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Bute Motorsport GT
Cup, Oulton Park - Race One Report All images © Mick Herring/Bute Motorsport Qualifying had taken place early on Saturday morning, under conditions that might charitably have been called “changeable”. Certainly the official verdict of “Cloudy” and “Damp” failed to do justice to a track that was treacherous in places, and deceptively forgiving in others. The GT Cup uses an imaginative system whereby a driver’s first and second fastest times are used to determine the grid for each of the day’s two races, rewarding consistency with good starting positions for both. The first casualty of the difficult conditions was Leon Price, who might have been expecting a second or third-row start in his Group 1 Ferrari 430. “On my out-lap I’d felt good grip through Druids, but as I came over the crest second time round, I had a tad too much lock, a little too much power, and lost it completely.” The car spun out into the barriers and sustained fairly heavy damage. “I’m out of it for this weekend, but I’ll watch my team mate, Toby Tarrant-Willis, who qualified fourth,” he added. It would prove to be a sound plan. The mixed field coped with the weather to varying degrees of effectiveness, but the heavier Ferraris and Porsches seemed to fare better in the slippery conditions, leaving some of the torquey but lighter-weight entries squirming for grip. One such to suffer was Andy Yool in the Group 3 Chevron GR8, who failed to set any time at all. “We were having some front-end problems, and I was trying to get some heat into the tyres, but ended up sliding into the gravel at Druids,” he shrugged. “I just sat there, watching everyone else go by,” he said. “It was very frustrating!” So Yool would start from the back row in Race 1, while David Tomlin in his #66 Ferrari 430 was grinning broadly at the prospects of gunning from pole. “I am somewhat surprised,” he conceded, “I hadn’t expected to be doing so well, but I’m delighted of course. I managed to get a few laps in there that were fairly consistent. The 430 is a relatively heavy car, but in the damp that seemed to give us an advantage over some of the lighter cars, who can’t generate the downforce at the slower speeds.” Tomlin is back in the championship after missing last season, and only took delivery of the 430 in September. Success last time out meant that he would be carrying an extra 40 kilos of ballast, while Silverstone race-winner Andy Ruhan was having to haul a full 60, and qualified third for the day’s opening race. Starting alongside Tomlin would be Alex Martin. Alex won the title in 2010, and has since moved over to the Porsche Carrera Cup, but was making a one-off appearance at Oulton to showcase the Porsche, which is for sale, and spend some track time with his father Rupert, who was racing the #49 Ferrari. “I did my laps early, because I reckoned there was a good chance someone would have an accident,” he said. “I wanted to be sure of having something in the bank, just in case. I missed pole for race one by two one-hundredths, but my next lap was good for pole in the second.” By late morning the skies had cleared to a patchy blue and the track had dried fairly evenly, although a chill breeze still snapped the flags around the busy paddock. Lacking only Leon Price, the full complement of twenty cars took to the grid for the rolling start of Race 1. Tomlin was eager to be away, and sped off after the Pace Car to begin the first of two Green Flag laps – made necessary by the changed conditions. Tomlin’s enthusiasm ensured that everyone was well spaced out by the time they came round to begin the second, but he’d anchored it down again as they rounded Lodge to face the start. Crawling over the crest out of Deer Leap, the pack was tightly bunched as they neared the lights until, about thirty metres short of the line, Tomlin floored the pedal and the red Ferrari leaped across the line, followed closely by Alex Martin. These two were clean through Old Hall and away, but it was like watching sand funnelling through an hour-glass as the rest of the leading group jostled through the tight right-hander before heading off down the slope towards Cascades.
Amazingly there were no incidents, although there were a few changes in position. Danny Winstanley had managed to thread his bright green TVR Sagaris through to fifth, and Toby Tarrant-Willis had enjoyed a better start than the ballasted Andy Ruhan, and snuck into third. Martin soon had Tomlin under pressure and was harrying the Ferrari mercilessly through Shell, and again on the run back towards Druids. Michael Symons in the #31 BMW was also enjoying a strong start and, like Winstanley before him, passed Harvey in the Group 2 X-Bow as they ran down towards the chicane at Hislops. As they swept through to complete the first lap, the leaders were side-by-side across the line, just seven one-thousandths between them. Martin had the inside line into Old Hall, and fractionally out-braked Tomlin to be through and into the lead.
Behind them a veritable scrum was developing for third through fifth, with Andy Ruhan looking for a late dive from fourth past Tarrant-Willis, but unable to make it stick. Once he’d taken the lead, there appeared to be nothing to hold back Alex Martin, and the white Porsche began to pull away with apparent ease; extending the lead by a good two seconds or more each lap. Tomlin, however, was being caught by Tarrant-Willis and a determined Andy Ruhan, and Danny Winstanley had now latched onto their tails to make it a foursome. By the end of lap two the leader’s advantage already stood at 2.6 seconds, but just a fraction of this covered second, third and fourth. It got tighter still as they bundled through Cascades, until Tomlin found space for a breather, and eased out a narrow gap to Tarrant-Willis and Ruhan. The championship leader probably had enough on his plate dealing with the Sagaris behind him! In Group 2, Harvey’s pole and fifth on the grid in the #45 X-Bow had been converted into tenth overall, and second to a charging Tom Andrew in the bellowing #7 Morgan Aero.
Perhaps the X-Bow was less suited now to the drying conditions, but whatever the reason, the distinctive black beast was soon coming under further pressure from Colin Broster in the #15 ABG Motorsport Porsche 996 and a close-fought and entertaining scrap was developing. Mark Radcliffe, meanwhile, was enjoying a relatively untroubled Group 3 lead in the #19 BMW, and it wouldn’t be until much later in the race that he’d come under any kind of threat. Three laps gone and Martin was in a world of his own, six seconds clear and romping through the Cheshire countryside in serene isolation. Not so the gaggle behind him. With Tarrant-Willis trying to fend off the advances of Ruhan for third, Tomlin was making the most of the clearer track ahead of him to create a breather, but the one on a mission was Danny Winstanley. Ruhan’s dodging and weaving as he strove to find a way through was making the task difficult, but the youngster finally found the opportunity he needed, and used the sheer grunt of the TVR to monster through across the line to start lap four.
Next time around it was Tarrant-Willis who felt the raw power of the TVR, as he surrendered third on the run down to Cascades. Five laps completed, and Winstanley was coming up on the tail of Tomlin’s 430, with Martin some 12 seconds to the fore. Then it was Tomlin’s turn. Powering out of Lodge, Winstanley took second in a decisive move through Deer Leap to cross the line already half a second to the good, leaving Tomlin to fall back into the clutches of Tarrant-Willis, but with the second Ferrari driver’s mirrors packed full of Andy Ruhan’s Porsche. It was as tight as a drum throughout this chasing pack. In Group 2, Andrew and the #7 Morgan had extended a nine-second lead over Harvey, with the X-Bow second, but coming under increasingly close scrutiny from Broster’s Porsche . . . but Colin Simpson was starting to make inroads too and the blue Marcos Mantis had Broster’s yellow Porsche in its sights.
Seven laps down and almost half distance. Martin’s domination continued, and he’d extended his lead to more than 14 seconds, but Winstanley hadn’t given up. With a comfortable cushion of four seconds back to Tomlin in third, the TVR was laying down some quick laps – although still falling short of Martin’s best of the race; a 1:42.669 on Lap 5. Even so, the gap was closing, thanks to a more relaxed attitude being adopted by the leader. In fact, the advantage was shrinking visibly, and Winstanley consistently shaved between a second and two off Martin’s lead with each additional lap; and this had narrowed to around 11 seconds by the end of Lap 9. The gap to Tomlin was then eight, but the next five cars were separated by little more than a second. Ruhan’s determination hadn’t abated, but neither had Tarrant-Willis’s; and these two had now been joined in the chasing group by Don Grice (#14 BMW) and Michael Saunders (#99 TVR Cerbera).
The Group 3 contest was hotting up too, with Dougall in the #37 BMW moving through to challenge Radcliffe for the lead, hauling Yool through in his wake.
This rapidly developed into a very close contest for 13th overall, which Yool would eventually win after Radcliffe retired and the Chevron took the group lead from Dougall on Lap 10, leaving Adam Hayes to pick up third. Five minutes to go and Martin’s lead had shrunk to “just” ten seconds, while the scrap for third had been rejoined by Ruhan, who nosed up to explore any opportunity to take Tarrant-Willis. These three were dicing hard through every corner, and it wasn’t until they came through to lap David Hathaway in the #29 Ferrari 360 that Tomlin managed to find some extra space. For a time he relished the best advantage in third he’d had all race, but it was a brief respite, and once the others had negotiated the silver 360, the onslaught resumed.
There was developing drama in Group 2, though, as the Morgan started to slow. We’d discover later that the car had fuel pressure problems, but Tom Andrew was evidently struggling. From around ten seconds, his lead shrunk to nearer three, and then a mere second as the race entered its fourteenth lap. Losing the group lead wasn’t a foregone conclusion though, as Broster’s Porsche seemed to be smoking heavily; but on the penultimate lap the lead did change.
All was not lost though, and with seven litres still in the tank (but little pressure) Tom Andrew crossed the line, two seconds clear of Colin Simpson in the Marcos to settle the Group 2 order. All seemed just as fixed in the race for outright victory, but there’s no certainty in motor racing. Alex Martin started the last lap with nine seconds on Danny Winstanley, and everything looked to be safely in the bag. He could have coasted to the line, but instead it was the throaty bellow of the TVR Sagaris that heralded the chequered flag, with Tomlin second and Tarrant-Willis third. Ruhan had displayed dogged determination for fifteen laps but to no avail, and had to settle for fourth. Of Martin, there was no sign. “I’d backed right off, and was running two seconds off my earlier pace,” he explained later. “The tyres were going off a bit, but they seemed OK. I’d gone through Cascades, and was up into fifth, heading down towards Shell, but then I just couldn’t hold the line. I drifted out onto the marbles, and the car just kept on going. Next moment I had a wheel onto the grass, and that was it.” The car snapped away from him, and went backwards heavily into the barriers, the rear of the car sustaining significant damage. There’d be no second race for Martin. Danny Winstanley was evidently delighted to take his first GT Cup win.
“The others were holding me up through every single corner, and losing more ground on the straights. In the end, I eased off a fraction, let them pull away a bit, gave myself some space into the corner, then followed them through and out-dragged them the other side.” Earlier in the season Danny had felt that the TVR wasn’t set up correctly to make best use of the regulations. “The first race was all to cock,” he said. “I came to the series with a car set up for Group 2, and ended up racing in Group 1. This result proves that we’ve got that sorted now, but I’ve got a bit of a challenge in the second race today. I’d never driven the car in the wet before, and only managed to qualify 12th for this afternoon.” David Tomlin was another face wearing a broad grin. “I wasn’t the quickest out there, but there were places where I was able to stick to my line and defend my position – quite legally, of course – and hold on.
"The 40 kilos didn’t help, and the car didn’t feel as quick through Lodge as I’d have liked, but I’m just delighted to have taken second. That TVR though – that thing’s in a different league. Once Danny was through, he was away, and there was just no keeping up with him.” Andy Ruhan had fought tooth and nail to find a way past Toby Tarrant-Willis, but the downside of winning in the GT Cup is success ballast, and Ruhan had this in 60 kilo bucket-loads. “With all that extra weight we reckoned we’d be lucky to get fourth, so I’m actually very pleased with the result. I just never expected Alex to go off on the last lap, so that was a bonus”. The #6 Porsche bore the battle scars to prove how hard the title-holder had battled. “There are a few love-kisses on the front of the car,” he grinned. “I could see the two Ferraris getting very close to one another, so I backed off a bit and waited until we caught up with the backmarkers. I thought that might give me my best opportunity to find a gap, but with all that extra weight, I simply didn’t have the grunt. Dave Tomlin drove really well, though, and there’s always this afternoon. I’ll be without the ballast then, so may have a better chance.” Andy Yool had worked his Chevron all the way through from the back of the grid to take the Group 3 win, tenth overall. “It was a really good race, and there’s some tough competition in this series, so I’m pleased, but it was touch and go at the end. I holed the radiator on lap eight or nine, and had a couple of moments through Cascades, with coolant spilling onto the rear tyres.” Yool had hopes of a fix, either by welding the old rad, or getting a new one from the factory; but in the end, neither proved possible and the Chevron never made it to the grid for Race Two.
As a consequence of the result, ballast for the day’s second race would be re-allocated as follows: Group 1 #78, Danny Winstanley: 60
kgs Group 2 #15, Colin Broster: 50
kgs Group 1 #53, Andy Yool: 40 kgs
(Withdrawn) Marcus Potts |
