Round 1 – Silverstone National 28th March Race Report
After what was a rather wet and windy weekend the Championship defending duo of David Mason OBE and Calum Lockie came out strong to take the overall win, they couldn’t have asked for a better start to the Championship. The FF Corse run Ferrari 458 GTC of David took pole followed by the Audi R8 of Franck Pelle then Richard Nearey’s BMW M3 GTR.
Showery rain meant all teams lined up in the pitlane on wets and the cold conditions ensured the track never fully dried even after 90 minutes of racing on Silverstone’s National circuit. 16 cars, including the Dunlop Sports and Touring Car Championship, assembled for the first race of the day, delayed slightly by a serious crash in the start/finish straight where a driver from the classic touring cars needed extraction and air evacuation.
Dave Maries, View Photographic
A flurry of driver changes at the 45-minute mark saw the Audi R8 risk a change to slicks – but the risk didn’t reward them, an off resulted in moderate damage to the carbon fibre front end. Forced to retire, the car retreated to the garage for the team to begin hasty repair work.
Nick Holden, who competed in the Britcar Trophy series last season, had taken delivery of a new supercharged Ariel Atom on Thursday ready for testing on the Friday. This was to be his first test at longer stints and despite only posting 4th in class in qualifying, astonished the Britcar pits by taking and holding on to P2. Keeping the BMW of Richard Neary firmly in his rear view mirrors, he posted a 1:05.142 best lap just before the end to take his first Britcar Endurance podium.
Chris Valentine
Daniel Gibson’s McLaren MP12-4C was a regular visitor to the pits, coming in no less than five times, but still completed sufficient laps to take the Class 1 win.
Dave Maries, View Photographic
Kevin Clarke’s BMW collided with rear of the #55 Aston Martin of Chris and Mika Brown, breaking their gearbox oil cooler and forcing their retirement. Kevin, with Mike Moss as co-driver went on to take the Class 4 win.
Nick Jarvis drove the Milton Keynes-based Backdraft Motorsport’s new build Audi A3 in its first ever race,but the team retired the car after 30 laps due to excess oil loss.
Chris Valentine
Race 2 was to be a quieter affair, seeing only 10 cars, finishing a slightly shortened race due to circuit curfew. Both the Franck Palle Audi R8 and the #55 Aston Martin GT4 returned to the fray, but it was the young Ollie Chadwick who co-piloted the repaired Wolf GB08 CN to pots for first-in-Class 1 and overall second place. The Wolf had an off due to oil on the circuit during Friday testing which caused them to miss the first race waiting for parts from Italy. Towards the end of the race they were just 17 seconds behind and closing on David Mason’s Ferrari, who short-stinted after Calum Lockie set a blistering pace on a drying track – most teams had started on and stayed with slicks this time despite threatening clouds approaching from the West. The Mason/Lockie pairing again took the overall win, given them maximum points for their title defence.
Chris Valentine
Nick Holden couldn’t match his first race performance and it looked like the drier conditions were favouring the more powerful cars in his class. Along with the #88 Richard Neary BMW, he again left his pit stop until quite late in the race.
The #59 Optimum Motorsport Ginetta G55 took the Class 3 win with a faultless drive from the Barclay/Hollings pairing.
The MSA Dunlop Endurance Championship will next race again on the Zandvoort GP circuit on 20th and 21st June but before then, Silverstone will play host to the return of the 24 Hour race and some of today’s drivers are likely to be taking on this significant challenge.
Written by: Chris Valentine
