British GT, Brands Hatch – Race One Report

BGT At Its Best

The signs weren’t good for this one – only 19 cars and a bleak, overcast day. But just before the start, something strange happened; the clouds parted and the sun burst through, lifting the whole atmosphere. Despite an uneventful first half, the race exploded into life with some fantastic individual driving performances; and, at the end, the GT4 title had been settled and the GT3 title was all but sewn up.

Having all qualified in the top five, the three CR Scuderia drivers decided that that wasn’t good enough and seemed to be desirous of filling the top three places. Paddy Shovlin held on to his pole position, but Michael Meadows got the drop on the Trimite Viper of James Gornall and Jeremy Metcalfe quickly demoted Nick Foster’s #2 RPM Viper.

Once out into the woods, however, Gornall used the Viper’s grunt to retake second, but Foster was still in fifth. Worse was to follow, however, with a trip across the Surtees grass on lap two leading to large quantities of dry grass being deposited on the already-hot brakes and catching fire. Foster could do nothing else but park the smoking machine next to the marshal’s post at the bottom of Graham Hill Bend and walk away.    

The top three were soon together and Gornall was pressurising Shovlin, taking the lead on lap four. Metcalfe was well placed top take advantage of the situation and demoted the Irish driver to third at the same time.

In GT4, the order remained unchanged, until Derek Palmer pulled the Nissan off the circuit and into retirement. The engine had dropped a valve and that was the end of ProMotorsport’s weekend.

The race now settled down into a phase that was either;

(a)    chess-like in its machinations, as drivers and teams kept a watching brief on their immediate opponents; waiting for the nerves to fray just enough to make the error that would allow the hunter to sense blood and pounce;

or

(b)   dull;

depending on your point of view. The only change for position was for the GT4 lead, with Nigel Moore allowed past at Surtees by Matt Nicholl-Jones (whose sights were firmly on the title) on lap eight.

The GT3 battle had fractured into clumps of two or three cars; with the circuit seemingly unoccupied for large periods of time. The top three (40, 14, 15) were separated by a couple of seconds, as were fourth, fifth and sixth (16, 11, 1); while seventh and eighth (20, 18), and ninth and tenth (23, 42) were right with one another. Despite the proximity, however, nobody seemed able to get past anyone else.

It was with some relief, then, that the pit window opened on lap 16; but it was with some surprise that the first caller to the pits should be the lead car. Meadows followed Gornall in one lap later, which left Shovlin with a significant advantage over Metcalfe. Ben de Zille Butler had pushed the #16 Ferrari all the way, and pitted from a healthy third; allowing Guy Harrington the opportunity to start his stint in a strong position in the #11 Modena Gallardo.

On his way into the pits, James Gornall had been baulked by a Ginetta that had moved over to allow the Trimite Viper to take the racing line through Clark Curve, with the result that James Sutton rejoined in the #14 ahead of the Trimite Viper. His lead didn’t last long, however, with Jon Barnes taking the place at Dingle Dell.

Barrie Whight’s pursuit of Craig Wilkins’ ABG Viper ended on lap 16, when both drivers pitted; but Gavan Kershaw found himself staring at the silver car’s rear end as the Cadena Aston driver resumed in pursuit of Aaron Scott.

Hector Lester and Andy Jenkinson had enjoyed their private scrap and pitted at the same time, also on lap 16. The CiM Ferrari had a much better stop than the 22GTRacing Aston, however, and Allan Simonsen rejoined ten seconds before Michael Bentwood was able to.

“I had quite a battle with the Aston,” said Lester. “I didn’t know how much time it was costing us, but I wasn’t as quick as I thought I would be round here. However, I managed to give the car to Allan in good condition.”

Jeremy Metcalfe pitted on lap 20, with Shovlin being the final stopper on lap 22. Once again, Jon Barnes found a CR Scuderia Ferrari emerging from the pits in front of him, but gain was able to depose the new leader within a lap.

James Sutton’s race proved to be a short one, as the #14 CRS Ferrari pitted on lap 23 in a smoky fashion, with an engine fire.

With all stops out of the way, the (metaphorical) smoke cleared and the complexion of the remainder of the race was becoming clearer. The order on lap 24 was 40, 15, 1, 11, 16, 20, 23, 18, 42, 12, 52, 88, 55, 50, 51 and 71.

Ollie Bryant was clearly up to speed in the #1 RPM Viper, having inherited the car from Steve Clark in sixth place (“I was quicker than the two cars in front, but didn’t want to do anything stupid and concentrated on giving the car to Ollie in good condition”) and was taking huge chunks out of Michael Cullen’s advantage with each lap. With Jon Barnes just a couple of seconds further up the road and struggling with a brake problem, it seemed that once past the CRS driver, a win was very much on the cards for Bryant.

But Michael Cullen had very different ideas.

Further back, Allan Simonsen and Michael Bentwood were flying in their respective cars, but Bentwood’s extra time in the pits had hurt and he was out of contention for a good result; Simonsen, though, looked capable of a reasonable finish.

By lap 27, the gap from second to third across the line was approximately bugger-all, but Bryant just could not find a way past Cullen – who was now driving The Widest Ferrari In The World.

The lap charts show that the Viper was ahead at the end of laps 28 and 29, but on each occasion the Ferrari held the inside line into PHB and pushed the Viper onto the bumps on the outside of the bend, causing Bryant to back off. All this was allowing the Trimite Viper to get away out front and also allowing Guy Harrington to close on the RPM Viper’s tail.

With 15 minutes remaining, Barnes had a nine-second lead; second to fourth was covered by half a second; and Simonsen was a further ten seconds back in fifth. Bryant had to get past now or lose all hope of the win. But still Cullen resisted.

Further back, both Aaron Scott and Gavan Kershaw had taken position from Luke Hines’ #16 Ferrari, who was now locked in a tussle with Michael Bentwood’s Aston. The position changed a couple of times in the final few minutes, before being settled in Bentwood’s favour on the last lap by a third of a second.

In GT4, things were considerably more sedate. Nigel Moore, driving solo this weekend, was off into the distance in the #52 RPM G50, while Rob Austin was now into second place in the #55. Stewart Linn was taking it easy in the #88, mindful that a fourth placed finish was all that they needed for the title. This was how things stayed to the end and the Richmond Racing/IMS Motorsport duo became the inaugural GT4 champions.

“It’s a bit disappointing not to win today,” said Stewart Linn, “but the team gave us a great car again today and you can’t fault them all season.”

“Now we’ve got the championship, we can have some fun,” smiled Matt Nicholl-Jones.

But the GT3 race was hurtling towards its frenzied conclusion.

Despite Bryant’s frustration at not being able to get by Cullen, the race continued to be fought in a clean manner, with none of the argy-bargy one might expect to arise in such circumstances.

At the end of lap 31, the RPM Viper (once more ahead across the line) again tried at PHB, but this time Guy Harrington pounced when the #1 car lost momentum and the Lamborghini was up to third. Bryant fought back and retook the place and Harrington fell back into the clutches of Simonsen, who had by now closed the gap.      

On lap 34, the CiM Ferrari was up to fourth and less than a second from the RPM Viper. Jon Barnes may have been leading by 12 seconds, but nobody was watching him – all eyes were on the fight for second.

Now it was the Dane’s turn to be thwarted by the Irish driver; like Bryant before him, finding the #15 to be a very wide 430 indeed. This allowed the RPM driver to catch back up and at the end of the penultimate lap, the Viper’s nose was ahead across the line; and again the CiM car sneaked ahead at PHB. With one lap remaining, the three cars roared off onto the loop nose to tail.

Jon Barnes was, of course, the first to emerge from Clearways and he coasted to his and James Gornall’s fourth win of the season; but it would be another few seconds before we knew what the championship position was.

There was nothing between the three cars as they came back into view and it was now or never.

Simonsen dived down the inside of Cullen through the Clark Curve and hung on for dear life, while Bryant went round the outside – the order was 23, 1, and 15. Just 0.168s covered the three cars, but Cullen had yielded at the death and was denied a podium place in the most dramatic fashion.

“I had a fantastic battle with the Viper; he passed me on every straight and I passed him at every corner. I then saw Simonsen coming after me like a train. I was confident I could keep him behind me, but then I overcooked it going into the last corner; lost momentum and lost the drag race to the line. I’m very disappointed not to be on the podium, especially after paddy did such a great job getting pole position today.”

Aaron Scott was fifth in the ABG Viper, having taken the position from Harrington near the end. Kershaw was a second behind the Gallardo in seventh. Adam Wilcox, meanwhile, endured a lonely race in the VRS Ferrari and was the last of the GT3 finishers.

The finishing order meant that only Hector Lester and Allan Simonsen could challenge Gornall and Barnes for the title; and to do that they would have to win all three remaining races, while the Trimite duo would have to fail to score any more points - a most unlikely scenario.

“I got boxed in a bit at the start,” said a happy James Gornall, “but used the Viper’s power to get ahead. It was quite slippery out there, but I managed to give the car to Jon in a good position. The focus for today was on getting points, but I don’t like letting people past.”

“We pitted early to try and stop people pipping us at the stops,” continued Barnes, “so it wasn’t nice to see the two Ferraris rejoining in front of me. I had low fuel on the last lap and coasted across the line in fifth gear; and the car was all over the track because the tyres had gone off.”

“The car wasn’t handling too well at the start of my stint,” said Simonsen. “It took a while to get past the Cadena Aston, but then the car started to come back to me and I was able to catch up to the other cars; they made it easy for me, by fighting each other.

“Car 15 was the widest Ferrari in the world, but it was a good battle and I really enjoyed it. I had to get past him and could have done with three eyes at the end.”

“I had the same issue as Allan, in that it took a couple of laps to get up to speed in the car,” said a very hot Ollie Bryant, “but when it was there, it was very good.

“I caught the Lambo and got past, then caught up to the Ferrari. He made it very difficult to get past and it was frustrating. The irony is, that if he let me past, he would have got a podium.”

GT winner Nigel Moore was a very happy chappy; “Excellent! At the start of the week, I didn’t know if I’d even be racing today; but the team made my car up to GT4 spec and then testing, qualifying and the race all went great.”

This had been a British GT classic and most gratifyingly had been cleanly, as well as hard, fought, and that is to the credit of the drivers present. Sunday’s offering would have to do well to match up to this.

MH