawings and intellectual rights to the Pesca Lmp, including 50% wind-tunnel model, and now starting design of 2011 car...running quite well apart from the Accura Honda being blindingly fast on straights, working hard to improve low-downforce aero, and getting another engine..Judd no match for the HPD..

Spa was going alright, went for a fuel trim 1 tactic to have 4 stops rather than 5, but royally screwed when power cut at circuit brought out red-flag, got caught out on track when pit closed....on re-start had to come in to refuel as running on vapour by then...lost a lap when could have won as Strakka screwed themselves when Leventis crashed on warm-up and they had to start 2 laps down from pits....there you go, if my auntie had balls....

Anyway, time for bed as up at 5 for 6am start tomorrow..
regards
RD



25th October 2012 - ALMS


Atlanta race with Deltawing last weekend