Craig Lowndes, Peter Edwards, John Bowe, and Mika Salo in the #88 Maranello Motorsport Ferrari brought the Italian marque its first win at Australia’s famous Mount Panorama circuit Sunday, crossing the finish line a scant four-tenths of a second ahead of the #84 HTP Motorsports Mercedes SLS.
The race was about as good as an endurance race can get. Several different cars with different characteristics and different mixes of drivers used different strategies throughout the race to position themselves for the final hours, and ultimately for the final stint.
The Maranello Ferrari won, but any of several cars could have. All of the permutations of race strategy—when to change drivers, when to change tires, when to stop for fuel, when to use specific drivers—coupled with all the racecraft available to the stellar slate of drivers, each maximizing the characteristics of his or her car, combined to create a racing experience which was as exciting cerebrally as it was emotionally.
The first eight hours of the race featured some tremendously exciting racing, but that was just the prelude. The intensity of the competition increased steadily through the final few hours, as several cars swapped the lead both on track and in the pits. Strategy played as big a part as did speed, as teams had to calculate when to stop to get their fastest drivers into the cars for the final stints, balancing mandatory rest periods and maximum driver times against track position and fuel and tire economy.
Everyone had to calculate, and everyone had to gamble. With 35 cars circulating on a 6.2 -km track at maximum speed after so many hours of racing, there were more variables than known quantities. Chance played as big a role as math and engineering.
