Silverstone – Friday Report
GT3 Day The FIA GT (1 and 2) contenders don’t get underway until Saturday, so Friday is a GT3 day – plus GT4 – at a cold and blustery Silverstone. The GT4s have their first qualifying session this evening, plus a couple of free practice sessions during the day. The first of those saw Michael Mallock quickest, in the RS Williams Aston Martin Vantage N24. Two other N24s were second and third, then it was Eric De Doncker in his Mustang. Sixth quickest was Danny van Dongen in one of the new Corvette C6s. He was just outside 2:07, three seconds off Mallock’s pace, but was confident he could get into the 2:06s. Lo and behold, in the afternoon session, he was into the 2:05s, and within a second or so of the Aston Martins at the front. Hugh Chamberlain is here – but the Aston Martins he looks after aren’t. “Teething problems, which we hope have been sorted, but we had no chance to test the cars and didn’t want to test them in public. And we didn’t actually enter the meeting anyway.” The first GT3 session began at 11.50 this morning, and as it was the first session of the new season, perhaps we ought not to read too much into it. But one team in particular ended up very happy with the way it unfolded. The Lagniez / Makowiecki Hexis Aston Martin was fastest with a 1:54.188. Makowiecki was quickest in one of the GT3 sessions here last year, with a 1:51.8, so perhaps his 1:54.1 wasn’t indicative of a great deal. But whether it was or whether it wasn’t, let’s rejoice for a moment in the 1:54.901, set by Phil Quaife in one of the Apex Motorsport Aston Martins – second fastest. “Harry Handkammer wanted me to be involved, and I tested one of the cars last week at Snetterton – and it went very well,” remarked Quaife. Car owner Stuart Scott pointed out that this Jaguar XKR “was only finished at midnight last night, so effectively this was its shakedown. We’re all chuffed to bits.”  And after the two or three weeks that this team has endured, why shouldn’t they be?
“It started to come good at Monza, when David was within four-tenths of the quickest time.” This year’s XKR looks much more purposeful than the original, 2007 car(s). Stuart Scott came up with the reason(s) why. “The cars have lost weight, Mountune have done a lot of work on the engines, and Nigel Stroud has reworked the suspension.” And with a flaring of the wheel arches, the Jaguar looks every bit a GT racer. Stuart Hall (left) is down to partner Phil Quaife in the #33 entry, but there might be an issue over driver gradings. Hall is waiting to find out whether he can actually partner the silver-rated Quaife. Similar problems in one of the Tech 9 Lamborghinis. “Rob Wilson has been classified as a gold driver, even though he was a silver last year,” explains Phil Hindley. “Maurizio Fabris is a silver, so we’ve been told that they can’t drive together – so we’ve got to find another driver by tomorrow.” Tech 9 is running one of its British GT Gallardos (#46), while the Ritskes / Retera car is owned by the former. Two of the many Ferraris were third and fourth fastest in the first session, while fifth was the Martin Rich / Andy Thompson Ascari – nominally a Berlanga car, but run this year by Alan Docking Racing. Rich was happy to be within a second of the flying Thompson in #26. Down at the wrong end of the times was the Ed Morris / Bradley Ellis Ford GT, this one effectively having its shakedown today, and there were numerous niggly problems. Unfortunately they continued into the afternoon session, the #21 car very reluctant to fire up, Bradley Ellis then getting some laps in later on in the session. It was just as cold and grey this afternoon as it had been at lunchtime, but at least the rain held off. Fred Makowiecki was fastest again, in the #10 Hexis Aston Martin, but within a tenth of a second was Richard Williams in the #6 Trackspeed Porsche.  This team has been running in British GTs of course, with its new Porsche, but probably hasn’t made maximum use of the car in the domestic series. Richard Williams: “We were compromised on the set-up, but we’ve found what it was. It was to do with the way we were setting up the car.”
Phil Nuttall and Andrew Shelley are in the other Trackspeed GT3 S, but they had a difficult morning, Nuttall going off onto the grass, quite slowly, and he didn’t expect any damage at all – until he saw bits of splitter thrown off the car. Nuttall admitted to a problem getting used to the brakes, and it transpired that he had a point: the Porsches are typically running a very hard, 24 hour pad, and they’re not much fun when they’re cold. Ashburn and Williams had tracked down a used, softer set. Phil Nuttall has only had one lap of the GP track – and now it will be straight into qualifying tomorrow. The Forsten / Lois ProSpeed Porsche was third quickest this afternoon, and Andrew Thompson had the #26 Ascari right up there again, fourth this time. One of the Morgans was fifth fastest, how about that? It was the Lesoudier / Scheir #29. But the other two were 34th and 36th. Both Apex Jaguars were well up there, in seventh and ninth, and the cross-section of cars in the top dozen does seem to suggest that equalisation is increasingly effective. Oddly, the fastest Ferrari was only 11th fastest. Ian Khan used to be a Ferrari owner, but his FIA GT3 car, which has been run by JMB these past two seasons, is now one of the CR Scuderia cars. Khan tried out a number of GT3 machines over the winter, and finally plumped for a Matech Ford GT, partly because “this one has done 2,500 kms over the winter, trouble-free”. Unfortunately, the first practice session of the season brought problems for this one, as well as the ‘just finished’ other two. Khan was deep in conversation with old mate James Weaver in the pit lane this afternoon, James here to help out the Apex team. Either he was doing a brilliant job or they didn’t need him at all! More from Silverstone tomorrow. | 
