British GT Championship, Snetterton 300 – Saturday Notes
Advantage Porsche?

The DSC crew arrived at Snetterton early on Saturday morning with not a cloud in the sky. Just an hour later, however, the blue had been almost entirely replaced with white – the vanguard of the rain clouds that were expected to arrive in the afternoon.

As Free Practice got underway at 9.30, however, the conditions were almost identical to those of a fortnight earlier, when the GT Trophy raced on the 300 circuit. On that occasion, Rob Barff set a pole time of 1:51.630 in FF Corse’s new (and unsorted) Ferrari 458 GT3, prompting him to predict a lap time of the order of 1:47/1:48 for the faster cars at this weekend’s meeting.  

Only 26 cars had made it to Norfolk, with the JHR Ginetta G55 still not fully rebuilt following its hefty shunt at Oulton Park. CRS Racing, meanwhile, did have a 458 GT3 in its garage – but, alas, not yet one of its own. This was instead the AF Corse car that Glynn Geddie had raced at Portimão the previous weekend in the FIA GT3 Championship, and which would be going back to Michelotto immediately after this weekend. The second CRS car was also a loaner – Andrew Tate and Tim Mullen (Alex Mortimer racing at Magny Cours in the GT Open this weekend) borrowing a 430 Scuderia from MTECH for this meeting.

Matt Griffin was the fastest driver in the opening session, with a time of 1:51.693in the #21 MTECH 458; the first few minutes being disrupted by two red flags which probably prevented faster times being recorded. The first of the flags was due to the #27 Century Motorsport Ginetta G55 stopping on the track between Palmer and Agostini after a driveshaft popped out (the same issue had just happened with the #28 sister car), while the Vantage Racing Aston Martin DBRS9 slowed to a stop at Oggies with a gearbox issue and brought out the reds for a second time.

The #1 Trackspeed Porsche was again right in the thick of the action; Phil Keen continuing a very good week for him (a third-place in FLM at the Spa LMS race last Saturday and a win in the Britcar four-hour race at Donington the next day) with a second-fastest time, just under two-tenths off Griffin’s time.

Jim & Glynn Geddie were third fastest in the CRS 458, but the junior partner was not a happy chappy; “Last weekend was a bit of a disaster,” said Glynn, “and today’s not going much better.” With this, he removed the Ferrari’s front cover and pointed to several welds in the front frame that had cracked at Portimão, causing the all-too-visible flexing that plagued both of his races with Dan Brown. “I put a wheel on the grass, which caused some damage, and I had a vibration from the brakes; but it’s made us wonder if we’ve done the right thing in buying one.”

The Beechdean Aston DBRS9 was fourth fastest, with the #23 United Autosports Audi fifth. Jay Palmer, however, wasn’t too thrilled with his #24 R8’s pace – a 1:56.125 leaving the car 12th fastest and slower than the GTB Ferrari 430; “We’re really struggling for grip,” he said. “We had a few handling issues, which can be sorted, and we were on very old rubber, but it’s just so dusty off-line. We’re hoping the rain comes!”

It was a mixed session for ABG, with one of its KTM X-Bows – the Marcus Clutton/Peter Belshaw – leading the GT4 times, but with the second in mechanical trouble; “I only did a couple of laps and then Athanasios [Ladas] only had third and fifth gears, before the gearbox fell out,” said Michael Mallock, nodding towards a significantly disassembled #45. The KTM was put back together in time to join in the second practice session after half an hour.

Things were going better for Chevron Racing Cars; “We had a few niggles and were bedding in pads in the first session, but other than that we’re happy,” said Jordan Witt. The team are not overly disappointed to have no opposition in the GTC class; they are treating this as a development year and are seeing how close to the GT3 times they can get before applying for GT3 homologation for 2012.

As is the norm in (and, indeed, the purpose of) the first practice session, several other cars discovered early problems. The #42 Ginetta G50 had a power-steering issue which prompted a call to the pits, after which the car refused to refire, leading to a close look at the starter motor; the Predator CCTV Ferrari Scuderia was struggling with a sensor fault somewhere in the engine; the Chad Scud didn’t get out after encountering gearbox issues; and the #3 Rosso Verde Ferrari ended the session with a suspected driveshaft issue.

Fortunately for these teams, the timetable was as kind as it could be, with two and a half hours being available before the second FP session began, with a further three and a half hours before qualifying would begin.

A few spots of rain during the lunch interval became a mixture of heavy rain and hail just moments after the first 19 cars had left the pitlane to begin session two. Within a couple of minutes the majority of cars had stopped to change rubber, but just a couple of minutes after that the rain had largely stopped.

Rain – not as heavy – would be a recurring feature during the remainder of the 60 minutes, but it relented towards the end, leaving a quarter hour of dry running that saw times improve dramatically before the flag flew.

Having set the fastest time in FP1, the MTECH 458’s session lasted just four laps before a driveshaft failure (or possibly an electrical issue) left the red car – its black roof making it look like a cabriolet – stranded at the side of the road. Similarly, the #44 ABG X-Bow – fastest GT4 in FP1 – ended its session after going straight on at Riches and finding the gravel with five minutes remaining.

As the times improved, Allan Simonsen briefly held the fastest time – 1:53.098 – but was unable to better this in his final three laps. The Dane instead had to watch as first the Scuderia Vittoria 458 went faster, before both Trackspeed Porsches went to the top – Phil Keen’s 1:51.809 almost a second faster that Tim Bridgman’s time in the #2. His was also the most consistent time, being just 0.072s different from his best from FP1.

Simonsen was vocal in his criticism of the BoP for the Scuderia; and, when it comes from the mouth of a driver of his calibre, you know that there is substance in the issue.

The two Lotus Evoras improved their times in the second session and ended practice first and second in GT4  - the #49 of Freddy Nordstrom and Leyton Clarke heading the #48 of Ollie Jackson and Jack Drinkall by half a second.

Star of the second session, though, was Jordan Witt in the GR8; the young driver impressing his mentor, Anthony Reid, with a 12th fastest 1:58.418 – a full two seconds faster than the car’s first-session times.

MH