24 plus 24 ... a fantastic year  ! !

It's certain that the 2010 season will not be just like all the others in Romain Dumas' career. Seven weeks after his resounding triumph in the Le Mans 24 Hours at the wheel of an Audi R15 Plus, the driver originally from Alès in southern France, has scored another 24 hour race win at Spa-Francorchamps. There is a long history of love between Romain, who is a works Porsche driver, and the classic Belgian endurance event reserved for GT cars, even if in recent years, he has concentrated on racing in the USA. So he was very keen to return there to try to seal another success at the track where in 2003 he snatched an historic victory from under the noses of the GR1 teams. And that is precisely what he did in the Ardennes last weekend, together with Jorg Bergmeister, Wolf Henzler and the young upcoming Austrian driver, Martin Ragginger. Driving a Porsche 997 GT3 RSR entered by the Italian BMS Scuderia Italia team, the four men showed a level of performance equal to many of the best in the field but in this event, as well as the usual GT2 cars, such as the RSR Porsches and the Ferrari 430's, there were also the works BMW M3 and several other extremely competitive GT3 entries to complicate their task, without talking about the region's ever-unpredictable weather!


The Scuderia Italia Porsche, which finished third in the GT2 class at Le Mans in June, was 8th fastest at the end of practice on Thursday. No-one was pretending this was a more than modest success but the Italian team, influenced by its vast experience in long-distance racing, was concentrating on the race unlike other teams which were looking for spectacular times in practice.  The priorities for Romain and his co-drivers during the lead-up to the race were establishing the best set-up and making the car as comfortable as possible to drive. And it was mission accomplished as they lined up for the start, since they had a very competitive and well-balanced car. This was reassuring for Romain who knows better than most the importance of having a car that is easy to drive in all circumstances, particularly at a track as special as Spa-Francorchamps, where the weather conditions can change wildly from moment to moment. Always in touch with the leaders, the No 23 Porsche was involved in battles for the entire course of the race. First the Ferraris and the Audis stumbled, then the leading BMW dropped out with less than an hour to the finish. The impressive consistency of the BMS drivers allowed them to turn a probable second place into a last-gasp win, giving the BMS Scuderia Italia team, which had one previous win in the event in 2004 with its Ferrari 550 Maranello, a second victory at the Ardennes circuit. For Romain, it was his second overall success and his fourth in GT2. No-one had succeeded in winning the Le Mans 24 Hours and the 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps in the same year since Luigi Chinetti in 1949!  Having set a new distance record at Le Mans earlier in the year, Romain Dumas continues to write new pages in the record book of long-distance racing.  


"This win is nothing like that in 2003 when no-one expected us to win. This year, we can't pretend that we weren't among the possible winners. But having said that, we weren't the favourites because Ferrari and BMW were fastest than us. But as always, being fast is one thing but staying the course is another. I showed that at Le Mans two months ago and we've demonstrated here again. The golden rule for winning in endurance racing is being reliable, consistent and having no problems whatsoever. In the Nürburgring 24 hour race, with Porsche we started as favourites but at the end, it was BMW who won. Here, this is a sort of revenge for us because the exact opposite happened. I am very happy to be winning again with Porsche. It's a special event for me because my  victory in 2003 gave me the opportunity to have such a good career ever since. We all put in very solid performances, as you have to do in this type of event, thinking all the time of the final result and trying to avoid all the problems that your competitors experience. At the start of they year, after the Penske programme was cancelled, I thought I would have a very quiet year... I didn't imagine for one moment that I'd win the Le Mans 24 Hours and the Spa 24 Hours in the same season! It's once again proof that life always holds surprises for you! "