British GT, Donington – Saturday Morning Notes
Advantage Ferrari? In contrast to recent years, there was barely an inch of spare space in the Donington Park paddock, as the GT, F3 and support fields set up camp at the Leicestershire circuit. Saturday would see two hour-long Free Practice, and one 45-minute Qualifying, sessions, with warm-up and the three-hour race – dubbed the GT500 – on Sunday. A dramatic meeting of blue sky and extensive cloud cover was taking place directly above the circuit as the first practice session began (fortunately the cloud would dissipate through the morning), but the first thing that greeted visitors at the paddock entrance was the sight of the GT cars using the Melbourne Hairpin; and this scribe cannot remember the last time that happened. 27 cars appeared on the latest entry list, but the highly distinctive lime-green Chad Racing Scuderia 430 was keeping such a low profile as to be invisible, and it appeared that Sunday’s race would be deprived of the talents of recent ALMS winner Steven Kane.* Even so, there was a multitude of talent on display – BTCC stars Gordon Shedden and James Nash, FIA GT1 driver Nicky Catsburg and GT4 ace Alex Buncombe just four of the new faces this weekend. Others were David Back in the #20 MTECH Ferrari 458, Sergio Lagana and Alan Hellmeister in the Secure Racing Aston, and Ginetta GT Supercup racer Tom Sharp joining the Rollcentre Ginetta line-up. The format for the three hour race has been finalised – three mandatory stops of 109 seconds minimum duration, during which a driver-change must take place. In addition, those cars that were subject to pitstop penalties following the previous round would be required to serve them at the third stop, as follows: CRS #11 Ferrari 458 Tate/Mortimer – 20 seconds
CRS #10 Ferrari 458 Geddie/Geddie – 15 seconds
MTECH #21 Ferrari 458 Cameron/Griffin – 10 seconds Scuderia Vittoria #50 Ginetta G50 – 20 seconds
ABG #44 KTM X-Bow – 15 seconds
Century #42 Ginetta G50 – 10 seconds For two-driver teams, the maximum drive time per driver is 100 minutes, while those teams with three drivers would again be subject to a maximum of 100 minutes, but also a minimum of 40 minutes per driver. In addition, the highest rated of the three drivers would only be allowed to do one stint, and the team has to nominate the driver who would be doing two stints after qualifying. Tim Bridgman, in the #2 Trackspeed Porsche 997 GT3 R, ended the first practice session by setting the fastest lap of 1:31.121, just four hundredths ahead of the #21 MTECH Ferrari and five hundredths ahead of the #5 Scuderia Vittoria 458. Gregor Fisken was very happy with his car’s performance; “It’s going very well so far,” he said. “We’ve got a new engine and it feels good – and I love the circuit. “I think the race will be very interesting, and I’m sure a large part of who comes out on top will be determined by how the tyres are managed; the circuit is very hard on the rears in particular.” Duncan Cameron, meanwhile, was positively beaming when asked how his morning had gone in the #21 458; “The car feels better today than it has for a long time,” he began. “We’ve done so much racing that the car was starting to feel a bit tired and loose, but the team have done a mini-rebuild and it’s great here – really smooth through all the corners.” The 40-year old has been combining his British GT racing with a full season in the FIA GT Championship and intends to do the same next year; so why FIA GT and not the Blancpain series? “I prefer the sprint format and I think the FIA series is where everyone wants to be. “It’s been character-building, shall we say – a new car, with the accompanying teething issues, and lots of circuits that I’ve never raced on before. At Ricard, my only experience of the track before qualifying was two laps on my bike, after we had problems during practice! “And it’s also been my first experience of Michelins – tyres that give you two laps in qualifying before they drop away by a second; so you have to be on it right from the start. You need to develop a different mindset. In addition, if you have a poor lap in the FIA you lose places – you have to drive at the maximum all the time. “It’s brought me on as a driver, but I’m looking forward to starting next year with a fully sorted car!” David Back and Julian Draper were having their first runs out in the second MTECH 458, the former trying to put behind him a disappointing GT Trophy campaign, and the latter trying his hand at a mid-engined car for the first time. While Cameron and MTECH have had the majority of 2011 to get to know their car, Hector Lester has only just taken delivery of his 458; “The potential is vast,” said the Irish driver. “It’s scarily fast – it corners on rails! “We need to dial out a lot of the understeer and a few other things, but we’ve already made a lot of progress in the first hour and learned a lot. I think maybe the other teams got their cars too early and had to deal with a number of issues, whereas our car has the benefit of several months’ development and is almost a 2012 car.” In addition to the usual small Rosso Verde crew, engineers from Michelotto and Kessel Racing were on hand to assist in the setting-up process.
Martin Short spent the majority of the first session in the #18 Rollcentre Ginetta G55, despite suffering with a bad back that had prompted him to call on the services of Tom Sharp; “I’m 99% certain that we’ll be running a three-driver crew tomorrow,” he said. “Quite apart from anything else, it would be good to give Tom an opportunity – he’s been driving very well in the Supercup.” Rollcentre’s Ginetta debut at Rockingham was curtailed on the first day with engine problems, but things were going much better at Donington, with the #18 ending the first session as the fastest of the three G55s; "Ginetta are working through our recommendations. I'm here to work with Ginetta and get the car up there. Its getting better all the time and working well. I'm really pleased with the way its going so far. I’m old enough and ugly enough to be able to identify the issues and then try get them sorted asap.” One such issue arose during the second session, when the starter motor failed and restricted the car’s running to just eight laps. The #28 Century Motorsports G55 of the reunited Hetherington brothers lost an engine, but should be able to race. Christian Dick had a quick errand to run to collect an ABS component for the #6 Corvette Z06R, the Speedworks boss hopping on a plane to Frankfurt at the adjacent East Midlands Airport. The part wasn’t fitted in time for the second session, but the car – piloted by Ron & Piers Johnson – still finished 13th in the combined times. Things were more serious for the Preci-Spark Mercedes SLS, with first a fuel pressure issue and then an electrical problem hampering their running to the extent that the team asked permission to use the spare car for the remainder of the session. Despite the multitude of new cars in the field, the older models weren’t faring too badly on the GP circuit. The Rockingham race-winning Beechdean Aston DBRS9 was eighth overall, just nine-tenths off the pace, while the #12 Ferrari Scuderia of Adam Wilcox and Phil Burton was five-hundredths slower in ninth. Matt Griffin set the fastest time in the second session, although a red-flag stymied Stephen Jelley’s hot-lap on new tyres, just after he had set the fastest first-sector time. Matt Bell fared better and set the second-fastest combined time in the #23 United Autosports Audi - 1:31.042. Qualifying should be interesting. In GT4, the #48 Lotus Evora of Phil Glew and James Nash set fastest in the first session, despite a misfire, but the #50 Scuderia Vittoria Ginetta G50 of David McDonald and Dan Denis set the fastest class time of the day in the second session. Qualifying was expected to take place in dry conditions, despite gathering grey cloud, with a low 1:30 expected. As a measure of how quick the GT3 cars have become, the GT1 qualifying time from the FIA GT Championship race on the same circuit in 2003 – set by Philippe Alliot in a Chrysler Viper GTS-R – was 1:29.361. MH * Indeed, it was confirmed that the Ferrari was withdrawn on Friday with gearbox issues. | 
