Bute Motorsport GT Cup, Oulton Park – Race Two Report
Three Out Of Four For Ruhan

All images © Mick Herring/Bute Motorsport

The day’s second race started with an amendment to the entry – no Alex Martin following confirmation that damage to the #87 Porsche was beyond immediate repair, and no Andy Yool either, with the nearby Chevron factory unable to supply a replacement radiator at short notice. That left gaps at both ends of the grid, with David Tomlin elevated to his second pole of the day, and no back-row start for Yool, Group 3 winner from the morning.

These changes brought Toby Tarrant-Willis forward onto the second row, alongside Ben Harvey in the KTM X-Bow and standing pole in Group 2. Andy Ruhan also moved forwards to share the front row with Tomlin and, now devoid of the ballast he’d carried forward into Race 1 from Silverstone, must have fancied his chances. “I knew that Tomlin had the extra weight this time, and I didn’t, and with the X-Bow out of position on the grid, and likely to delay Toby - and Danny Winstanley well back after a bad qualifying session but carrying the full sixty kilos - I reckoned I had a good chance,” he admitted.

The Pace Car pulled off sharply at the end of the Green Flag lap, and Tomlin held everyone back smartly as they approached the line, but perhaps for a tad too long, because it was Andy Ruhan who got the best start. Fractionally first across the line, the Porsche was able to snick in front on the entry to Old Hall, and had a full car’s length over Tomlin as they pressed on down the slope towards Cascades.

It was all clear through the first corner and beyond for everyone except Colin Simpson, starting on row 7. The blue Marcos Mantis #16 ran wide on the exit, drifted onto the grass, and then yomped its way down the hill, only regaining the track long after the rest of the grid had sailed by.

Behind the leaders, Tarrant-Willis had taken third from Harvey in the X-Bow, with Don Grice’s #14 BMW making a good start to follow through in fifth, narrowly ahead of Tom Andrews, second in G2 aboard the Morgan Aero.

Race 1 winner Danny Winstanley had started tenth (after the various withdrawals) and had moved through to eighth at the start, and was closing on Michael Symons in the #31 BMW as the pack streamed out towards Shell.

By the end of the opening lap the three leaders were still line astern through Lodge, but Ruhan got the best run out of Deer Leap to begin the next lap half a second clear of Tomlin. Don Grice also made good work of the short straight to get a jump on Harvey and take fourth from the Group 2 X-Bow into Old Hall, while Winstanley was stuck to the tail of Symons’ BMW like a livid green leech.

Mark Radcliffe was already leading Group 3 comfortably in the #19 BMW M3, with Barclay Dougall two places behind and narrowly ahead of Adam Hayes in third.

Last to complete the first lap was Simpson’s Mantis, seventeen seconds off the tail and pushing hard to recover the ground. Rumbling fiercely, the Marcos ran wide out of Old Hall for the second and last time. In a near carbon-copy of his first-lap excursion, Simpson was off across the grass for a repeat performance, except this time the end result was less forgiving. The car started spinning out of control and thumped heavily into the barriers before being fired back across the track. Later investigation would reveal a collapsed front-right wishbone, but the immediate outcome was a safety car.

The leaders came round to begin their third lap still at race pace, with Ruhan and Tomlin now well clear of Tarrant-Willis, but with the lights flashing and flags waving, it wasn’t long before everything slowed down to a crawl and the pack started bunching up again behind the pace car.

In the meantime, Winstanley had overtaken Symons and Andrew to be directly behind Harvey in the X-Bow, sixth overall, and ideally positioned for the restart. It would take two laps of the track for the marshals to clear the remains of Colin Simpson’s Mantis and make good the barriers, and racing resumed with the start of Lap 6.

There were no problems on the restart, with the leading group having a clear run through Old Hall, but Winstanley pounced on Harvey on the descent to Cascades and was through to take fifth. Andrew too had taken advantage, and had narrowed the gap to Harvey.

For the next three or four laps there was little change – certainly at the front, where Ruhan steadily extended his lead over Tomlin, and the latter crept away tenth by tenth from Tarrant-Willis in third.

From there on back, though, it was give and take in equal measure. Starting Lap 7, Grice attempted a move on Tarrant-Willis as they barrelled into Old Hall, but instead found himself running wide enough to open the door for Winstanley.

The TVR was through in a trice, holding a tighter line through the right-hander and finding the way clear for the run downhill into Cascades. That was fourth place from tenth for the Race 1 winner, despite the extra ballast.

Harvey was managing to hold off Andrew in the Morgan, but looming large in both their mirrors was Michael Saunders in the yellow Cerbera, #99. He’d started from the row behind Winstanley but was evidently taking inspiration from the other TVR.

There was starting to be a sense of déjà vu to each successive lap, at least where Winstanley was concerned. Having found that the slingshot out of Old Hall worked to his advantage, he kept on going for it. Over the line to begin Lap 8, and the Sagaris was tucked up right under Tarrant-Willis’s rear wing and, sure enough, out of Old Hall came the now-classic move. The Ferrari had no answer, and Winstanley was up to third. Not to be left out, Mike Saunders followed suit, thundering past not just Andrew but Harvey as well to snatch two places and emerge in sixth.

The leaders were now fairly evenly spaced out, with Ruhan a comfortable two and a half seconds clear of Tomlin, then four back to Winstanley in third, and a couple more to Tarrant-Willis in fourth. That left Saunders gunning for the orange BMW of Don Grice, but Grice was defending strongly and for a while it looked as if he might hold out until the flag; but it was tight, and the first spots of rain were starting to fall.

Lap 10, and Winstanley had started closing on Tomlin for second, but it was Saunders taking places; finally getting ahead of Grice for fifth on the run down towards the hairpin at Shell. His next target was Tarrant-Willis, and he latched on to the Ferrari as the two came round to complete the lap. Moments later the #99 TVR was through into fourth.

In Group 2, Broster was holding third, despite his Porsche smoking heavily, and had the #31 BMW of Michael Symons between him and Andrew’s Morgan in second – the latter never far behind Harvey’s X-Bow, leading the Group from seventh overall.

The two BMWs of Radcliffe and Dougall fronted the battle for honours in Group 3, with Galashan’s G2 Porsche sandwiched between them, and Hayes another six seconds down the track, third in Group 3.

Eleven laps completed, and Ruhan had an easy lead of over three seconds, but Winstanley was closing fast on Tomlin for second. Deploying his favoured tactic once again, Winstanley used the TVR’s torque to punch his way out of the exit at Old Hall as the duo started Lap 12. He challenged Tomlin on the run down to Cascades, heading for the right, and managed to get the TVR’s nose just front, but Tomlin held the racing line. The door was closing and contact was inevitable. Tomlin was the one to lose control, the Ferrari spinning out across the grass and then spearing over the track and diving headlong into the gravel. Part of the front splitter was ripped away, but Tomlin kept moving, and recovered the track fairly swiftly, rejoining in ninth, just behind Colin Broster.

Although unsettled by the contact, Winstanley was through to second. The next we knew, Saunders was off! “The tyres had already done two races, and then I had 60 kilos of ballast for the first race as well, so it all felt a bit loose, especially at the back end. I made a nice move through Cascades to take fourth, and when David went off, that gave me third. I was heading into Druids and simply lost grip at the back under braking. I just out-drove myself really, so it was all my own fault.”

There was just time for one more lap. Ruhan and Winstanley looked assured for first and second, with 3.4 seconds between them, and ten more back to Tarrant-Willis. The demise of Tomlin and Saunders had restored him to third, so he’d grab a brace on Saturday and seem happy with that. Don Grice was hoping to deny him the honour, but there were still eight-tenths between them as the chequered flag fell.

The only change on that final lap took place when Colin Broster’s Porsche failed in the dying moments, pulling up from an assured third in Group 2 and handing the bottom podium step to Francis Galashan in the #57 Porsche 993.

Radcliffe had led Group 3 from start to finish, and took a comfortable win from 10th overall, with Barclay Dougall second (12th overall in the #37 BMW) and Adam Hayes catching a brace of thirds with 14th overall.

Andy Ruhan was delighted. “I managed to get the jump on David at the restart, after the safety car, and that gave me a bit of a breather. I never really looked back after that. David drove really well today until the accident, but this has been a great start to the season for me, with three wins out of four.”

David Tomlin was understandably disappointed and a little bit cross, but fairly philosophical. Views of “that incident” clearly differed. “Danny was catching me fast. We came out of Old Hall, and he made a better exit than I did, and came up on my right. Then he simply knocked me off the track, about 100 yards before Cascades. I spun onto the grass, down the hill, went round a couple of times, and ended up in the gravel trap. I managed to get out and went on to finish the race, so I suppose I have to look on the bright side!”

Danny Winstanley, standing (or sitting) on the right, felt he’d been left with nowhere else to go. “I only had inches of track on the right hand side, and I couldn’t give him any more room. We were door-to-door, but David just kept on coming across. I had nowhere to go. I was half a car’s length in front, and then suddenly we tapped. He disappeared off to the side, and I managed to hold it through the corner, and I saw him doing pirouettes across the grass. The last I saw was him spinning across the track right behind me, just missing me.”

After a fairly disastrous start last time out at Silverstone, Danny Winstanley’s GT Cup fortunes certainly swapped ends at Oulton Park, and the youngster can be reckoned a serious contender for the season. Benjamin Harvey’s title chances also fared well, even if he did leave the bubbly and laurels on the podium.

The full leaderboard will be posted on the GT Cup website shortly.

Marcus Potts