BRITISH GT - Round 3 - Spa Francorchamps
6th June 2010
The team headed for the 3rd round of the championship not really brimmed with optimism due to the still ongoing indecision from the organisers on the balance of power “penalties” to be applied to our car.. The fresh penalty thought up for this round was a longer pit stop for wheel changes due to the fact that our car had central locating wheels, which was deemed as an unfair advantage over the Ginettas with 5 stud fixing wheels. This combined with the long fast and undulating nature of the otherwise fabulous Spa Francorchamps circuit meant a potential major deficit in the top speed department
PRACTICE & QUALIFYING
The weather was absolutely stunning on Friday with no hint or forecast for rain this or race day. The boys spent practice just getting a good set up for the car and scrubbing in fresh rubber for the race and we were surprised to set a time only 0.655 secs behind the Speedworks G50. The time was set by Benjamin as Rory did not get a clear lap so we were pretty pumped up for qualifying and things were perhaps not going to be as gloomy as we thought.
The encouraging practice times carried over into qualifying with Rory putting the car P2 in the G4 class but this time only 0.048 secs. behind. Ben also improved his time ending only a shade over 2 secs behind the Flying Scotsman.
RACE
3 hours before the start on race morning, we were informed that we would face an extra 40 sec to the allotted time for our wheel change pit stop. Even the Ginetta boys expressed surprise at this draconian penalty. So the only gloom at Spa was over Pit 9
The BGT race was combined with the Belcar championship round and with those super fast cars starting 40 secs ahead, traffic was going to akin to the M25 on a Friday evening by laps 4or 5.
Ben did the opening stint and got well and truly caught up in the traffic which allowed the Speedworks Ginetta to get away and stretch out a lead of over 40 secs by the first of two compulsory pit stops. Unfortunately, first lap out for Rory coincided with an incident which brought the safety car out for 5 laps so even with the aid of an unusually long stop for the Ginetta, too much time had been lost. Added to this, the Team Osborne Ginetta was right up our chuff but Rory then put in a string of laps in the 41s & 42s to stretch away. Rory handed back to Ben to do the final stint and he brought the car safely home to P2. The challenge from the second Ginetta ended when it ran out of fuel, we believe.
Whilst we could not put up a better fight for class honours, we still retain second position in the championship and still only 8 points behind.
Plus we got a lot of good images for whom our thanks go to Mick Herring.
Next round is at Rockingham in July
