Bute Motorsport GT Cup, Donington Park – Quick Race 1 Report
A Perfect Start For Berridge, Smallwood and Mowle

Bob Berridge took the opening race of the 2012 GT Cup season after a dominant display in the Wessex Vehicles Aquila CR1, on a cold and blustery (but dry) afternoon at Donington; but the race had much more to offer than the results would suggest.

Even with the absence of Jim Geddie’s McLaren – unable to take part this weekend due to a parts-supply issue – the 16-strong grid presented a mouth-watering spectacle, but it was a truly spectacular start from Derek Johnston that lit up the opening lap; the #41 Ferrari 458 Challenge going from fourth on the grid to take the lead round the outside of Redgate and building up a lead of three tenths by the end of the lap. Not bad for someone who had hip-replacement surgery in January.

By Lap 3, Berridge had closed enough in the Aquila to mount a challenge and took the lead in an impressive move down the Craner Curves. Soon poleman Martin Short was on the Ferrari’s tail in his Rollcentre Racing Mosler and took second on Lap 5, while Freddie Hetherington also passed Johnston in the JMH Nissan GT-R on Lap 8.

With a clear track ahead of him, Berridge took firm control of his destiny and pulled out an ever-increasing gap on the Mosler, even denying Short the fastest lap (and the Sunoco Challenge points it offered) in the process; the Danish car only backing off on the 20th and final lap to take the flag by a comfortable 7.622 seconds.

The battle for third wasn’t, however, resolved in the opening stages of the race, with Johnston fighting back against the Nissan to retake the final podium spot on Lap 12 and then defending it to the line.

Group 2 saw a debut win for Peter Smallwood in the #95 Parr Motorsport Porsche 997 GT3. Having taken advantage of a first corner melee, which led to Harry Whale’s Porsche retiring and Don Grice’s BMW losing several places, Smallwood drove a flawless race thereafter and finish seventh overall.

Grice came back at him strongly mid-race, but having closed the gap to about a second fell back from the Porsche after encountering problems.  Third in Group 2 went to the Chevron GR8 of David Witt.

Lee Mowle took Group 3 on his debut in the GT Cup (although added to his two GT Trophy wins last year, this now makes it three out of three for him) in the Optimum Motorsport Ginetta G50.

Colin Broster was another to suffer in the first-corner incident and spent his race trying to get the ABG Porsche 996 back onto terms with the CTR Alfatune version of Chris Bentley in second. Midway through the race the three cars closed to within just a few seconds and a grandstand finish looked likely, but this never materialised and the positions stayed as they were to the flag.

Sunday will see two more 25-minute races, but the complexion of these should be very different to those of the opener. As well as the success ballast for the top three in each group to contend with, three cars will have a different driver for at least one race and – perhaps the biggest variable – the weather is likely to be dire, with driving rain and strong winds forecast. 

MH