British GT, Oulton Park – Saturday Afternoon
Westbrook Digs Deep

Aside from the unfortunate APO Sport, the British GT field appeared to have emerged from the two morning sessions relatively unscathed. A couple of cars had ended practice on the back of a tow rope, but nobody had shunted and there looked to be enough time before the qualifying sessions to sort out any niggles.

Three teams – RJN, MTECH and Scuderia Vittoria – would be headed straight off to Monza for the Blancpain race the following week, so Monday might well be a tense time for them; Oulton having seen some spectacular shunts in the BGT races in recent years. Tom Ferrier, Co-owner of Scuderia Vittoria (and who is running the GT side of the operation this year), looked like he was at the end of a long season rather than at the start of one, but it turned out that there was a good reason for this; “The car was completely rebuilt over the winter – it’s now got a new engine – and we only finished that two weeks ago. Since then it’s been non-stop with testing and preparation for the season; not just with this car but with the Clios and the GT5 Ginettas we’re also running. I’ve barely slept recently! On top of that I’m getting married next month – we’ll have time for a short honeymoon while the guys are at the Nürburgring, but we’ll have to wait until the post-season for a proper holiday.”

The Blancpain Endurance Series was part of Trackspeed’s plans for this season, but the logistical challenges ruled it out; “We were going to run two cars here and two in Blancpain,” said Keith Webster, Team Manager, “but when we saw the calendars, we realised that it wasn’t going to be possible – there are two occasions when races are separated by a week, and that doesn’t give you any contingency time. I feel sorry for the guys going to Monza from here; if they don’t have any problems in the race and can get away on time, and then have a good run down, they just might get there for Thursday!

“Fortunately, the demand for seats for this series was such that we quickly filled all six seats.”

Part of the appeal of the British GT Championship has been the opportunity to see not just the latest European exotica, but also supercars of various design from these shores; the latest of which are the Ginetta G55 and the currently-Invitation class Chevron GR8 GT3.

Three 2012-spec Ginettas will race in the top class on Monday and all looked and sounded great, although the Stark by Hepworth version looked suspiciously like the factory test car; “There’s been a delay on some components with our car, so the factory has lent us theirs,” said Stark’s Clive Calcutt. “It’s got our engine in and we’ll get our car in time for the next round.”

Jake Rattenbury has made the step up from the GT4 G50 to the G55 this season with Stark and the 18 year-old can certainly tell the difference; “It’s completely different to the G50; so much faster. I’ve never driven anything like it!”

The Chevron GT3 has had a complete aero overhaul since its media day was curtailed in dramatic fashion; “It looks like the rear bodywork lifted slightly, which then led to the clips all failing in sequence; essentially it peeled off,” explained David Witt, who is racing the GTC class GR8 with business partner Ray Grimes. “It’s a new car, still in the early days of its development and things like this are going to happen - somebody said “Anthony’s had a big crash,” and I thought ‘Anthony doesn’t crash!’  so I knew it must have been something to do with the car. The new aero is CAD designed and is the latest stage in the development process; we’ve gone from idea to race car in only six months, so there’s still a lot more to come.”

The Barwell-run Ecurie Ecosse BMW Z4 was another car that looked and sounded great and already it is clear that the ex-Marc VDS machine will be in the mix throughout the season; “It’s running great, but there was apparently an incident at the BoP test at Paul Ricard which meant the test was cancelled before the BMW was properly balanced," said Barwell MD Mark Lemmer. "We’ve been given 55kg as a result, but hopefully we’ll lose some of that before the next round.”

Your scribe was a bit bemused by the prominent illustration of a watch displayed on the side of the Z4, with plenty of cogs and gears on display but seemingly no hands; “How do you tell the time with that?” was the question. “That's the back - the face is on the other side of the car,” answered Olly Bryant. Ah!

Qualifying 1

Only 24 of the 25 cars made it out for the first qualifying session at four o’clock, with the Predator Ferrari Scuderia of Phil Burton suffering gear selector issues. The team would finally fix the problem just before the end of the second sessions, but unfortunately with not enough time remaining for Adam Wilcox to start a flying lap before the chequered flag came out.

And a thoroughly entertaining session this proved to be; David Ashburn leading out a trio of Trackspeed Porsches to set the first flier of the session with a 1:42.869.

Of course, it wasn’t long before the times began to tumble, with Hector Lester (#3 Rosso Verde 458), David Jones (#22 Preci-Spark Mercedes SLS), Danielle Perfetti (#11 Motorbase Porsche) and Ashburn again all lowering the bar; but it was Charles Bateman in the UA Audi who was the first to dip into the 1:39s.

Nissan Academy winner Jan Mardenborough proved once again the authenticity of the ‘Virtual to Reality’  concept, by taking the RJN Nissan GT3-R to second with 1:39.789 and soon after taking provisional pole with a 1:38.517 – a time that would put him on the second row for the car’s first race.

The timing screen was by this point awash with green (personal best) and purple (fastest overall) sector dots everywhere as the places began to be traded. Andrew Howard took the Beechdean Vantage up to fifth with six minutes to and then set the fastest sector time on his next lap; crossing the line a minute or so later to take the new car to the top with a 1:37.953. But his reign lasted mere seconds, as Charles Bateman shaved almost half a second off that time to retake the top spot, before cementing pole with a 1:37.094.

“Qualifying was good for us; we had good pace in the car and P1 is always nice," said Bateman. "I think the first qualifying session in a car that we believe is probably not got quite the ultimate lap time the Porsches seem to have at the moment, is a good result for us. If it’s going to be wet on Monday – which seems to be likely – we won’t have the spray from anyone else in front of us which will be good. I think we had a decent gap back to second place and it’s always nice to know that we’ve got a little bit in hand over the competition.” 

Alasdair McCaig proved his quality by taking third spot late in the session on his GT debut with a 1:38.165 in the Ecosse Z4, while Duncan Cameron took fifth slot in the #21 MTECH 458 by a tenth from Ashburn. Seventh was Jordan Witt in the Chevron GT3; the car may be an Invitation entry but it likes as though it will be getting stuck in with the ‘proper’ gt3s come Monday.

The fight for pole in GT4 was less dramatic, with Team WFR’s Jody Fannin more than 2.5s clear of his closest rival; Zoe Wenham in the Century Motorsport G50. David Witt managed to put the GTC Chevron ahead of both Lotuses, with Marco Attard and Sailesh Bolisetti clearly needing more time to get up to speed in their Evoras.

Qualifying 2

After his pace in the morning session, something special was expected from Nick Tandy in qualifying. Alas, Steve Parish had gone off during his session, necessitating a new radiator and splitter; a repair that couldn’t be undertaken in the ten minutes between sessions. A real shame.

However, we still had a certain Richard Westbrook in the field and his first fast lap was a 1:36.863; already quicker than the Race 1 pole time. Jonny Adam went second in the Vantage on 1:37.543, but then Matt Griffin decided to remind everyone of his presence by taking the MTECH 458 to the top with 1:36.459, and the Irish driver was followed by Tim Harvey in the #33 Trackspeed Porsche on 1:36.602.

Already a quarter of the session had elapsed, but Westbrook and Adam were trading purple sector dots and it was the Vantage that went top after a 1:35.775 from the Scot. Westbrook improved but was only third owing to Griffin also improving his time. However, the English driver took a deep breath and pulled off a simply stunning lap of 1:35.400 to take pole; his rivals being unable to respond.

“I’m really pleased, but I’m not sure I’d want to do that again,” he said. “I wasn’t too happy with the car this morning, but couldn’t quite put my finger on it. We made an adjustment after practice and took some wing off and that seems to have made the difference. I realised that I’d have to dig one out and it came off; no complaints from me at all!”

Allan Simonsen never really featured in this session, finishing fourth in the Rosso Verde 458, just ahead of Harvey and Matt Bell in the Audi R8. However, Bell was adjudged to have passed a Ginetta under yellows and was put to the back of the grid (where he will join Wilcox and Tandy), which meant that Michael Caine was promoted to sixth in the #11 Motorbase Porsche.

GT4 was more interesting in the second session, with Phil Glew (#48 Lotus), Mike Simpson (a late replacement for the wrongly-licenced Dominic Evans in the #42 Century G50) and warren Hughes (Team WFR G50) all holding top spot during the 15 minutes. A late effort from Glew squeezed his Evora ahead of Simpson, but the top three in the class were covered by just 0.144s; suggesting that the start of Race 2 will be a cracker in both main classes on Monday afternoon.

With there being no track activity on Easter Sunday at Oulton Park, the teams would now have the luxury of a full day to ready their cars for the Monday races. There seemed to be an assumption that the two races on Monday would be wet – and certainly the forecast suggests that rain will be a prominent feature throughout the day – but whatever the conditions, there is sure to be some excellent racing throughout the field.

MH