British GT Championship - Thruxton – Sunday Race Report
Between Two

But which two? Initially it was Jonny Cocker and Allan Simonsen moving clear of the rest of the field, but the second half of the race was between the Barwell pair of Paul Drayson and Ben de Zille Butler, and with less than three laps to go, Butler took advantage of traffic at the complex and swept to victory, the second of the season for he and Guy Harrington.

A highly satisfactory run from Paul and Barrie Whight saw them finish fourth, from 14th on the grid, in the Cadena DBRS9, the three Astons split by the RPM Viper of championship challengers Alex Mortimer and Bradley Ellis.

Apart from the six Aston men in the top four, almost everyone else seemed rather disgruntled with the weekend’s outcomes though. Perhaps it was just one to get through, with Thruxton’s notorious reputation for being hard on tyres: but at least there was just one puncture in the two hours of racing, and no major offs.

There was one driver change before the Sunday morning warm-up: Richard Stanton “couldn’t get his head round Thruxton in a Viper,” explained Martin Braybrook, so in the #40 Brookspeed car, Richard Hay was joined by James Littlejohn, who had raced the Viper on its debut at Oulton Park.

One slight correction to Saturday’s race report. Guy Harrington points out that when he was being caught by the Preci-Spark Ascari (before its alternator problem), he was actually saving fuel, to make sure that #3 made it to the end. Fuel wouldn’t be a concern on Sunday.

Glorious weather, a reasonable crowd, a slightly late start (to make sure that the marshals had a lunch break), and from the off, Simonsen was pressing Cocker round Allard and into the complex, but the outside line wasn’t realistic, and these two were rushing through the chicane a minute or so later, separated by 0.9, with Adam Wilcox another two seconds back in third.

For the first 15 laps, the gap between Cocker and Simonsen was remarkably static: it was stuck at just under a second for lap after lap. Thereafter, the rears were going away on the Ferrari, and the bio-fuelled Aston edged away, although Cocker was aware that there was something not quite right at the front of #1.

Simonsen was among the last (of the fast men) to pit, after 26 laps, the gap over six seconds at this point, Cocker continuing to lap 28, just before the pit window ended. Both cars took tyres, although it was only one in the case of the Aston Martin, the heavily loaded front left.

“I felt something about ten laps from the end of my stint, and it turned out to be that blister,” said Jonny Cocker. “My job is to go as fast as I can and give Paul (Drayson) the biggest gap that I can.”

Much the same applied to Simonsen’s role in the Ferrari, but once Hector Lester jumped in, with fresh rears fitted, the car wouldn’t fire up. The #23 went a lap down, and out of the equation in terms of the race win.

“There was no metal visible today, but the rears were close,” said the Dane, of the decision to change them. “You’ve got to speak up if the tyres aren’t good enough.” He did qualify that remark by pointing out that the Ferraris and Porsches do run appreciably narrower rubber than many of the other cars, so somewhere like Thruxton is particularly hard on the 997 and 430.

So that was the first half of the race at the front, but what was going on behind numbers 1 and 23?

Immediately behind them, not much. Apart from the charging Paul Whight in the Cadena DBRS9, there were remarkably few position changes. With one slight change, the next six (positions three to eight) ran in the order Adam Wilcox (#12 VRS Ferrari), Alex Mortimer (#6 RPM Viper), Michael Bentwood (#2 Barwell Aston Martin), Guy Harrington (#3 DBRS9), Tim Harvey (#5 RPM Viper) and Nick Foster (#7 RPM Viper – up from 11th on the grid).

Initially it was the three Ascaris next, Erdos in #10 Damax, Keen in #11 Damax and Godfrey Jones in #22. Phil Keen soon got to the head of the Ascari train, and headed off to do battle with Tim Harvey in #5 Viper, Harvey having lost out to the sister #7 as early as lap 4. But Keen went off into the complex on lap 12, and that left Godfrey Jones as the best of the Ascaris, but not happy to be down in tenth. Right with him at this stage was Paul Whight in the yellow Aston Martin, up from 14th on the grid, and clearly enjoying the performance of the DBRS9, especially into the chicane. Whight was the first to head for the pits, after 18 impressive laps (passing #4, below).

At this stage the two leaders were in the low to mid 1:18s, while the chasing group were in the low 1:19s.

Alex Mortimer indicated that he’d been going as fast as he could from the lights, but soon settled down in the train, to look after the Viper’s rubber. Even so, #6 would be in tyre trouble by the end. Guy Harrington was looking after his tyres too, commenting that “I just tagged onto the back of Michael (Bentwood) and stayed with the group.”

It was stalemate among the Wilcox, Mortimer, Bentwood, Harrington, Foster, Harvey group, but inevitably things would re-adjust in the second half of the race.

Elsewhere, Tom Ferrier had made some progress from the back of the grid in the Tech 9 Porsche, but was just trying to be consistent, the Porsches running behind the Jones Ascari in the order Matt Griffin (#8 RPM), Mark Cole (#4 Team 4car) and Ferrier. This has never been a Porsche circuit, and today was no different.

The #54 GTC Porsche was in trouble very early on with a gearbox stuck in third, so GT Cup was always looking to go the way of the Beechdean Ferrari, although the Ginetta was surprisingly close at the end, in second. Graeme Mundy and Jamie Smyth kept going to third, the only other finisher (and starter).

So pit stops out of the way, and the #1 Aston Martin led, by 14.5 seconds (on lap 29) from Ben de Zille Butler. Bradley Ellis was third in #6 Viper, then Tom Alexander in #2 Barwell DBRS9, then Nigel Redwood in #7 RPM Viper, then the charging Barrie Whight in the Cadena Aston Martin.

“Yes, I was being a bit lairy with it through the chicane,”said Barrie Whight, “but the harder tyres this weekend were very consistent, it just developed a little bit of understeer towards the end. We’ve got a good set-up and the Aston doesn’t depend on mechanical grip: it’s got a great aero package.”

Whight would move from sixth to fourth at the end, as two cars ahead met problems. One of those was the #2 Aston Martin, which Michael Bentwood had been fighting with early on, the power steering giving trouble. Tom Alexander slipped to seventh at the flag.

The other car in trouble was the only one to suffer a puncture, the #7 RPM Viper. Nigel Redwood had the front/left roll away from him at the chicane, conveniently, and that dropped him down to an unrepresentative ninth.

At the front, Butler was catching Drayson, and initially Ellis was catching both of them – but a 21 second gap from first to third came down to 14, and wouldn’t shrink any more. Ellis was struggling with a big blister on the Viper, and third was his limit. He also had to battle a driver's door that initially wasn't secured - although he managed to fix that pretty smartly.

So it all came down to Drayson against Butler. Paul Drayson’s first ever race meeting at Thruxton was going very well, especially as “I was eight seconds off the pace in the first session on Friday, and wondering where I was going to find eight seconds. But it’s addictive, going this fast: through Church is like being in a jet!”

Ben de Zille Butler was the faster man though, and the gap typically came down by two seconds a lap – then less as Drayson’s pace picked up. 11 minutes left and it was seven seconds. Three and a half minutes and it was 2.3, the next lap and it was 0.7.

Ben Butler: “Paul got held up into the complex, he went for the inside and two cars closed the door on him, so I went round the outside, and then had the inside line for the left hander.”

The gap was 2.4 seconds at the flag, Butler and Harrington taking their second win of the year, their first (year) in GT racing. Their target this season had been to get onto the podium – now it’s the title.

Barrie Whight was delighted with fourth, Harvey and Henry Fletcher were fifth, the Joneses were disgruntled in sixth and Tom Alexander stayed on the lead lap in seventh.

The Brookspeed / Trimite Viper had a good run to eighth with its new line-up, #7 recovered to ninth, and the delayed Hector Lester was tenth. Phil Burton was twelfth, these two split by the best of the Porsches, the Griffin / Bamford car. The Tech 9 997 went out late on with some kind of drivetrain failure, Matt Harris at the wheel. He and Tom Ferrier are much more confident about doing well at Croft and Rockingham.

“They’ve got to sort out the equalisation,” said one of the Jones brothers. “The Ascari is two seconds off the Ferrari and Aston Martin.” The brothers quoted Keen and Erdos lap times to support their case. “If they carry on like this they’ll only have Aston Martins and Ferraris in the championship.”

“I think we’re leading by five points,” suggested Paul Drayson after the race. Indeed they (he and Jonny Cocker) are – with four races left – but that’s over the Harrington / Butler pair. Mortimer and Ellis are second, just two points adrift of the leaders.

Cocker / Drayson 58
Mortimer / Ellis 56
Harrington / Butler 53
Jones / Jones 44
Bentwood / Lester / Alexander 40.

It looks as though it is between six drivers all of a sudden, the next five having had an unproductive Thruxton meeting (no ore than five points).
MC