Friday 28th May 2010

'Red 5' To Race With Smiley At Le Mans 24hrs!

Nigel Mansell lets us stick the PH logo on the team LMP1 car

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Leo testing the Beechdean Mansell Ginetta-Zytek yesterday at Silverstone

"Ere, how about this PH Smiley then..?"

Luke Skywalker may have had R2-D2 riding shotgun when he took on the Imperial Tie-Fighters, but Nigel Mansell and sons Leo and Greg are going one better at Le Mans this year. Yes, PH's very own Smiley is going into battle on behalf of 'Red 5' and his new team-mates.

Amazingly, the guys at Beechdean Mansell were so chuffed by the enthusiastic entry to our Silverstone LMP1 test competition, they've decided to respond with a reciprocal gesture and promised to include PH's Smiley logo on their red, white and blue-liveried Ginetta-Zytek racing car.

PH will be on there when it's painted!

As you can imagine, we're all-but incontinent with excitement here in the PH office at the thought of this website's iconic Smiley appearing at one of the world's greatest races, and on a car driven by our favouritest-ever British motor racing legend. The team's graphic designer is working on the artwork as we speak, so as soon as we've got pictures we'll let you see 'em. (Let's hope we don't need a magnifying glass, eh chaps?)

Meanwhile team boss Andrew Howard has also promised PH exclusive access in the run-up to, and during the 24hr race - including garage tours for PHers (look out for another competition soon), progress updates live from the pitlane, and whatever else we can think of to help make sure that PH race fans get a real insight into the operation of this new all-British LMP1 outfit on its inaugural Le Mans outing.

Our 10 competition winners got a taste of what's in store at the Silverstone test which took place yesterday (May 27th), meeting Nigel, Greg and Leo, and watching the crucial session unfold from inside the garage and on the pit wall.

PH winners meet a winning legend	Beechdean's Aston racer
The PH chariots at Silverstone	Just a bunch of car guys hanging out!

First though, they all had a hot passenger lap in both the PH BMW M6 long-term test car, and Beechdean's 2009 Aston Martin racer driven by Greg Mansell and Andrew Howard, and the drivers and team members all had time for a friendly chat while they got down to the serious business of getting their car up to speed. (While we got a £770 bill for two new Pirelli PZero Corsas on our Bimmer - cheers Greg!)

Nigel updates the PHers on progress

The test has been declared a success

"We've had a brilliant test," said Mansell senior after the event. "The car has run extremely well and the boys have done a great job with the set up and I'm very optimistic that for the race here at Silverstone, and at Le Mans, we will be competitive. The decision to miss Spa was the correct one, as we saw Spa ended up being a traumatic race for a lot of people and the race was stopped for a while. The most important thing was to get ready for Le Mans and we had to regroup. There were a few things we had to understand about the car and we've managed to do that with two tests, one at Snetterton and the other here at Silverstone today. I'd like to thank Silverstone for helping us get this test. It's been a big step forward for us and overall we've had a very successful day."

Andrew Howard chatting to PHers

"It was a very hard decision not to go to the last LMS race at Spa but we feel totally vindicated by the performance of the car here," said Team Principal Andrew Howard. "We have taken a big step forward and the whole team now feels ready for the challenge of competing at the Le Mans 24 Hours in two weeks time. Our goal for this season is to reach the chequered flag and if we can do that it will be a huge achievement for a team that didn't exist 6 months ago. We hope the fans will get behind the team and everyone can show their support by joining the new Beechdean Mansell Motorsport Race Club."

Greg and Leo: "Dad's said what..?!"

The car will now be taken back to the team's head quarters in Buckinghamshire where it will be prepared and repainted in its Union Flag livery, then will leave the UK for France on Wednesday 2 June. (Wonder if they need a British Invasion sticker for the truck...)

The team is obviously keen to have the PH community behind them, both at Le Mans itself and as their Le Mans series campaign continues through to Silverstone in September. And because it's always nice to feel wanted*, we'll be posting details of any more exciting opportunities they offer us in the coming days and weeks. Watch this space!

*Also because we've promised to plug the team's Le Mans effort mercilessly in exchange for getting our sticker on their car. (And no, this is probably not the time to admit we were going to support them anyway...)

Artoo or Smiley - who would you want on your side?

[ellroy]

Truly epic day. Many, many thanks to all concerned.

[ellroy]

Garlick said:

torchy6 said:

Yawn, total non event, if they perform as well as they have done so far this season they will not bother the lap scorers very much and your exposure will be minimal. Why don't you find something worthwhile to support instead of sucking up to this self serving nonentity?

You are entitled to your opinion of course, but we are too when deciding who to back.

We are very keen to support this team, and the PH audience seems to be too. To be honest, we aren't in it for the exposure (although we love the fact that we can play spot the smiley on the Mansell car while at Le Mans) we are in it to fly the flag with the British team, lead by one of the biggest names in motorsport. When you see the car, you will note that it does not say 'PistonHeads.com' on it, instead we chose to just use the smiley. It's not about attracting new users, it's about our current readers being able to get behind the team.

Nige was an absolute legend to us yesterday, as were his sons, and I have nothing but good things to say about them. If they finish we'll be ecstatic, if they manage 20 laps we'll be equally happy. Good luck to them from all at PH.

Well said. The guys could not have been more accommodating.

Why on earth do people come on just to be negative? You don't like him? Fine, its your opinion, but to snipe at a man who was a world champion and a hero to many, from the safety of your keyboard, make you seem a pretty small minded individual. Turned you down for a job in the past or nicked your sweets at school did he? Deal with it and grow up.

[ellroy]

turbo-ww said:

FOURRONE said:

turbo-ww said:

FOURRONE said:

pw75 said:

Stuff

I would not want that miserable looking barstuard at my funeral let alone a wedding what were they thinking ?????????????

Knob #2

Edited to remove ambiguity...

Edited by turbo-ww on Saturday 29th May 20:45

isnt it past your bedtime Mr Double Barrel ??????

Your point being?

He has a point? Must have missed that.

[ellroy]

FOURRONE said:

ellroy said:

turbo-ww said:

FOURRONE said:

turbo-ww said:

FOURRONE said:

pw75 said:

Stuff

I would not want that miserable looking barstuard at my funeral let alone a wedding what were they thinking ?????????????

Knob #2

Edited to remove ambiguity...

Edited by turbo-ww on Saturday 29th May 20:45

isnt it past your bedtime Mr Double Barrel ??????

Your point being?

He has a point? Must have missed that.

The point being the man is a has been. is living off of past glories and has no personality or sense of humour. that is the end of the subject.........................

So, a has been who's put together a top end LMP1 race team in a matter of months, and is fairly bloody quick given the timing I was watching? No personality or sense of humour? Pray tell when were you laughing your arse off at Hamilton/Vettel/Shumi and their stand up routines? More importantly did it make any difference to them as racing drivers?

To repeat/paraphrase a previous post: You don't like him? Fine, that's your opinion, although i'd be interested to know if you'd ever met him, but to have a sniping session with no real point. Yawn, grow up.

Your full stop also seems to be stuck, you may want to check that out. Along with a basic book on grammar and punctuation.