BGT, Oulton Park – Monday Notes
Disney, Cricket And The Algarve

After the sunshine of Saturday, Bank Holiday Monday morning saw Oulton Park overcast but dry, and with the usual healthy crowd streaming through the gates.

All 15 surviving cars took part in the morning warm-up session, with Allan Simonsen topping the times in the Rosso Verde – UCB Ferrari, with a 1:41.395, and with the Rob Austin Ginetta fastest in GT4.

Not everything went according to plan, however, with the Rollcentre Mosler suffering brake problems that left it 15th – 2:02.652 not a wholly representative time for the MT900 – and also left Stuart Hall with the prospect of having to bed in a new set of pads at the start of the afternoon’s race.

Hall was also sporting a cut and swelling above his left eye; “I was in the nets practicing, yesterday, when a cricket ball caught the top edge of the bat and flicked up into my face,” he explained. 

Meanwhile, Mtech’s absence from Friday testing was a result of Duncan Cameron’s family outing to Disneyland Paris not having ended in time. The team was due to be racing a Ferrari Scuderia GT3 at this meeting, but delivery delays will mean that the car will now debut at the second round.

Piers Masarati was in the Chad Racing pits after a successful weekend running Team Portugal at Portimao in A1GP; during which Filipe Albuquerque claimed a second at his home circuit. The team boss only just made his plane the previous night after spending three and a half hours in the stewards’ office after the race.

Ian Stinton revealed the remarkable fact that Stark racing’s original Ginetta G50 has now covered 10,000km – not bad for a car that is just over a year old.

Aaron Scott revealed that the engine problem that ended their fine race on Saturday has been cured, even though the team still don’t know the exact cause; “We found three problems with the engine and have sorted all three – we just don’t know which one was the one that caused the engine to stop. The car was fine in warm-up and we’re confident for this afternoon.

But as this report is written – with 80 minutes to go before the start of the second race, and as the sun tries to break through – a significant press-release is imminent from Barwell-Beechdean which is unlikely to contain good news for the British GT Championship.

MH