British GT - Donington Park – Race Two
Barwell Aston Martin Cleen Sweep
But You’d Never Guess How It Came About
© Mark Howson A quite extraordinary finish to this race resulted in the top four positions all changing at the final corner. This dramatic, if bizarre, shuffle resulted in Barwell Motorsport celebrating a clean sweep of the podium places, and left the Preci-Spark drivers fuming with anger. In contrast to the finish, the start of the race was quite conventional, but certainly brisk. Qualifying had indicated that things were going to be close at the start of this race and so it proved. Pole man Adam Wilcox made it down to Redgate at the head of the pack in the VRS Ferrari, but had Jonny Cocker’s #1 DBRS9 snapping at his heels from the off. Michael Bentwood in the #2 Aston was making a similarly aggressive start and got past the Mosler of Ian Flux by putting two wheels on the grass on the first lap. Tim Sugden, meanwhile, had managed to get the #14 Trackspeed Porsche ahead of Tommy Erdos’ Damax Ascari. Sugden carried his momentum forward and immediately latched onto the Mosler; challenging Flux across the line and making the move stick shortly afterwards at Coppice. Wilcox could do nothing to shake off Cocker, and the two lead cars circulated as though tied together with a short length of rope, with necessarily almost identical lap times. On lap five, the young Aston driver almost messed up his challenge, bouncing over the curbs at Schwantz; but he recovered quickly and was able to make a successful passing attempt at the Old Hairpin on the next lap. Bentwood tried to follow him through and found himself being put onto the grass by a resolute Wilcox. But the manoeuvre lost the Ferrari some of its momentum and the #2 was up to second moments later. Cocker’s lead was just over a second at the end of the lap, but Bentwood made sure it didn’t get any bigger over the next few laps. Elsewhere in the pack, Aaron Scott (starting from the back after his qualifying problems) was scything his way through the tail end at such a rate that he was in the GTC lead after just three laps, and was now challenging James Saggers in the #5 RPM Viper for 16th position. Steve Hyde led GTC initially, and now had two Porsches pursuing him; the #15 Trackspeed GT3 Porsche of Iain Dockerill and Graeme Mundy’s RSS 996. None of the Vipers had qualified well for this race, and Nigel Greensall and Bradley Ellis were developing a private battle for Dodge bragging rights, with the Brookspeed car ahead of the #5 RPM. Unfortunately, the battle was only for tenth place (after they had both passed Mark Cole in the Team 4Car Porsche) and they were falling away from the cars ahead. Ollie Bryant was driving well in the Tech 9 Porsche, lapping consistently within a tenth of Tim Sugden, and took sixth place from Tommy Erdos on lap six. But Erdos wasn’t having any of that nonsense and reclaimed the place three laps later. Guy Harrington was staying in close contention in the #3 Aston in eighth place, while Godfrey Jones closely followed in the Preci Spark Ascari. At the end of lap nine, less than ten seconds covered first to ninth; and the gaps between the cars swelled and contracted at almost every corner. Ian Flux was all over Tim Sugden in his efforts to get back fourth place and he regained the lost ground on lap ten with a bold overtaking move at Goddards. Sugden was by now frustrated by understeer – but with worse to come. Graeme Mundy, meanwhile, briefly claimed second in GTC before falling to the back once more after a moment somewhere around the circuit, but the Beechdean Ferrari was moving away from the two other class cars at a significant rate. At the front, the two DBRS9s were beginning to break away from the pack, although not from each other. Bentwood kept up the pressure and Cocker could only increase his lead by a few hundredths per lap. Elliot Cole had been starting to make progress in the Tesco-sponsored Eclipse Mosler after a quiet start, taking 13th spot from Nigel Redwood’s RPM Porsche on lap ten and beginning to close on Mark Cole; but the car suddenly slowed on lap 13 and crawled into the pits. The cause was soon identified as an alternator belt that had jumped off its pulley; but the belt also powered the water pump and the engine was cooked. The Mosler became the first retirement of the afternoon. Tommy Erdos was having a much better time of things in the Ascari than had been the case on Saturday, even though he was having to use all of his considerable talent and experience to overcome the uncooperative hard tyres, and was beginning to close on Tim Sugden’s Porsche at the rate of two tenths a lap. The gap was creeping down to about the three second mark at lap 16, but it suddenly closed considerably over the next three laps and Erdos took the place on the 19th tour.  Erdos had not speeded up, but instead Sugden had slowed down. He was clearly in trouble, but stayed out until the pit window opened and then dived in. the cause of the problem was immediately identified as a delaminated rear left tyre and it had to be changed. David Ashburn took over but had lost almost a minute.
There were only a few pitters in the first half of the pit window (most of the faster men had started this one), but they came thick and fast soon afterwards. Ian Flux and Adam Wilcox stayed out as long as they could, but Wilcox held onto third (which briefly became first after both Cocker and Bentwood pitted together) despite the best efforts of the Mosler driver to get by. At the stop, however, the door once again failed to close properly on the VRS Ferrari and Kevin Riley rejoined the race in the Mosler ahead of Phil Burton. “We lost 22 seconds in the pit stop and finished 16 seconds behind the leader,” related Adam Wilcox. As on Saturday, it was simply that the door was a relic of its former self after the practice crash: it did well to stay shut at all.  |
Flux and Wilcox almost didn’t make it as far as the pit stop. A brief shower passed over the Craner Curves and made the surface very slippery; as discovered by Henry Fletcher in the #5 RPM Viper when he had a huge off-track excursion down the hill and slewed backwards across the track at the bottom. Fletcher managed to hold the slide sufficiently to prevent a high speed impact with the lead cars, but it was very, very close. Bradley Ellis almost rear-ended the #15 Trackspeed Porsche when Iain Dockerill appeared to stop at the wrong pit. He was unceremoniously pushed out of the way by a gaggle of RPM mechanics. Ollie Bryant had also stopped, but Matt Harris’ departure was delayed when it was discovered that the Tech 9 Porsche’s rear left tyre had delaminated in the same way as Tim Sugden’s had earlier. Harris’s stint was destined to be a lonely, frustrating one. Julian Baldwin, Managing Director Cooper Tire Europe, commented as follows. "The left rear tyre of some of the Porsche cars running in the GT3 category at Donington, were suffering blistering at the half way point in the race. We asked all teams to change these tyres as a precaution and then continue. This problem has not arisen in any of the testing we have previously done and did not occur in either of the races at Oulton Park, or the first race of the Donington weekend. We will be investigating the cause of this problem and cannot comment further until those investigations are complete." With all new drivers installed, 24 minutes of the race remained and 31 laps had been completed. Paul Drayson led in the #1 Barwell Aston and he had Tom Alexander three seconds behind him in #2. David Jones wasn’t going to allow the other drivers time to get settled and made a huge dive down the inside of Ben de Zille Butler for fourth at Redgate. He carried so much momentum through the corner that he was up into third just moments later with a move that unsettled Kevin Riley so much that he allowed Butler through too. We were soon to lose two more runners. David Ashburn brought the delayed Trackspeed Porsche back into the pits, and the shrugs and hand signals indicated game over. It was later found that a bolt had worked loose from the gear linkage. Ashburn was followed in by Lawrence Tomlinson, himself not long in the Brookspeed Viper, but a very smoky engine would see the car pushed away. It wasn’t the V10 though, but rather “the tubey thing connected to the power steering,” explained Brookspeed’s helpful young lady. Ah, power steering hose leaking then… Stephen Keating, meanwhile, had clearly taken inspiration from Tommy Erdos and was driving very well in the #11 Ascari in the slippery conditions and was beginning to close on Riley. He got within half a second of the Mosler, but was prevented from getting closer by Phil Burton as he took the Damax car on lap 40. By far the fastest man on track was Alex Mortimer, in the recovering Viper. He caught Keating on lap 41 and then set off in pursuit of Burton’s Ferrari. Paul Drayson was driving with great composure at the front and pulling away from Alexander at a couple of seconds a lap. David Jones had the #2 car in his sights and was closing the gap rapidly. As time began to run out it was clear that he may yet get close enough for a challenge. Drayson crossed the line with 90 seconds on the clock and the gap from third to second was now down to 2.311 seconds. With a lap taking 73 seconds and Jones lapping over a second quicker that Alexander, it was going to be very close after the final two laps. Except that there wasn’t going to be a second lap. When Drayson started that lap, his lead was 16 seconds and he merely had to stroke the car home; but exiting Coppice, the car slowed dramatically and was practically crawling along the Dunlop Straight. Had it run out of fuel? Tom Alexander caught up with the #1 car as they arrived at Goddards. The #2 went round and into the lead; but Drayson stayed on the racing line and began to speed up again. David Jones rounded the corner, the last of the race, to find the much slower Drayson in front of him and was effectively baulked. Guy Harrington saw this, put his foot down and went round the Ascari; snatching third place at the death, just behind Drayson. There was bewilderment amongst onlookers at this bizarre finish, but it soon became apparent that Drayson had been told to slow down by the team as they feared that he would not have enough fuel for another lap. “I was told to take it easy,” explained Drayson, “but I didn’t know why.” The driver simply didn’t have enough racing experience to manage the situation properly, and this allowed Alexander to catch up. The Jones twins, however, were furious, second driver David especially, that they had been (as they saw it) robbed of third and a potential second and made serious enquiries about a protest. They were advised that this would not be allowed and just had to accept the situation. As things transpired, if the #1 was so low on fuel, they may conceivably have snatched a win. Could the Aston have been out of fuel, David? “No – he speeded up after he’d blocked me.” Alex Mortimer also made ground on the final lap, passing Phil Burton for fifth place after a long period of pressure. Mortimer had struggled to make a pass because the Ferrari is so good under braking – but despite Saturday’s misfire returning, he did manage the move, at that very busy Goddards. Post-race there was a mixture of delight (at Barwell) and bewilderment (RPM and the Porsche teams in particular). They need to slow the Aston to what it was at Oulton,” said Tech 9’s Piers Masarati. “The Aston has had 60 kg taken out of it: that doesn’t make sense,” added Ollie Bryant. “With the tyre issue, we’ve come away with two points. We’re having to wring the neck of the car to set our times. The Aston seems able to do it with ease. I thought the Porsche was supposed to be the benchmark car.” Robin Mortimer, team owner at RPM: “If only the equalisation with the Aston Martins could be levelled, we would be in for a rather exciting championship battle. However, with things the way they are, it is impossible for us to compete on a level footing. The team will continue to work hard on the car and can only hope that the organisers will look at the situation again before Snetterton. The boys’ performance as usual was flawless with both matched incredibly closely on both old and new tyres. Sadly there is nothing more to come from them, merely the machinery.” After the left/rear problems on the Porsches (which didn’t surface on Saturday), Piers Masarati was worried that “the fast corners at the next two tracks, Snetterton and Thruxton, won’t be good for the Porsches. We can’t run any less camber to try and look after the tyres.” The GTC race wasn’t a classic, but Andrew Howard was another inexperienced driver (in only his fifth British GT race) to show great composure in maintaining the considerable advantage handed to him by Aaron Scott, after another blistering drive. Two wins for Beechdean was a remarkable turnaround in fortunes for the team after the disasters of Oulton Park. Jamie Smyth claimed second for RSS 9despite cutting out and p/steering problems), while Team Aero maintained its 100% finishing record when Keith Ahlers brought the Morgan home in third. "Jamie (Smyth) got the run on me down the straight," said Keith Ahlers, "and although I knew were catching the 'ice cream van', we ran out of time to catch Andrew, who was driving very well anyway." The class desperately needs more entrants. Even with the odd finish to the second race, the two rounds at Donington had shown that you don’t need a huge grid to make a race. Having said that, a few more entrants and a good deal less (pre-race) carnage at Snetterton in June would be warmly welcomed. Unofficially, the GT3 driver points look like this:
1. Guy Harrington Barwell Motorsport 25
1. Ben de Zille Butler Barwell Motorsport 25
3. Jonny Cocker Barwell Motorsport 24
3. Paul Drayson Barwell Motorsport 24
5. Michael Bentwood Barwell Motorsport 22
5. Tom Alexander Barwell Motorsport 22
7. Bradley Ellis Team RPM 18
7. Alex Mortimer Team RPM 18
7. Godfrey Jones Team Eurotech 18
7. David Jones Team Eurotech 18
11. Oliver Bryant Tech 9 17
11. Matt Harris Tech 9 17
13. Tim Mullen C.I.M. 12
13. Hector Lester C.I.M. 12
15. Phil Burton VRS Finance 6
15. Adam Wilcox VRS Finance 6
15. Kevin Riley Rollcentre 6
15. Ian Flux Rollcentre 6 | 
