Bute Motorsport GT Trophy, Snetterton – Qualifying Report
Barff Takes Pole In The 458

Qualifying got under way for the second GT Trophy meeting of 2011 under sunny skies, but with a brisk, cool breeze blowing across the plains of Norfolk.

This meeting was the first of the new format races, with the two-hour event being separated into two 60-minute races (known as H1 and H2) – each containing a mandatory 90-second pitstop. The teams won’t be able to change tyres or refuel during the interval, but will be allowed to work on the cars. The finishing order of the first half determines the starting order of the second and success penalties will be applied to keep the racing close.

Although numbers were similar to the opening round at Oulton Park, there were several new cars in evidence; the most prominent being the FF Corse Ferrari 458 of Donington-winners Leon Price and Rob Barff, and a car well known to DSC’s readers – the Team Tiger Marcos Mantis of Chris Beighton and Jon Finnemore; “This is the first time we’ve raced her for a couple of years, and the only thing that’s changed since her last outing is that there’s a Chevy block in her instead of a Ford,” explained Beighton. “We love the format of the GT Trophy races and the atmosphere and we’ll do all the events we can.”

On a busy weekend for MTECH – the team also racing at Imola in the GT Open – the 430 of John Dhillon and Aaron Scott joined the David Back/Michael Broadhurst car in the GT 500 class.

The day began with a 45-minute qualifying session for the Trophy field, which saw the 458 take pole with 1:51.630 on the new Snetterton 300 circuit. “The car has so much potential,” said Rob Barff, “but at the moment we’re, in reality, doing our testing in public. We’ve had couple of testing sessions so far but we’ve still a lot to learn.

“We still don’t know what a representative time for a 458 GT3 is around here. The only comparison we have is the Porsche Cup GB test times from a few weeks ago and they were doing 1:50s. By that reckoning you’d expect the British GT cars to be doing 1:47s in a fortnight’s time, meaning we’ve still got four seconds to find.

“Fortunately, we’ve got Ian Bickerton engineering the car and he’s forgotten more about this kind of thing than most people know.”

GTC2 pole went to the #35 CTR Alfatune Porsche 996 GT3 of Chris Bentley and Adrianos Medeiros, with a time of 2:00.326; “Everything’s going well so far,” said Bentley. “I’m loving the new circuit – this car works best around the faster corners and Hamilton is just awesome.”

Barclay Dougall will be driving the #37 Ocius Motorsport BMW E46 GTR single-handedly this weekend, but it’s all part of the grand plan; “I’m looking to see how I get on with the longer races,” he explained. “So far, I’ve mainly driven just sprint races so I’m expecting this to be quite a challenge; especially in H2.” Dougall took the GTSS pole with 2:02.573.

The first race was due to begin at 12:45, with H2 following at 15:20.

MH