British GT, Silverstone – Sunday Notes
Lamborghini Engine Woes Continue There was good news and bad news on a sunny Sunday morning in Northamptonshire. All three cars that missed qualifying would be back in the race, but the Tech 9 crew were packing up their garage and going home. Peter Bamford was a relieved man before the ten minute warm-up session; “When I saw the damage yesterday, I thought that was our weekend over; but the boys have done a great job and are just finishing off now. “It was scary when it went. I was on the fastest point of the circuit when it happened and it just flipped me round. Fortunately, I didn’t hit anything.” The Chad Racing Ferrari driver is currently weighing up options for 2009 and these potentially include the LMS. He and Matt Griffin will have a taster of the series next moth when they join Paul Daniels in the JWA Porsche; “It’s a chance to see how I feel about racing in a mixed GT & prototype field, but at a circuit I know.” It was an engine problem that put paid to Promotorsport’s Saturday on the very first lap of free practice. “It’s a brand new engine, but it threw a belt; which isn’t too impressive. We then had to wait for the engine builder to bring a replacement, but they brought the wrong one! Basically, it’s a dry sump engine and the oil was going in, but was having to find its own way back out again.” Sunday didn’t start perfectly either, when the fire extinguisher activated as the car was dropped off its jacks. This was followed by a haze of smoke following the car during warm-up, suggesting an oil-seal was on its way out. Brookspeed Team Trimite’s engine transplant was completed without issue, as confirmed by Martin Braybrook; “All sorted, thanks to Robin Mortimer (who provided the new engine). Starting from the back of the grid isn’t going to help us with trying to get the team’s title, though.” The reason for Tech 9’s departure also explained Team Modena’s lack of qualifying pace. “It’s done another engine,” said a disappointed Leo Machitski, “and it’s another oiling problem. The new oil tank has solved the lateral problem, but not the forward motion. On this circuit, where you’ve got heavy braking after fast straights, the oil is rushing forward and leaving the sump dry. “It’s an easy enough issue to resolve, but we have to wait for Reiter to sort it because of the homologation issues. At the moment, they don’t want to know.” Team Modena was already carefully monitoring its engines and the data shared by Tech 9 on Saturday afternoon suggested that the failure was preceded by a temperature spike. Fortunately for Machitski, he would still get to race on Sunday afternoon – in the 22GTRacing Aston Martin, after Tom Alexander had to return home due to a family issue. The ten minute warm-up was his only opportunity to get reacquainted with the DBRS9 - a car he had not driven since winning the inaugural GT3 title in 2006 – before starting the race from the second row. 18 cars took part in warm-up, with the Preci-Spark Ascari topping the times on 1:25.386. Leo Machitski managed an encouraging 1:25.791 in his seven laps, while the #15 CR Scuderia Ferrari was third fastest with 1:25.994. There would be two more GTs running on the Sunday; the two CR Scuderia GT2s putting on demonstration laps during the lunch break before heading off to Bucharest. MH | 
