British GT, Silverstone – Saturday Notes
MTECH’s Morning

It’s not easy to make Silverstone look attractive, but the old-pits paddock was a fine place to be in the morning sunshine on the first day of the British GT meeting; the trucks were lined up F1 style and there was a fine humour throughout the garages.

Unfortunately, neither Lotus Evora was to be found in the pits following their withdrawal from this weekend’s activities – the #49 falling victim to a parts-shortage following a testing crash at Brands Hatch, and the #48 being withdrawn following Sailesh Bolisetti’s failure to obtain a visa for the second race running.

We already knew about the Oliver-swap at Barwell, where Ollie Hancock has replaced Olly Bryant (who was cleared to drive by his doctor, but with not enough time for the necessary paperwork to be processed by the MSA), but there are also a couple of additions to the entry list, with two cars fielding three drivers. Luke Hines returns to the #18 Optimum Motorsport, joining George Murrells and John Hartshorne, while former Superleague Formula frontrunner Craig Dolby teams up with Nigel Mustill and Bob Berridge in the #26 Wessex Audi R8 LMS.

The three-hour race format will feature three mandatory pitstops which can be taken at any time, while the maximum driver-time is set at 100 minutes. The in-out time for each stop is 120 seconds, with the success and penalty times being served at the final stop, as follows:

#16 Team LNT Ginetta G55 GT3 – 120+12 seconds
#18 Optimum Ginetta G55 GT3 – 120+12 seconds
#24 United Autosports McLaren – 120+12 seconds
#32 Trackspeed Porsche – 120+20 seconds
#33 Trackspeed Porsche – 120+15 seconds
#35 RJN Nissan GT-R – 120+22 seconds
#47 Jota Mazda MX5 – 120+27 seconds
#53 Complete Racing AM GT4 – 120+10 seconds
#55 Team WFR Ginetta G50 – 120+20 seconds
#69 APO Sport Ginetta G50 – 120+12 seconds

In addition, the following cars will carry extra weight:

#55 +55kg
#26 +40kg
#15 +40kg

The two free practice sessions took place before lunch, with Matt Griffin setting the fastest time of the morning – 2:03.734 – with a late effort on new tyres in FP1; “We figured that the track conditions would be about the same as during qualifying, so we did a simulation run,” said the MTECH driver. His time bettered the 2011 pole time (by just over a tenth) but Griffin didn’t know if it was a good lap or not; “Normally, I’ve got a pretty good idea of where we’ll be in qualifying, but this time I just don’t know. There’s no way I’m a second quicker than everyone else [0.824s being the gap to the second fastest time] so we’ll have to wait and see.”

That second quickest time came from Riki Christodoulou, who set a 2:04.558 in the early stages of FP1 in the #15 Team WFR Ginetta G55 and remained at the top of the timing screens until Griffin’s late effort. This was an excellent effort, but also illustrated how far the British car had come on since it made its debut here last October. The #16 Team LNT version ended the morning in fifth overall after a 2:05.512.

The Porsche pack was rather subdued in FP1, with the fastest of the GT3 Rs being the #32 Trackspeed car of Joe Osborne and Steve Tandy in ninth place. Osborne improved from 2:05.411 to 2:04.708 at the start of FP2 – a time that would remain the quickest of the second session – but then promptly pulled off at Farm Curve with driveshaft failure. The #32 was recovered and Tandy was able to get several laps in before the session ended. “This isn’t a Porsche circuit,” said Trackspeed Team Manager Keith Cheetham. “Our cars are quick in a straight line, but lose out badly in the corners.” “We’ll be okay,” added Phil Keen, who shares the #31 with David Ashburn, “We won’t find much more speed, but we know that the car will be there at the end.” Keen’s car also suffered diff failure in FP2, causing the Trackspeed team some concern.

Scuderia Vittoria suffered steering rack problems which resulted in them changing the rack and pump. However, a stray piece of metal subsequently found its way into the replacement pump and caused that to fail. With no other spare pump at the circuit, the team was forced to dispatch someone to base to collect another, but not in time for the car to qualify.

The #35 RJN Nissan GT-R ended the morning only 13th on 2:05.784 – almost exactly two seconds off Griffin’s time – but Alex Buncombe and Jann Mardenborough are a very even pairing and this will count for much in the race, even if more pace can’t be found; “We’re quite happy with how it’s going so far,” said Buncombe after FP1. “We’re focussingon set-up and trying to find an extra half-second of race pace, but there are no issues yet.”

Team WFR again topped the times in GT4, with the #55 G50 of Jody Fannin and Warren Hughes setting a 2:14.889 in FP1. The Jota Mazda was second quickest with a 2:14.889 in FP2, but suffered a ‘thermal incident’ which may well keep the car out of qualifying. The source of the fire was believed to possibly be diff-related, and the hunt was on for someone to repair the loom.

The Century Motorsport Ginetta didn’t have a particularly good morning, with Dominic Evans describing the car as ‘feeling strange’. With no obvious cause, the team opted to go for a radical change to the set-up before qualifying.

MH