Brands Hatch - Qualifying

The first of the two qualifying sessions began in dry and sunny conditions, but without either of the two Lotus Exiges; although the Cadena Lotus would be seen (very briefly) in the second session.

With so much racing talent present – including two class winners from the last LMS race – it was hugely satisfying to learn that all of the professional drivers in the race would be racing against each other, which would likely mean a fascinating end to the first race and a storming start to the second.

Alex Mortimer was the early leader in the first session, starting off with a 1:31.909 in the #6 RPM Viper. Closest to him at this point was Mike Gardiner’s Moore Racing Viper, the driver having already gone faster than in free practice. In GTC, the early leader was David Ashburn’s Trackspeed Porsche, with a 1:35.534.

As expected, the times began to drop and the main challenges to Mortimer came from the Barwell Astons; with first Paul Drayson and then Guy Harrington claiming second. Mortimer wasn’t to be caught, however; lowering his laptime to 1:31.252 and cementing pole.

Local man (Meopham) Paul Drayson was very happy indeed with his effort: “Very much better. I spent some time with Jonny working on areas where I was losing time, particularly into Paddock Hill where I was braking too early. I got it sorted out for that run and I’m very pleased with the progress.”

The big surprise of the session was the pace of Nigel Redwood in the #7 RPM Porsche. With the car having failed to worry the 1:34 barrier so far this meeting, Redwood strung together three good sectors and crossed the line in fourth place with a 1:32.972. Despite several minutes of the short session remaining, the car maintained its starting position.

In GTC, Jamie Smyth’s RSS Porsche came close to snatching pole from David Ashburn, but the Trackspeed boss responded and held off the challenge by three tenths. Colin Broster claimed third in class, which left the first non-Porsche in fourth.

It wasn’t a dramatic session, and fizzled out with five minutes remaining. But there were casualties; Keith Ahlers disappeared from the screen after two laps in the Morgan (resulting in no further participation in either session for Team Aero); while Elliott Cole brought the Eclipse slowly back to the pits after the water pump belt jumped off the pulley, thus threatening to damage the engine.

Post session Steve Hyde confirmed that the Morgan had suffered total electrical failure, Keith Ahlers had just enough time to radio in and say “I’ve had a big………… “ before the radio and everything else cut out leading to a rather nervous pit crew until confirmation finally reached them that the car was in one piece albeit without electrical power.

At Eclipse the problem was somewhat worse than a jumped belt, in fact the bracket had sheared in half, the team hoping that a spare was obtainable at the track from Rollcentre, if not then the #44 car might well struggle for the race later today.

Fifteen minutes later the second session began - but it soon stopped again.

Barrie Whight had just completed his outlap in the Cadena Exige, when the car appeared to snap away from him at the 100m marker approaching Paddock Hill Bend and headed straight for the gravel trap; resulting in a red flag as the Lotus was recovered.

“It locked up at the rear under braking into Paddock Hill,” said Whight later as the team scooped a skip full of gravel from the underpinnings of #19.

The Team Modena Gallardo had not yet left the pits at this point, nor did Antonio Garcia join the survivors when the pit lane opened again; instead seemingly in no hurry to join in the fun, but with no obvious work being carried out on the car.

The field was reduced further still when Godfrey Jones span into the Druids gravel on the second outlap of the second. This time no red flag would be required, but the Preci Spark Ascari would not be rejoining.

Godfrey was not a happy bunny post session complaining that a Porsche had pulled in front of him very aggressively on the run up to Druids on his out lap and then braked hard directly in front of him well before the regular braking point.

With time already fast running out (with half of the session having expired before a flying lap was posted), the first car to take a lead was the #8 Porsche of Matt Griffin with a 1:32.708. His rule lasted just a few seconds before provisional pole was claimed by Michael Bentwood in the #2 Barwell Aston, while his reign was even briefer before fastest time again went to the #6 Viper, this time with Bradley Ellis at the wheel.

Allan Simonsen set the pole target time at 1:30.640 a moment or two later in the Christians in Motorsport Ferrari 430, and Adam Wilcox jumped to second with 1:31.661 in the VRS version.

By this time, Phil Keen had sewn up GTC pole with a monumental 1:32.925 (at the time the sixth fastest time overall), and we then had the strange sight of both class leaders pitting having completed four laps apiece; neither car reappearing in the session.

Garcia finally joined in with less than six minutes remaining and all eyes were on the screen to see what he could do.

After a slow start (sixth only on his first flier) he wound up the pace in the remaining moments; improving to third just before the chequered flag flew and finally finishing on 1:30.648 – missing pole by just eight 1/1000ths of a second.

Almost unnoticed while attention was focussed on the Team Modena Lamborghini, Jonny Cocker was reminding people that he is himself a pretty rapid pedaller; posting a time in the #1 bio-ethanol powered DBRS9 only a hundredth slower than Garcia’s best.

Things were going rather better this afternoon for Tech 9, Oliver Bryant revealing that the car had suffered this morning with fuel starvation issues: “We solved that by putting an extra 20 litres in it so we were running heavier.” The net result was a time rather closer to the fastest Porsche than #9 had managed so far today.

But things weren’t going entirely to plan for Barwell, with Ben de Zille Butler stopping on the track after three laps. This is possibly another car in big trouble after the #3 car stopped with clouds of white smoke emitting from the rear, the team’s woes added to as a marshal pulled what he thought was the electrical cut-off but which was actually the extinguisher. The good news post session was that there was no visible sign of oil leakage – The bad news was that there had obviously been a major problem somewhere aboard the #3 car and with no visible external sign of what had occurred the inevitable conclusion was that it had been some form of internal failure. Again we await details of whether #3 will be out to play later.

First and sixth (Ellis) were separated by just half a second, and suddenly the #6 Viper was emerging as a highly credible contender, with its two drivers setting almost identical (and fast) times.

Robin Mortimer was well pleased with the Viper’s progress after the frustration of being awarded softer rubber for Snetterton only to see the Vipers pulled back to the harder compound for this the following race weekend.

“I think we can put some real pressure on the Astons here though but what we really need is stability. That run by the way was with 90 litres of fuel in the car.”

At Team Trimite Ricky Cole (right) was adapting nicely to his new mount but was finding that “in fast corners we’re getting wheelspin which is…………interesting. I’m finding my feet but realistically the tyres are really only good for three flyers.”

Ian Flux meanwhile put up a spirited fight for his seventh slot but compared the handling characteristics of the newly reeled in Mosler as being “Very reminiscent of a Mercedes works effort I once had a test in. It was Steve Parrish’s racing truck!” Fluxie evidently not at all impressed with the latest ‘equalisation’ then! He wasn’t best pleased either with Amanda Stretton baulking his best run: “It wouldn’t have been pole but it would have been a 31.0 or a 31.1.”

Aaron Scott claimed second for Beechdean in GTC, with Pete Morris taking third for ABG; but with Phil Keen beating Scott’s pace by 2.5s, it is likely that GTC will resemble the P1 class in the Nurburgring LMS race.

Phil Keen and David Ashburn were well pleased with their runs, the aim for the weekend is clearly a. To show what the (UP FOR SALE) car(s) can do and b. win the class race.

David Ashburn: The car is doing the same times we did here last season so there really is no reason why a well prepped GTC car can’t get in amongst some of the GT3 runners.

There was meltdown though (literally) at Beechdean meanwhile as a sliced cable took out the ice cream fridge! A minutes silence has been called for 4pm.

Two fascinating races lay ahead, and it was looking like the first of these, at least, would take place in dry conditions.

They will both take place without the #13 Mackintosh Plans Motorsport Lotus, the engine problem now diagnosed as a dropped valve and subsequent damaged piston. The car will sadly take no further part in the action this weekend.