British GT, Donington – Race Report
The Return Of The Keystone Cops

The 2008 British GT Championship ended on a glorious autumn afternoon at Donington Park, with a race that should have been a classic. Sadly, it turned out to be one of the poorest of the season and featured a safety car period so badly handled that one wondered whether Mack Sennett was directing things. However, this should not overshadow the fact that Luke Hines and Jeremy Metcalfe produced a dominant display to win the two hour race; nor will we forget another extraordinary comeback drive from Allan Simonsen.

23 cars started the race, including the #51 RPM Ginetta of Jamie Robinson which was being forced to join in from the pitlane after a qualifying infringement. As the cars approached the start line and the lights turned green, Hector Lester seemed to get bogged down and this allowed Nick Foster to take an immediate lead in the #2 RPM Viper; Luke Hines also getting by before the Christian in Motorsport Ferrari driver recovered his composure.

Foster immediately took advantage of his situation to pull out a lead. It never grew beyond two seconds as a result of Hines’ close attentions, but the top two were pulling rapidly away from the rest of the pack as Lester’s defensive driving slowed his pursuers.

Paddy Shovlin was the second Irishman in this particular queue and he was keen to go quicker, while behind him Godfrey Jones was carving his way through the pack in the Preci Spark Ascari.

At the end of lap five, Shovlin made a move at the Esses and the #15 CR Scuderia Ferrari was alongside as the cars came on to the pit straight. Lester crossed the line still ahead, but lost the place soon after, at the same time losing momentum and allowing three other cars to pass. Jones then moved up into third on the same lap.

Craig Wilkins, meanwhile, was heading towards the pit with a flat front left after attempting what he admitted was a hugely optimistic lunge on the #14 CR Scuderia Ferrari of Michael Meadows.

In GT4, a race long battle between the #88 IMS Motorsport and #55 Rob Austin Ginettas was in its early stages, with Hunter Abbott so close to taking the lead at the Esses from Stewart Linn in the early laps. Linn hung on, and the cars continued just a couple of tenths apart.

Back at the front, Hines started to reel in the Viper and had the gap down to below half a second; and as the cars started lap 13 he was in a position to make a move and was alongside the #2 through Hollywood.

Foster dug in and the cars dived down through the Craner Curves side-by-side, prompting a collective holding of breath from onlookers. Both drivers held their nerve and the duel continued to the old hairpin, where the #16 Ferrari found itself on the inside and with just enough of an advantage to pull ahead. Credit is due to both drivers for ensuring that only paint was swapped in the move.

Hines started to pull away, but almost immediately Foster’s car slowed and started to lose places. He made it back to the pits, but a very quick examination revealed that the engine had failed; a sad way for the season to end. Next door in the RPM pits, Bradley Ellis was also in the process of retiring his car, the #52 Ginetta.    

But the action wasn’t just at the front of the pack. Guy Harrington was in the thick of things in the #11 Team Modena Lamborghini and on lap 18 was back up to fifth at the expense of James Gornall’s Team Trimite Viper. Duncan Cameron, meanwhile, was engaged in mortal combat with Oliver Morley; his #26 M-Tech Ferrari harrying the Tech 9 Gallardo for ninth position.

At 30 minutes, the order was 16, 22, 15, 14, 11, 40, 23, 1, 9, 26, 42, 4, 7, 20, 88, 55, 50, 101, 71, 51 and 54. Hines’ lead over Jones was just 2.7s, but from then on began to grow. Things were looking good for CR Scuderia, with all three cars in the top four.

The next few minutes saw very little in the way of changes. Craig Wilkins was creating good pace in his ABG Viper as he sought to make amends for his error; taking Steve Tandy’s #7 RPM Viper for 13th place on lap 30. Bjorn Gustavson, in the #101 Richmond Racing G50 – running in the Invitational class only because his was the seventh Ginetta, when only six are allowed in GT4 -  was similarly under pressure from Paul Marsh in the #71 Stark Racing Ginetta, losing a place on lap 33.

With the race 43 minutes old, the flames suddenly engulfed the #42 22GTRacing Aston Martin of Tom Alexander as the car approached the Esses. “I’d had problems with the sequential box and so had to use the clutch,” he explained. “That then failed and the gearbox exploded, severing an oil line.”

The fire was spectacular, but quickly extinguished after Alexander parked up near the pit entrance. The car sat there for five minutes before the decision was taken to deploy the safety car.

What should have been a very quick caution period – and let’s not even bother asking if it was at all necessary – turned into ten minutes of sheer bewilderment. Some cars – including, oh yes, the leader - were waved by, while others were held up for no apparent reason. We even had the sight of Nigel Moore setting his car’s fastest lap of the race so far – 1:16.442 - while trying to catch up with the pack.

As the assembled media looked at each other in astonishment, desperate for someone to tell them what on earth was going on, the second conflagration of the race had just been lit.

Ian Stinton hopped into the #71 Stark Racing Ginetta after Paul Marsh’ stint, but noticed something in his rear view mirrors as he pulled away; “I could see flames coming from the back of the car, but realised that it wasn’t a good idea to stop alongside the fuel rigs, so I kept going to the marshal’s post at pit exit.”

His quick thinking prevented the situation escalating – although it did result in pit-exit marshal and DSC contributor, Jason Gore, being taken to the medical centre after inhaling smoke and extinguishant; happily with no lasting damage. Behind the car, a ‘Back To The Future’-like trail of flame led to the scene of a huge fire on the tarmac outside the Stark Racing pit. Something had clearly gone badly wrong with refuelling, but the flames were extinguished and calm returned.

With an hour to go, the safety car gave up trying to sort out the mess that it had created and came back in. Somehow, the positions were pretty much unchanged, although the majority of cars were very widely spaced. Jeremy Metcalfe (#16) now led David Jones (#22) by 1.6s; Michael Cullen (#15) was 21.2s further back in third; James Sutton (#14) was 2.9s further back in fifth; and it was a further 35s back to Allan Simonsen (#23). Nor did it help that the ‘safety car’ boards were still being displayed at Redgate on the green-flag lap, causing further confusion.

Matt Griffin was the fastest man out on track in the early post-pitstop laps, setting times consistently in the 1:10s in the #4 Chad Racing Ferrari that he had just inherited from Peter Bamford. But the main feature of the next few minutes was to be a slew of retirements.

Having closed to with a half second of Cullen’s Ferrari, James Sutton was sidelined by an engine failure at the start of the Schwantz curve on lap 54. At the same time, Ben de Zille Butler was in the pits and discovering that the Team Modena Lambo had lost another engine. Clearly, Herr Reiter still has some work to do this winter.

Phil Keen had barely had time to get up to speed in the #1 RPM Viper before it too had retired – Howard Fletcher having earlier done a great job of keeping the car in contention on his return to the series – and then Aaron Scott retired the battered ABG Viper as a result of losing steering.

With 30 minutes to go, the order was 16, 22, 15, 23, 40, 4, 9, 7, 26, 88, 55, 51, 20, 101, 1 and 54.

The Promotorsport Nissan was finally having a good, reliable run; but at the 90-minute mark Maxi Jazz turned in on the #101 Ginetta, driven by Andreas Bostrom. The cars hit, spun, and then hit again. The Nissan limped back to the pits for lengthy repairs, while the Ginetta continued round the track before parking up alongside the #14 Ferrari and retiring.

We now had two abandoned cars on the outside of a fast corner, but no safety car was deemed necessary here. Hmm…..

Allan Simonsen was a long way down when he took over the CiM Ferrari and his early laps were no quicker than the cars ahead. But just as it appeared as though the Dane wouldn’t, or couldn’t, be attempting to close the gap, the car started to make progress. “We changed the two left hand tyres at the stop, but they didn’t have the grip I needed for the first few laps,” he explained. “So I looked after them until they came back in and then started to push.”

The gap came down with every lap, until it was at 13s with 21 minutes remaining.

Nigel Greensall was at this point motoring along in the #26 M-Tech Ferrari and hot on Tom Ferrier’s heels. The Tech 9 Lambo was in seventh at this point, but clearly not enjoying the best pace.

Greensall was soon on his tail and, after one move at Starkey’s was rebuffed, took the place on the next lap. Alas for the Ferrari driver, a late trip into the McLeans gravel undid all his good work, although he was dragged out and able to continue.

At the front, Jeremy Metcalfe was controlling things beautifully; driving quickly and consistently and seeing off the challenge from David Jones’ Ascari, who started to drop back. 

But all eyes were on Allan Simonsen in the closing stages. Could he yet finish on the podium? The man himself had no doubt; “I knew that it was possible right from the start of my stint, otherwise I wouldn’t have even tried. I’m used to driving stints of an hour or longer and know that I can drive at a fast pace consistently. I also knew that some of these guys would start to slow up in the later stages.”

24 of his last 25 laps were 1:10s and Simonsen ground away at Cullen’s advantage.

Jeremy Metcalfe crossed the line for the penultimate time with six seconds still showing on the clock and this spelled disaster for the Jones Ascari. Already in fuel trouble, the KZ1R limped across the line after having slowed to a 1:18.367; and then pulled off at Hollywood, its tanks empty. This was a cruel way to end the race.

With two laps to go, Simonsen was 1.817 behind Cullen and 1.259 behind as the cars began their final lap.

Jeremy Metcalfe completed his final two laps in the 1:14s as a precaution, but was unconcerned by events behind him and crossed the line to take a thoroughly deserved victory.

“I’m really happy to win the final race of the year,” said Luke Hines. “I enjoyed the opening laps as there was a lot of pushing and shoving. It was good to take the lead and bring it all the way to the pit stop in first place. The whole team has worked really hard this weekend so I’m delighted for all of them.”

“That was a tough race,” continued Metcalfe. “The car felt so good though that I was able to hold back at the end and preserve fuel. Luke did a great job at the start. The team has been great all year and I want to thank them for a fantastic season.”

As Metcalfe crossed the line, Cullen and Simonsen arrived at the Esses together and the Dane appeared to have the momentum. But the Irishman had other ideas; “Simonsen got by me on the last lap at Brands Hatch so there was no way in the world he was getting past me today.” Simonsen was on the outside as the cars approached the line but Cullen was not to be intimidated and crossed the line 0.073s before the Dane.

The Jones Ascari was classified fourth, while Matt Griffin brought the Chad Ferrari home in fifth. Sixth went to the Tech 9 Lamborghini, with the M-Tech Ferrari a lap further back in seventh.

The Team Trimite Viper finished eighth after a most unusual end to its race. Jon Barnes had a spin five minutes from the end and then pitted, where he climbed out as a result of feeling under the weather. Martin Braybrooke then told James Gornall to suit up and jump back in and the car came out for the final few laps.

In GT4, the race-long battle between 88 and 55 went to the champions – Matt Nicoll-Jones overcoming Rob Austin’s challenge - ahead of…nobody at all. Nigel Moore and Jamie Robinson were slightly embarrassed to find themselves on the podium, given that their race had ended in the Old Hairpin gravel some 33 laps previously, while the one other GT4 that was moving at the end – the patched-up Nissan – was so far behind as to be not classified.

And so ended the ’08 season. Not with its best race, perhaps, but it had again provided us with some memorable racing over the 14 rounds. See you in ’09.

MH