British GT Championship - Silverstone - Race Report
Ferraris – But Title Wide Open
© Mark Howson Round eight of the 2007 season got under way shortly after midday at Silverstone in overcast but dry conditions. Italian cars would dominate in GT3, but others would threaten in a fascinating contest. At the end, a red Ferrari took the laurels and the championship fight had closed up significantly. There are quite often changes on the opening lap of a BGT race, but the first one at Silverstone was remarkable – only three cars would be in the same position in which they started by the end of it. As the tightly packed field approached the line to start the first lap, several drivers were poised to release huge bursts of power, frustration, aggression and determination; and when the lights changed the timing screens showed that the top three placings had already been reversed and that Adam Jones was now leading in the #21 Team Modena Lamborghini Gallardo. The best start belonged to Bradley Ellis, who somehow managed to weave the big #6 RPM Viper past eight cars on the packed track and was now just behind Matt Harris’s strongly-starting Tech 9 Porsche in sixth place. But there were casualties on the first lap. Sadly, Stephen Keating managed just a few corners before the #10 Damax Ascari pulled off the circuit and into retirement with no drive, while a spin for Tom Alexander in the #2 Barwell Aston Martin would have significant consequences for several cars.  Having made a good start, Alexander suddenly found himself facing the wrong way in the middle of the track and Paul Drayson had to brake the #1 car heavily to avoid contact. Unfortunately, Ben De Zille Butler was right behind the bio-ethanol Aston in the #3 Barwell DBRS9 and, even though he also braked, was unable to avoid contact. It was no more than a tap, but it was enough to puncture an oil-coolant pipe and would result in the car’s retirement two laps later.
The fourth Aston Martin in the field was also affected when David Jones in the #22 Preci-Spark Ascari came upon the spin and saw a gap to the right of the stationary #2 and went for it, in the process simultaneously side-swiping the Cadena car of Barrie Whight into a spin, and overtaking under yellow flags. Shortly afterwards, Mike Jordan was summoned to race control and the Silver AZ1R would be on the receiving end of a stop/go penalty that would prove to be significant for the Jones twins. Oblivious to the chaos behind him, Adam Jones began the task of building a lead for the Gallardo, and he did it in impressive style. He began with a 1.7s advantage (after one lap) and doubled it for each of the next two laps (setting the race's fastest lap on lap 2, a 1:25.790, almost a second quicker than anybody else), thereafter settling for a couple of seconds gain per lap. Nobody was even close. But most drivers had other things on their minds as several battles began to develop. Steve Hyde was going strongly in the GTC Morgan and took the Cup Class lead from Graeme Mundy’s RSS Porsche by lap four; while at the front of the race, Matt Harris was making the most of the extra performance afforded his Porsche by the update kit. He was up to third by lap six and second by lap nine, followed closely all the while by Bradley Ellis. Ellis was not the only Viper driver making good progress. Not far behind, Nigel Greensall was making the #40 Team Trimite Dodge earn its keep and was threatening to break into the top six after ten laps, having started from 19th. He was now on the tail of Ollie Bryant’s #11 Damax Ascari and was slowly reeling him in. At the end of lap 11 the Viper was just 0.6s behind and the move was landed on the run down to Becketts. Two laps later, Phil Burton’s Ferrari suffered a similar fate, as did Hector Lester’s 430 shortly afterwards. At the same time, Ellis took Harris for second as the Tech 9 Porsche began to lose grip from its tyres. The leaders of both classes were pulling out huge leads, with Jones’s clocking in at 24 seconds after twenty laps and Steve Hyde’s approaching that. The GTC contest was most unusual, in that all five cars were getting further and further apart from each other. On lap 27, the class’s number was reduced to four as the Richmond Racing Ginetta pulled off the circuit with a blown differential, Nick Marsh up to that point having had to contend with huge oversteer. In GT3, the contest was just a shot in the midfield. Henry Fletcher was going well in the #5 RPM Viper and was harrying Paul Drayson’s Aston for lap after lap. David Ashburn was also closely involved for a while, but the #14 Trackspeed Porsche began to lose grip and gradually fell back from this pair and into the clutches of Nigel Redwood in the #7 RPM Viper. Redwood took the place on lap 18, but Drayson kept his challenger behind him until he stopped on lap 30, to hand over to Jonny Cocker. A quick, well-rehearsed stop got this car almost right back into contention. Adam Jones’ lead was impressive enough when it seemed to have settled at 24 seconds; but as the driver changes began, he once more put his foot down and it rapidly increased once more. The race was now entering the confusing part as more and more cars stopped to take on fuel and exchange drivers and tyres; and this time the interval from first to last driver change was almost 35 minutes. Peter Bamford was the first to stop in the #8 RPM Porsche, and Steve Hyde was the last in the Team Aero Morgan. The first half of the race had not been kind to several teams, and the Moslers in particular had suffered. Kevin Riley’s Rollcentre MT900 was struggling with a sticking throttle that had caused him a couple of lurid moments and lost him a lot of time; while Elliott Cole had seemingly abandoned the #44 Eclipse after the master switch popped out – apparently caused by rubber pick-up firing up into the bonnet. The driver got in and was told by the team to keep his finger on the switch until he got back. Shortly after resuming, having lost several laps, the car was black-flagged after a marshal reported that Cole had not done up his belts once he got back in. John Griffiths managed to convince the Clerk of the Course that the marshal was mistaken and the flag was withdrawn. Team Berlanga’s Ascari ended up in the gravel on lap three and appeared to be out, but was recovered after three minutes and rejoined. Shortly afterwards, it appeared to have been retired, but again made a surprise return after 40 minutes in the pits, the car continuing to the end but as a non-classified finisher. In GTC, things weren’t going well for Beechdean Motorsport, Andrew Howard having to make an unscheduled stop with fuel pressure problems. The top positions continued to change in the run up to the stops, Nigel Greensall taking third from Matt Harris and then moving up to second as Bradley Ellis hit trouble. “Brad thought that he had a puncture,” explained Alex Mortimer, “but it was actually a wheel nut that had come loose; it stripped the thread. We don’t know why it happened; if it hadn’t been tightened up correctly, it wouldn’t have lasted 58 minutes. We’re just lucky that it happened within our fuel window.” Ellis nursed the car back to the pits and Mortimer was able to take over without losing too much time. Matt Harris ended his session with very little grip from his spent tyres, but almost ended the car’s race with near-disaster on his in-lap. “I dived in to the pitlane but the rears locked up and the car spun sideways. I nearly ended up in the BRDC suite,” he smiled. Text messages to Piers Masarati from wide-eyed occupants of the suite confirmed this account. While this was happening, Ollie Bryant passed the Porsche in the pitlane as he pitted to hand over to Phil Keen. The final two stoppers were the class leaders, Adam Jones completing his excellent work shortly before Steve Hyde. But the stops would see a change in fortunes for both cars. Although Matt Owen brought the Lambo back into the race still in the lead, the car’s more than 40 second advantage had been reduced to less than three over the Trimite Viper, now pedalled by Phiroze Bilimoria, and the lead changed on the next lap. But things were much worse for Team Aero. Steve Hyde had pitted with a lead of a minute after an excellent stint, and RSS had seemingly taken themselves out of contention by incurring a stop/go penalty for speeding in the pit lane (and with the #64 Trackspeed Porsche too far back to challenge). But despite there being no indication of trouble, when Keith Ahlers tried to resume, the engine refused to fire. After several attempts, the car was push-started; but things didn’t get any better. “When we eventually got going, I noticed that the power-steering was off,” said a very hot Keith Ahlers afterwards. “I switched it back on but that immediately killed the engine. I switched the power-steering off again and the engine restarted; so I had to drive the entire stint without power-steering, which was almost impossible.” The Morgan dropped to fourth in class. One other consequence of this misfortune was that the Morgan picked up a lot of rubber from the dirty part of the track as Ahlers moved out of the way of faster traffic. This was then fired up into the wheel arches and knocked out both headlights. The team feared that they would be black-flagged, but fortunately no such penalty was forthcoming. As the Morgan pitted, the lead in GT3 was changing once more, as Adam Wilcox closed the gap to Bilimoria and took first in the VRS Ferrari. With 45 minutes remaining, the top ten was 12, 40, 21, 11, 1, 23, 22, 9, 6, 5. As expected, Matt Owen and Phiroze Bilimoria began to drop back as the likes of Phil Keen, Tim Mullen, Johnny Cocker and Tom Ferrier got to work - although Bilimoria was being hampered by gear selection problems that necessitated a stop shortly afterwards. On lap 56, Tim Mullen took second from Phil Keen and it was now Ferrari versus Ferrari at the front; the gap being 17.8 seconds. The closing stage of this race was shaping up to be a classic. For a while, it looked as though the cars and drivers would be too evenly matched to allow the gap to come down enough, but after a few more laps it became evident that Mullen was starting to lap much quicker than Wilcox; and the red car, and its red-headed driver, could smell blood. Things were closing up elsewhere, too. Phil Keen was struggling to keep the #11 Ascari on the pace and Johnny Cocker took third on lap 60. Tom Ferrier was also regaining large tracts of lost ground in the #9 Tech 9 997 and could see Keen on the track ahead of him. It took him ten laps to grind away the Ascari’s advantage, but the Porsche was through into fourth on lap 70. But the Preci-Spark Ascari had now come back into the race significantly and was challenging the Damax car for position (having already demoted the Gallardo). On lap 72, Godfrey Jones boxed Phil Keen in behind a slower car on the run down to Copse and took position. Two laps later, he pulled the exact same move on Tom Ferrier and was up to fourth. The car was now less than 35 seconds behind the leader – how much time had been lost at the stop/go? And who was the leader? As stated earlier, a speed advantage was apparent for Tim Mullen, but the rate at which he was destroying Adam Wilcox’s lead meant that the #12 Ferrari must have had a problem (two, as it turned out) and it was clear that if things didn’t change then the lead would (change). Mullen kept his foot down, in the process stringing together eight consecutive laps below 1:28, and was on Wilcox’s tail at the start of lap 73. By the end of it, he had a lead of almost a second. It was now simply a case of consolidating the lead and the final few minutes ran out with no further significant incidents anywhere in the field; that left Hector Lester and Tim Mullen celebrating their second win of the year. “The team told me I was 30 seconds behind Adam so I just got on with it,” said the younger Irish driver. “We changed the left rear as the team was a little worried as to whether it would last and perhaps that made the difference?” “I lost a couple of slots late on in my run,” added Lester, “just through tiredness really. There was really no point fighting when I was so close to the pit stop and Tim would be well able to grab the ground back.” One interesting foot note to this victory is that the winning car was refueled by Beechdean, after CiM arrived at the circuit without a refueling rig. Despite missing out on their first victory, the VRS drivers were not downhearted; “Just one more step to go!” said Adam Wilcox. “To say the least the tyres were past their best towards the end, so I couldn’t hold Tim back; I just kept going as best I could. We’d lost second gear too, sometimes it would catch but mostly it wouldn’t so that cost us time too and I eventually just left it out.” “I got caught out by the Lamborghini at the start and that allowed Hector to get on terms but we had a great battle, I really enjoyed the run,” said Phil Burton. Michael Bentwood managed to claw his way back into the points in ninth, ahead of the Team 4Car Porsche of Fergus Campbell and Mark Cole, but the #1 car of Paul Drayson / Jonny Cocker finished a strong third. “I didn’t get a good start at all,” recalled Paul Drayson. “The lead cars accelerated and then braked so everyone bunched up and I found myself sandwiched between two other cars three wide down the straight. I thought it better to come around unscathed and in touch than risk it so fell back a little. It was a pretty frantic first couple of laps. “The Aston is very good here in the fast stuff but loses out in the slower corners. Mark (Lemmer) had already told me that I shouldn’t overdrive or I’d ruin the front tyres, and he was right. “I’ve found that I really like the 2 hour races, the longer stints are hard work but I get a lot more time to find my rhythm, I’m really enjoying the Championship.” Jonny Cocker: “We knew this wasn’t going to be the best track for us and that Paul would have to nurse the front tyres to be able to go well through the whole of his stint,” added Johnny Cocker. “The boys had practised pit stops last night and we changed all four. They turned us around brilliantly, and a good out lap from me helped to put us back in the frame. “The team told me that Paul’s left front had blistered and that told me what I needed to know. I tried my best to push on and look after the tyres but we are very pleased with that result after the low of Brands.” Alex Mortimer managed to recover the delayed #6 RPM Viper to sixth just before the close, and in the process extended the car’s championship lead marginally. In GTC, Graeme Mundy and Jamie Smyth were finally able to celebrate victory: “We had a thought on the tyres front,” said Mundy. “We changed them in the two hour race at Snetterton and we reckoned that if we stuck to 31s or 32s and took off the camber we could look after them enough to get to the end. I think we’re 11 points clear now so a good day for us.” “I really just had to stick to the plan,” added Smyth, ”drive the car and win the race. I had to back off towards the end but we had plenty in hand by then anyway. Sometimes it’s more difficult that way, to keep the pace down. Of course it’s good to win by a margin but I don’t enjoy the way you have to drive to do it!” Trackspeed’s GT3 race came to a premature end with retirement for Jonny Lang, but Phil Nuttall and Andrew Shelley earned some silverware for the team with second place. “I had no real problems at all,” said Nuttall. “I can’t really believe it; two fat old blokes end up on the podium! The only issue I had was when I pitted - Andrew literally threw me out of the car into the pit lane!” “Yeah sorry about that!” said Shelley. “By the end of the race the gear shift was giving me some problems.” “Well it had had a few bad changes from me to deal with!” interjected Phil Nuttall. “The problem now is that it’s like the best legal drug there is, you always want more!” “I’m actually very pleased indeed with that, after the problem we had and where it left us that’s a good result,” was Andrew Howard’s reaction to third. “I’m pleased we had a hand in the winning car’s performance. They owe us five litres; but I’ve let Hector know that if he wants a fuel for engine swap deal I’m up for it!” More evidence of inter-team cooperation came when Barwell Motorsport lent Cadena a sump plate after one fell off the latter’s DBRS9 midway through Gavan Kershaw’s race. This allowed the yellow car to continue to the end. At the end of this excellent contest, the points at the head of GT3 were as follows: Ellis & Mortimer 42
Cocker & Drayson 40
Jones & Jones 39
Alexander & Bentwood 38
Butler & Harrington 37
Lester 36 It’s still anyone’s game with six races remaining (two each at Thruxton, Croft and Rockingham). | 
