British GT Oulton Park – Monday Race Report
Video Killed The Radio - Stars
© Mark Howson & Paul Slinger A fine crowd was on hand to witness the second GT race of the weekend at Oulton Park, despite the thermally-challenged conditions, and the 16 GT3 cars did not disappoint. Oliver Morley crossed the line to claim Tech 9’s first win since the corresponding race last season (co-driven by Tom Ferrier), after Allan Simonsen’s usual great work was undone by an elementary ‘mistake’; and there was an unusual cameo from Guy Harrington too. The GT4 race was a good one initially, Matt Nicholl-Jones and Stewart Linn taking the win, and resuming where they left off in smaller Ginettas. GT3
The race began with two Vipers in the pitlane, Jon Barnes being compelled to start from there in the Team Trimite Viper, and Jason Templeman’s RPM car being hurriedly pushed off the grid to have work done around the rear suspension. The rest of the field paired up in very sedate formation, and the safety car was in the pits before the pack arrived at Lodge Corner; but Allan Simonsen was very much in control in the pole-sitting CiM Ferrari and out-dragged Tom Ferrier’s Gallardo to Old Hall. As the pack streamed through the first corner, Michael Bentwood’s #42 Aston Martin was tapped into a spin, but this time there would be no pyrotechnics or debris shower - and the safety car driver could put his feet up. Paul O’Neill’s #1 RPM Viper was caught up in this incident and lost two places, but otherwise the positions remained pretty much unchanged. Simonsen immediately began to pull out a lead of about a second per lap (pegged only for a couple of laps at around the 3.5s mark), while behind him the field began to string out. Apart, that is, from an early battle for eighth to twelfth places. Luke Hines in the #16 CRS Ferrari was ahead of Aaron Scot in the ABG Viper, but Hines’ luck was not improving and on lap three he had a huge spin around the back of the circuit. In the immediate aftermath, Scott lost three places and emerged with damaged bodywork that would soon require a stop to fix. Paul O’Neill, Oliver Bryant and Godfrey Jones had been the chief beneficiaries, and now the #1 Viper had Michael Cullen’s #15 Ferrari in its sights. As Simonsen built up his advantage, Ferrier in second found his attention fixed on the improper advances of Richard Williams’ Tech 9 Porsche. At no point over the first 18 laps of this race did the gap between the two cars exceed half a second, but Williams could not get by. Evidence of his efforts appeared on the tenth lap, when the Porsche began sporting damaged right-front bodywork and the Gallardo left-rear; neither car’s pace appeared to be affected by this love-tap, however, and the duel continued. Ferraris occupied fourth to sixth places, with Adam Wilcox managing to keep Matt Griffin’s #4 Chad 430 and James Sutton’s #14 CRS car behind him. The gap between the cars fluctuated only by a few tenths over this first half of the race, but nobody was close enough to challenge for position. It turned out that Adam Wilcox was also having to fight a worsening problem in the VRS Ferrari; “The exhaust manifold split on the first lap of race and it was losing power.” Alas, the manifold came off soon after Phil Burton took over and the car stopped. Michael Bentwood had recovered from his opening lap spin and was mounting a determined comeback, passing the Trimite Viper for 11th place on lap seven and then setting off in hot pursuit of the Preci Spark Ascari. Godfrey Jones was himself lining up a move on Oliver Bryant’s Viper and took eighth with a confident move through Dentons. Bentwood quickly latched on to the Viper’s tail and sent it down another place at the same place a lap later. The Chad optimism over the #3 car’s state of health evaporated on only the second lap of the race when Ben de Zille Butler was forced to pit with splitter damage. He resumed after losing a lap, but was thereafter off the pace. Luke Hines, meanwhile, pitted on the tenth lap, ending a hugely disappointing weekend for himself and Jeremy Metcalfe with retirement. At the front, Allan Simonsen’s lead was increasing rapidly, and stood at twenty seconds when Tom Ferrier pitted on lap 22. Richard Williams had stopped shortly before the Tech 9 driver, and David Ashburn climbed aboard while his crew applied the sticky-backed plastic to the damaged bodywork. The pit window was approaching its close when Allan Simonsen inexplicably stayed out for a further lap. It didn’t take much to see that he wasn’t going to complete the next lap in 80 seconds, and indeed he arrived at the line 15 seconds too late. The team manager was summoned to race control and we awaited the verdict of the stewards. At the time, this mistake seemed baffling; but after the race more and more drivers were saying that their radios weren’t working, and this may well have been the crucial issue. As a side note, mobile phones were almost useless at Oulton Park - built as it is on a convergence of ancient Druidical Ley Lines (probably). While Hector Lester led the race for the time being, attention was switching to the fight for second, and with all stops now complete that meant Oliver Morley ahead of David Ashburn by two seconds, with Michael Meadows a further ten seconds behind. Between the Porsche and the Lamborghini was Guy Harrington’s #3 Chad Ferrari, now two laps down after its earlier delays; and the car’s presence was destined to become ever more significant, and baffling. But a few minutes later, the anticipated penalty was handed down to the CiM team – 20 second stop/go. Hector Lester duly complied on lap 28 and was stationary as the leaders went by the pits. But it was all about to go horribly wrong for Trackspeed. Having stabilized the gap to Morley and the pursuing Meadows, Ashburn was beginning to look like the strongest of the three; but as the cars descended into Cascades for the 29th time, the Porsche snapped sideways and into retirement. While this was doubtless hugely upsetting and frustrating for Ashburn, he had, in fairness, had so little time in the new car so far that he had earlier revealed that he was still unsure of his braking points, so different a car is it to the 2007 model. With the Porsche gone, Meadows saw his opportunity and pressed pedal to the metal. Further back, a great scrap was taking place for the remaining positions, and the all important championship points. Steve Clark was now in the #1 Viper and he quickly caught and passed Peter Bamford in the #4 Ferrari, on lap 25. But when David Jones tried to follow through, he found that the Chad driver was no push-over. The two cars were side by side across the line and into Old Hall, but Bamford assertively closed the door and kept the Ascari behind. This slight loss of momentum allowed Paddy Shovlin in the #15 CRS to try the same manoeuvre on Jones on the next lap, but with the same result. However, as the three cars ran nose-to-tail down to Knickerbrook on that same lap, Bamford found himself suddenly and forcefully rear-ended by the Ascari and the Ferrari driver was unable to prevent the car ending up in the gravel. The Preci Spark KZ1R survived, but was unable to prevent the CRS Ferrari, the Trimite Viper and the 22GTRacing Aston from going past. At the head of the race, Oliver Morley was seeing his lead to Michael Meadows diminish with every lap; and by lap 32 it was less than two seconds. Yet still Guy Harrington was behind him; and as the minutes ticked away, we now had a three car train. The gap shrank to less than a second, but Harrington would not move over and Meadows seemed unable to pass him. This was bizarre, but there was perhaps still time for the #14 to pull something off. As the cars started the 35th lap, just seconds remained on the clock; but when the trio came back into sight through Druids, the order was unchanged; Phil Hindley could put a year of frustration behind him as he watched his car take the flag. Steve Clark came home in third, having resisted the challenge of Paddy Shovlin, who had himself snatched fourth from Hector Lester shortly before. James Gornall claimed sixth for Team Trimite, with David Jones seventh, Tom Alexander eighth, Nick Foster ninth in the #2 Viper, and Craig Wilkins tenth in the delayed ABG Viper. The final GT3 finisher was Guy Harrington, who despite being in eleventh place had spent almost his entire race sandwiched between first and second; so what had been going on? “My radio wasn’t working and I had no idea that Oliver was leading,” explained the Chad driver. “I came up on him so quickly, that when I saw the blue flags I assumed they were for him; but I wasn’t able to get by. “I’ve apologized to the CRS guys for getting in the way.” As it turned out, Harrington was not the only driver with a less than full picture of the race; “The white Ferrari was a frustration, but when I first caught them I thought he was in second place,” explained Michael Meadows. “Still, we’re relatively happy with the weekend; just hoping for an awesome weekend next time.” “The radio wasn’t working, so when I saw three cars in front of me at the end I thought I’d come fourth,” said Steve Clark. “It was only when someone handed me a sponsors hat when I got out of the car and I asked ‘what for?’ that they said we’d got third!” And not even the winner knew the situation; “It was nice to see the Ferraris behind us for a change,” said Oliver Morley, “but I had no idea what position the white one behind me all the way through the rest of the race was in. I didn’t know I was leading either!” For Tom Ferrier, the memories of a difficult 2007 were now locked away; “It’s a nice result to get a win in the first weekend, particularly after the problems on Saturday - a simple fuse problem. That was really disappointing, and I hope it doesn’t end up costing us the championship. The boys have worked flat out though and they really deserved this win. “My first stint was a struggle to keep Richard Williams behind. He hit me into Shell, I think it was; but it wasn’t malicious, he’s a good, clean racer. I knew I had to keep us ahead; it was just a shame that Simonsen had gone so far up the road at that point. “At the handover I had been driving so hard that my hand had gone numb, so it was hard trying to get Oliver’s belts on for him. We struggled a bit for balance, but that’s the first time we’ve done a run that long, so it is promising. Hopefully it will be between us and Simonsen this year, catching him is the goal for the season because we don’t want him running away every race.” James Sutton: “I had to work the car pretty hard in my stint so it wasn’t great for Michael. He did a good job though.” Paul O’Neill: “This isn’t the best circuit for the Viper and we would have been happy just to bring it home; but with a few cars having dropped out, I managed to get up to fourth or fifth by the first corner - then there was contact between a Ferrari and an Aston Martin and I had to slam the brakes on and fell right back to tenth. From there I just got down into the 1:41s and kept going and going, my arm was hurting and I was crying in the car [joke?] and I wasn’t getting any sympathy from the team at all! I brought it in seventh and the team did a brilliant stop for us, then Steve went out and did a fantastic job; 1:44 after 1:44 on tyres that I couldn’t have done a 1:44 on.” GT4
The GT4 race offered a good four car battle for the majority of the first half of the race, but the spectacle largely dissolved during the driver changes. With the would-be pole-sitter Rob Austin ruing the loss of his car in Saturday’s accident (which was so attention grabbing that it apparently hit the pages of some national papers on Sunday), Michael Broadhurst led the class on the warm-up lap in his RPM G50, #51. It didn’t last long though as Fulvio Mucci in the sister #52 car and Stewart Linn in the #88 IMS G50 forced their way through to first and second. Linn “had a great start and got second over the line, hanging right onto the lead RPM car and then stuck with him for a couple of laps until a GT3 Viper came through and I snuck through with him.” It was 12 laps however before Linn’s opportunity presented itself, Mucci referring afterwards to “a very close but clean race right through to coming into the pits.”  |
Despite losing out at the start, Broadhurst kept the IMS car as the filling in an RPM sandwich, this squabbling Ginetta trio allowing Jamie Smyth to bring the Beechdean Aston Martin to an improbably close watching brief. “It was incredibly difficult, every lap was like a qualifying lap just to stay with them, it’s the hardest race I’ve driven. I was on the grass and taking every kerb. I was only a tenth slower than my qualifying lap in the race, but had to do that every lap. It was very difficult keeping with the Ginettas in the Aston Martin, they are just so quick through the corners that I had to use the GT3s to my advantage. The [#51] RPM car made a mistake at Island so I thought ‘here we go, this is the one and only chance’. I was really glad to pass one of them because that all I was hoping to do, I’d never have got another.”  |
Just as it was getting interesting, Mucci dived for the pits, so Beechdean was up to second place, with Broadhurst right on the N24’s tail for another lap, before handing over to Joe Osbourne. Smyth was the last of the leaders to pit at the halfway mark and the other GT4 runners were already well out of contention by this point, although Peter Snowdon merits mention for a good drive in the Chad Aston Martin, to move past the #50 RPM car and bring the N24 home in fourth. Confused faces in the Beechdean pit suggested Smyth was in fact a little earlier into the box than expected, which was indeed the case. “The radio had gone down, but thankfully I am sponsored by Chrono Swiss and I had a huge watch on, so I was able to see that I was roughly half way through so had better bring it in.” The crew didn’t lose too much time as a result, but Andrew Howard rejoined after the leading three G50s had gone through - in the order #88, #52 and #51. Matt Nicholl-Jones in #88 built himself a nine second lead quickly and from there he “just had to bring it home and look out for incoming GT3 cars, it was really good fun.” Hollings was feeling some pressure from Joe Osbourne for second. “For a few laps he was close and there was a lot of traffic coming through. I think Joe dropped out of my mirrors at Island, something must have happened but with him gone I had a bit of space. I had a little problem at the rear of the car so I knew that I wouldn’t be able to catch the leader so I took it easy from there.” Second place was one step up the podium from Saturday, but #51 wasn’t seen again, promoting Beechdean’s Andrew Howard to an excellent third place by the chequered flag. “It’s an amazing result from where we were on Saturday. Jamie drove an unbelievable first stint and then I just drove it home. You can’t underestimate what Jamie did today, it was truly superb.” The two races at Oulton Park had produced some excellent racing in GT3; and two new winners – plus two new ones in GT4 of course. There will now be three weeks before the circus regroups at Knockhill. With yet more cars still to join the series (including, potentially, a car not seen in the series before) what further dramas will the tight Scottish track produce? | 
