Today we saw Siegfried Happe in France training for the upcoming race on Saturday – while the Sitges T51A Bugatti gets some rest after the straining race, Feldmühle put some money into the season and ordered a T51 from 1931 with the same livery to France. Right after it was delivered to the track, the german was already out for a practice lap. This time the whole Muffler Shop Racing team was there, with a few test drivers in tow, helping with setting up the car. Especially Simon Brännström Stattin, a valuable member of Muffler Shop Racing helped a lot setting up the car to the task ahead: surviving the race and being fast while doing so.

The problem in comparison with Sitges here is, that the track is much more “long straights, sharp turns”, so the car has to be build a certain way to make the cut in the times. So after extensive training, Happe seems to be at least partially ready for Saturday. When the grid was announced, Happe was quite scared about the draw: 7th place!

“Such a high up start is scary, i have much faster cars right behind me and have to wrestle the Bugatti so it makes the turns. That makes it tough.”

An open ear and an honest request | Happe asks for help

While the practice on Reims was on, Happe came in for a pitstop seeing a Professional Driver just leaving his car. He took the chance and invited the Maserati Driver Sebastian Gunderson to a talk. Happe told us coming out of that discussion:

“I knew I’m slow and have to learn quite an amount of things leading up to the race, so the direct way was the best solution. Gunderson is a very quick driver and we discussed race strategy, pitting and the handling of the car quite a lot. I can be honest about it: I need help driving this car to it’s maximum, so it was that honesty, that brought me into the talks with those drivers. Even if they drive different cars, their advice is worth much more than any amount of laps I can do on this track! Especially Bernd Kreuzner, a fellow german driver and Sebastian Gunderson helped me a lot to overcome the fear of starting that far ahead in the grid. I also got to drive a lap around Gunderson, who showed me his lines – that kind of education is priceless and we will learn a lot because of that.”

Kreuzner, Borisov, Gunderson, Barto… Happe?

Looking at all the professional drivers in the season right now, the looming question is still: “will Happe make it to the professional drivers, or was the last win just luck?” Siegfried Happe is quite certain about his position in the motorsport:

“While I am definetely not ready to join the professionals, yet, that doesn’t mean that this isn’t a plan for the future. Of course we were quite lucky at Sitges, keeping the car alive over the duration, but we still have a lot to learn. When i look at the drivers up there, I don’t see myself competing with Kreuzner, Gunderson, Barto and so on, yet. I have to go the slow road of learning the ropes of Grand Prix Racing and then make the move. Reims already shows us, that we have to put some more work into certain tracks and cars and this will NOT get easier in the future.”