Monday 16th June 2014

Le Mans 2014: Harris's Porsche race

Chris recounts his short and anything-but-sweet Carrera Cup race

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For those of you who like your race reports brief - this should be ideal.

We formed up on the green flag lap and ran pretty slowly, congregated into a side-by-side formation for the rolling start and then attempted to squeeze through the last chicane onto the start-finish straight. All was good into the Dunlop chicane, save a couple of spinners - not a bad effort from 61 lunatics all quietly thinking how they might win the race in the first corner.

Kerbed wheel the least of the problems, sadly

I think we all suspected it would kick off into the first chicane though, and sure enough the run out of Tertre Rouge was the cork in the bottle. The two cars in front of me were slow, I got a good run, but fellow Brit Rob Smith was inside me, so I had to back off. It was three abreast into the chicane, I let Rob through and cars kind of scattered everywhere. All I wanted to do was stay out of trouble, not ruin anyone's championship (the GB boys were playing for points) and enjoy some Le Mans racing.

I had a decent tow down the next straight, but I had a car right up my chuff into the braking zone for the second chicane. He just wasn't close enough to have position for the left entry - and besides, no-one just fires it down the inside there because the other car literally has nowhere to go. I remember thinking that just before the large banging noise.

He clattered me hard left-rear, then went down the side of the car. It spun me around and the car stalled, triggering a low-oil pressure warning which wouldn't allow the thing to restart. By the time it did fire the whole field had swarmed through and any hope of any racing was over. I limped back to the pits with the steering wheel not straight and the left rear feeling odd. We bunged on new rubber, I went back out, but it still didn't feel right and I just didn't see the point in risking it to drive around on my own.

The driver who hit me is called Eric Trouillet. It appears he makes trailers for a living. Ordinarily, out of pure spite and anger, I would campaign for people to boycott his product, but this time I implore everyone to buy one of his trailers forthwith. He can use the extra profits to buy some new specs and a few driving lessons.

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[F1Schumi81]

Chris,

What an absolute numpty the French man is.
Where are the gentleman drivers of the sport gone?
He could of come to the paddock after the race and said "Chris im sorry for what happended" and even lied and said "I locked up and had no where to go"?


Tos*er :-)

[GTIR]

[Bencolem]

Appreciate the enormous frustration but don't appreciate the name and shame.

[Adenauer]

Bencolem said:

Appreciate the enormous frustration but don't appreciate the name and shame.

Quite.

[Dave Hedgehog]

Bencolem said:

Appreciate the enormous frustration but don't appreciate the name and shame.

always two sides, you can imagine the other pit

i had the line into the chicane then les rosbifs wker just pulled straight across me ...



is a shame thou no one should be punted out like that especially at the start of a race

[funkyrobot]

Have never understood the love for Chris and this article seems utterly pointless.

As has been mentioned above, why the naming and shaming? Isn't it one of the golden rules of PH?

Mods, are you going to do anything about it?

[mcelliott]

F1Schumi81 said:

Chris,

What an absolute numpty the French man is.
Where are the gentleman drivers of the sport gone?
He could of come to the paddock after the race and said "Chris im sorry for what happended" and even lied and said "I locked up and had no where to go"?


Tos*er :-)

Don't be a tt, it was a racing incident, these things happen.

[Riley Blue]

On MotorsTV at this very moment.

[RWDKurt]

A shame it ended that way Chris, whoever was at fault. But it happens all the time in racing, which is why like many others I prefer speed events. If you crash on a sprint, there's only one person to blame.

Agreed that a 24hr sprint wouldn't be much fun for spectators though...

[LaurasOtherHalf]

Adenauer said:

Bencolem said:

Appreciate the enormous frustration but don't appreciate the name and shame.

Quite.

Rather unnecessary.

[fatboy69]

LaurasOtherHalf said:

Adenauer said:

Bencolem said:

Appreciate the enormous frustration but don't appreciate the name and shame.

Quite.

Rather unnecessary.

I disagree. Don't think Harris meant any malice by it. Nothing wrong with mentioning the twunts name IMO.

After all, it isn't as though all PH'ers are going to visit his factory to hammer frozen sausages into the blokes front lawn.

Are we.........

[0a]

Surprisingly unpleasant over one incident. Go racing, you might get crashed into.

[NRS]

fatboy69 said:

LaurasOtherHalf said:

Adenauer said:

Bencolem said:

Appreciate the enormous frustration but don't appreciate the name and shame.

Quite.

Rather unnecessary.

I disagree. Don't think Harris meant any malice by it. Nothing wrong with mentioning the twunts name IMO.

After all, it isn't as though all PH'ers are going to visit his factory to hammer frozen sausages into the blokes front lawn.

Are we.........

Of course, Harris must be right. Trying to find a video to see what happened, but there doesn't seem to be one. However there's always 2 sides. It could well be Harris judges other driver wrong and moves over to block the position that he had. I don't know as I haven't seen it. But the way he's reported this with the name dropping is pretty poor to be honest.

Edited by NRS on Wednesday 18th June 20:42

[Mastodon2]

The name and shame seems crass, classless and stinks of sour grapes.

[DanielSan]

If Maldonado crashes into Sutil this weekend for example and Sutil says that blind tt Maldonado crashed into him will that be seen as sour grapes and unnecessary as well?

Same thing in my eyes.

[Mastodon2]

DanielSan said:

If Maldonado crashes into Sutil this weekend for example and Sutil says that blind tt Maldonado crashed into him will that be seen as sour grapes and unnecessary as well?

Same thing in my eyes.

Racing incidents happen. I'm sure Sutil wouldn't post online about Maldonado's personal business interests in some vaguely threatening manner. Why is the fact the bloke who hit him having his business brought into this?

[zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

Chris Harris said:

The driver who hit me is called Eric Trouillet. It appears he makes trailers for a living. Ordinarily, out of pure spite and anger, I would campaign for people to boycott his product, but this time I implore everyone to buy one of his trailers forthwith. He can use the extra profits to buy some new specs and a few driving lessons.

Extraordinary.

Ordinarily you'd think it reasonable to aim for destruction of his business interests following a racing incident, but on this occasion you've handed down clemency? How incredibly gracious of you.

[funkyrobot]

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz said:

Chris Harris said:

The driver who hit me is called Eric Trouillet. It appears he makes trailers for a living. Ordinarily, out of pure spite and anger, I would campaign for people to boycott his product, but this time I implore everyone to buy one of his trailers forthwith. He can use the extra profits to buy some new specs and a few driving lessons.

Extraordinary.

Ordinarily you'd think it reasonable to aim for destruction of his business interests following a racing incident, but on this occasion you've handed down clemency? How incredibly gracious of you.

PH mods aren't bothered.

[swimd]

What happened to this?

http://www.pistonheads.com/gAssing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

[funkyrobot]

swimd said:

What happened to this?

http://www.pistonheads.com/gAssing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

It's Chris Harris - the ultimate PH dream boy.

I guess us lowly forum users have to abide by rules. His lordship doesn't.