British GT, Rockingham – Sunday Notes
It’s Grim Oop East Midlands!

Friday – glorious sunshine; Saturday – overcast, but warm and dry; Sunday – miserable as sin! The Rockingham Motor Speedway was blanketed in low cloud and mist, as well as a thick drizzle, as raceday dawned in Northamptonshire, meaning that the ten-minute warm-up would be a wet one and probably the first race at least.

The rain stopped with a quarter of an hour to go before the warm-up, but returned with a vengeance just before the light turned green at the end of the pitlane. With this being the first wet-weather running, however - as well as the only session before Race 1 - all 21 cars were obliged to take part.

Alas for the #28 Century Motorsports G55 their wet-weather experience lasted only to the Tarzan Hairpin, where the Ginetta ended its session buried in the gravel. They did, however, fare better than the #2 Trackspeed Porsche, which slowed to a halt on the exit of the hairpin near the end of the session; “The engine’s gone,” said a hugely disappointed Gregor Fisken. “There was no warning; I just lost drive out of the corner and thought a driveshaft had gone but unfortunately it was much worse.

“It’s particularly frustrating as we were potentially on for a good couple of results that would have revitalised our title challenge. The Audis have been let off the leash this weekend, but the rain has levelled us all out again.”

Despite the engine failure, it is not inconceivable that Fisken and Tim Bridgman will be racing this afternoon; even if it is a remote possibility; “David (Ashburn) has made a hugely sporting gesture,” explained Gregor. “He says that if he doesn’t score many points in the first race he’ll let us use his car for the second; subject to the agreement of the organisers and the other teams, of course. If that does come to pass, his car will be restickered as #2.”   

Allan Simonsen set the fastest time in the morning session, and was hoping that the rain continued through the day; “We’ll be okay in the rain,” said the Dane, “but the Scuderia is now too far adrift of the new cars in the dry. That’s not really a surprise when you consider that the car’s underpinnings are based on the 360, which is now well over a decade old.” This will be Simonsen’s final appearance in the BGT in 2011 – the Donington round coincides with the LMS race at Estoril, while Silverstone takes place the same weekend as the Bathurst 1000.

The GT4 cars were enjoying the conditions and were well amongst the GT3 times. The #48Lotus Sport UK Evora of Phil Glew and Ollie Jackson ended the warm-up session 11th fastest overall.

Alex Mortimer was able to sympathise with Gregor Fisken’s plight as the brand new engine in his RPM Ford had failed in catastrophic fashion at Zeltweg the previous week and prevented himself and Peter Bamford from racing in the GT Open. His Rockingham weekend was proceeding in much more positive style after the #11 CRS Ferrari 458 had shown good pace on the Saturday; “It’s going well so far. I should probably have qualified on the front row for Race 2, but wouldn’t have got pole. It’s good to be ahead of (Matt) Griff(in), though. I’ve been ribbing him that he’s slow because he’s worried about getting married this week.”

As the lunch break arrived at noon, the gloom lifted and blue sky began to poke through – and there was even a hint of sunshine. The question was, would it continue to improve before the first race at 12:50, or would it deteriorate once more?

MH