Britcar 24 Hours – Friday
Rollcentre and Duller At The Top

With the teams having enjoyed two, one-hour test sessions on Thursday, Friday simply involved a one-hour qualifying session at 11.40 – then a two hour session into the night, starting at 20.00.

Qualifying isn’t particularly significant for this event – as long as things don’t go wrong: it did for some.

The KTF Viper, with its revised crew of Ken Finneran, Alastair Davidson, Mark Dwyer, Rob Huff and Phil Bennett, didn’t go out this morning, because despite attention to the exhausts of the 1997 beast, it was still 4 or 5 dB too loud. More attention was being paid to it.

The Simply Racing Porsche 964 RS didn’t complete its second lap this morning; “The engine let go,” said Piers Masarati, as he rushed off to Uxbridge in Middlesex, to bring back another 964 RS, the engine of which will be transplanted into the race car for tomorrow.

Elsewhere, things were going much better – such as in the Rollcentre Mosler, which Stuart Hall used to set the fastest time, a 1:54.027. There’s more pace in it than that: “Stuart reckoned a low 1:52 was on, but he hit traffic,” said Martin Short. There was plenty of that on the GP circuit.

The Mosler’s big rival, the Duller BMW Z4, was second quickest, with a 1:54.219, but perhaps the gap will be greater on race pace – which the Mosler will need, with its greater demand for fuel.

Seam McInerney was third, with a 1:56.004 in the Chad Racing Mosler, Big Sean having set a 1:55 in testing yesterday. Sean and his father were loving the new MT900: we didn’t catch up with Michael Vergers for his views.

The Duller M3 BMW was fourth fastest, and therefore fastest in the GT Cup Class, followed by a Nigel Greensall time in the Chad Porsche 997 that he’s sharing with Iain Dockerill and Bo McCormick. A lot of preparation time has been spent on this one – and its livery is all new too. Iain Dockerill’s plans for 2008 have been thrown into turmoil by the latest proposals for the GT classes in FIA events: currently, he doesn’t know what car to buy.

Michael Caine was sixth quickest in the all-new TVR Sagaris, with a 1:59.177, just the Eclipse Mosler and GTS Motorsport BMW also managing to get below two minutes. Dennis Leech reckoned that the Sagaris would have been in contention for pole but for a p/steering issue. This car and team are effectively using the event as an extended test.

So is Stuart Scott with his Jaguar XKR, which is probably only going to run in daylight. Its engine hadn’t been mapped for the pump fuel for this morning’s session, so its 2:03 wasn’t representative of its potential.

The ISL Marcos Mantis of Alun Edwards lost its engine this morning, so this entry is unlikely to go out this evening, but the drivers might get some track time in a Geoff Steel BMW, although that was apparently damaged in a Dutch Super Car session, so that plan may change.

That’s all until Saturday, when we’ll step up a gear. We’ve had a frustrating Friday here.