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Team Focus: Motorbase Oman Racing Team

Team-Motorbase

In the first of a series of features profiling teams contesting this year’s Blancpain Endurance Series, DSC spoke to David Bartrum, team principal of Wrotham, Kent-based Motorbase Performance. This is the outfit behind the Oman Racing Team Aston Martin V12 Vantage running in both Blancpain Endurance and British GT this season with Omani driver Ahmad Al-Harthy. Motorbase has a rich history encompassing the Carrera Cup UK and British Touring Cars, but more recently has deepened its focus on GTs, with three Astons in action at British GT’s Easter season opener.

The roots of Motorbase stretch back to the Bartrum’s own days behind the wheel in the 80s and 90s – “back when Pontius was still a Pilate,” as he says with a laugh. “The last full season I did was the 1998 UK Ford Saloon Series in an Escort Cosworth. I won that, actually, so I retired a champion.” Bartrum continued racing occasionally alongside running a fleet business and this is where the seed of an idea that grew into Motorbase came from.

Dave-Bartrum

“Back then, I raced with the likes of Dave Pinkney and Matt Neal – the groovy gang at the time,” he recalls, “and there were also the Britnell brothers, Gary and Andy [sadly Gary passed away in February of last year]. Andy started racing TVR Tuscans, then Gary joined in, then I made it three, doing a part-season in 2001 and 2002. The main sponsor in those days was SAS International, a building materials firm run by an Irish guy called Eddie McElhinney, who loved motorsport. Gary and Andy went back a long way with him, and over the course of them doing business and their interests coming out, Eddie started to put some money into their TVR Racing.

“But what Eddie really loved was Porsches, so when he sold his company in 2003, he decided to put the money up to buy two Carrera Cup cars for Gary and Andy. The team they were with in TVRs wasn’t really right to run them in Porsches, so we ended up taking them to my old friend Vic Lee – but unfortunately he was quite busy with his Peugeot touring cars, which weren’t going according to plan. The boys had a year with him that didn’t really go the way they would’ve liked, so we sat down at the Nurburgring in the middle of the season – me, Eddie, Gary and Andy.

“Eddie said he wanted to continue in the Carrera Cup the following year, but he wanted to do it differently. Then he pointed at me and said ‘you’re doing it’. I still had my fleet business and I was done with my car-running days as far as I was concerned, but Eddie being Eddie, he decided I was doing it, and when he decided you were doing something, you did it!”

So the 2004 Carrera Cup UK season would be Bartrum’s first at the helm of Motorbase – and it wasn’t long before the team’s backer made another influential decision. “Eddie’s brother lived next to this guy called Damien Faulkner,” remembers Bartrum. “His career was going through a bad phase back then and he didn’t have a drive, but he was very keen to get back on track and, being very hungry as he is, made a nuisance of himself with us, and so eventually a decision was made to run three cars.”

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The relationship didn’t get off to the best start at Faulkner’s home track of Mondello Park, however. “He’d got on the front row, which was brilliant for us, but he took Andy out! We had a frantic few hours repairing everything, but it progressed from there.” And despite Faulkner moving on before long, Bartrum still has reason to recall the Irishman’s time at the team fondly. “Damien had a lot of ambition at that time and was trying to make his mark,” he says. “I think we were a bit too new for what he wanted, so he ended up at Team Parker. But he’ll be in our history books forever, as he got us our first win in our first year of business. I’ll always be grateful for that, as the Carerra Cup was very tough, even in those days.”

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Bartrum describes 2005 as ‘a bit of a lull’ for Motorbase – but the team did dip its toes in some GT racing, running a Porsche for Andy Britnell and Chris Stockton British GT’s cup class. “We enjoyed it and got some good results and that sort of banked our desire for GT racing going forward, but we didn’t really do too much with it after that,” he says. The following year saw the acquisition of three new Carrera Cup cars for Phil Quaife, Tim Harvey and Michael Caine as well as an ex-Team Dynamics Honda Integra for old mate Pinkney to race in the British Touring Car Championship. “2006 was the year things really took shape for a while – we continued in Carrera Cup until 2011 and touring cars until the end of last year.”

So what sparked the return to GTs in 2012? It was pretty simple, really. “I’d seen the 911 GT3s going around and thought I’ve got to have one of those,” grins Bartrum. “But I actually ended up with two. Porsche UK weren’t very happy about me giving up the Carrera Cup, but Europe were delighted, because it meant more GT3s out in the UK.”

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And in year one of what Bartrum calls the team’s ‘proper GT phase’, it won the championship outright with Daniele Perfetti and Caine, while the other car featured Steve Parish (chairman of Bartrum’s beloved Crystal Palace FC) with Stephen Jelley and Nick Tandy alternating as the pro. “It was a very nice feeling to win and that sort of set us up in GTs, but in 2013 we went back to one car, as we’d become a constructor in the BTCC and that was taking up a lot of time.”

That one car was for Ahmad Al-Harthy, paired with a returning Caine. So how did Bartrum’s team come to run Oman’s first licensed racing driver? “It was a Carrera Cup connection again – that series laid the foundations for a lot that’s happened with Motorbase,” he explains. “Ahmad spent three years with Simon Leonard at Redline Racing and he felt he’d gone as far as he could in the Carrera Cup and wanted a new challenge. So Simon phoned me up and said ‘Ahmad’s looking around for a deal – I’ve told him he’s got to go with you’. Eventually he did come around to me, so we sat down, worked out a deal and went GT racing.”

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“Immediately I could see he was pacy driver and a good learner. I put him with Micheal, who did a great job coaching him. Michael understands the needs of amateur drivers – he doesn’t just get in and drive for himself, he balances the car for the pair of them in order to get the result. That was crucial.” And it wasn’t long before Batrum realised what a unique prospect running Oman’s sole representative in motor racing would be. “It’s amazing how much support he gets from home – suddenly there were loads of them flying in for every race,” he says. “They’re great, really lovely people and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it so far.”

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Year one was very much a case of the partnership finding its feet – and at times suffering with a car that was no longer at the cutting edge. “During 2013, I could see Porsche was losing interest in the GT3 side,” says Bartrum. “They were very much focused on their new factory in Weissach for the LMPs, GT3 wasn’t a priority for them any more and the car was getting a bit long in the tooth. I saw an opportunity to sell the cars at their proper value at that point – another year and they wouldn’t have it – but I couldn’t see where the new car was coming from. I wanted to get into Blancpain and more ambitious stuff, but the Porsche wasn’t the car for it.”

So Bartrum began considering alternatives and in August 2013, Aston Martin Racing MD John Gaw paid a visit. “The Aston looked the best proposition for Motorbase,” says Bartrum “There are a lot of nice cars out there, but it just fitted. We took delivery of the first one on 4 December. It turned out to be a good move, so I got another and we ran both in 2014.”

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The beginning of last year was also when the Omanis really began to show their ambition for motorsport. “They formed their own FIA-affiliated automobile association and were able to issue entrants’ licenses, so we got number one,” Bartrum says. “It was nice to be able to deliver the British GT team championship in that first year under the Omani flag and now plan is to grow it further. Oman Air, the Bank of Oman, the phone company and the local Aston Martin importer are all committed to Ahmad and there’s another Omani driver now, doing Formula 4. They want to use motorsport to promote road safety and they’ve got kart tracks as well, so they’re starting to build their infrastructure. I don’t know how far away an Omani circuit is,” he adds, “but hopefully I can retire there one day and run it for them!”

Bartrum describes the squad’s parallel 2014 Blancpain Endurance Series campaign with Caine, Al-Harthy and Jelley as a tough learning experience. “That’s why we’re back this year,” he says. “We want to establish ourselves more and eventually run two cars here. That’s the goal at the moment: get a second car into Blancpain and grow our GT side generally. GT is where it’s at right now and that’s our future. I really enjoy endurance racing, especially the tactics and the combination of teams – there’s every car you’d ever want to look at, drive or own out there. Standing on the grid with 60 cars, it’s quite something.”

Key to Bartrum’s ambitions in GT racing are the strong team of people he’s built up over the years. “Most of the boys here a long time – even our weekend warriors go back five, six, seven or eight years,” he says. The team’s race engineer is Piers Phillips – well known from his days with Strakka Racing in LMP1. “I knew Piers from the BTCC – he was Jason Plato’s engineer at SEAT for four years. He’s been there, done that, won everything and is a very good engineer,” says Bartrum.

“Another key man is Jim Hersey. Jim’s been around a long time – he sold me my first timing system back when it was a novelty to have one that displayed your time just as you crossed the line! He’s the car controller and is a big voice about what goes on in the team, he understands it better than most. Then we’ve got Jason the tyre man, who’s been with me forever, and Big Nev – he turns 50 next year and I employed him when he left school at 16! He does fabrication and bodywork and drives the truck. Alex Steele is the No1 mechanic – he’s been with us since he left school, too, and Jason Cox is the No2 mechanic.”

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Not surprisingly, there are plenty of stories from Motorbase’s many years on the road in the UK and more recently in Europe – but one from the beginning of this season immediately stands out.

“We recently acquainted ourselves quite heavily with the Spanish police on the way to Monteblanco for the Aston Martin test,” Bartrum says somewhat sheepishly. “They stopped one of the trucks near Salamanca and decided that one of our drivers had infringed his tacho limits by driving for three days, which was a bit ridiculous as we’d only come off the boat that morning! We were fined 4,500 euros in total, but the paperwork was all in Spanish and I was 200 miles further up the road, so I had to go back there overnight and sort it.”

This was where things began to get interesting. “We ended up running around Salamanca trying to find enough cash machines to get four and half thousand euro out and get on with our day. We kept going to different police stations trying to pay, but we couldn’t find the right one. Eventually, we ended up in the main central square in Salamanca, so we went into municipal building, as we didn’t know what else do. I tried to explain what we needed to a police officer inside, but he didn’t speak English – he just stopped us for a second and went downstairs.”

“Then this very nice lady came out in a wheelchair. She spoke perfect English and it turned out she was the mayor of Salamanca! She got on the phone, sorted out all our woes for us and we were sent on our way. We still had to pay the fine, but we got a 30 percent discount. The chances of that are quite something – if we hadn’t met her I think we’d still be running around there now.”

Despite that considerable hiccup, the team did indeed make to the Monteblanco test, and on to Paul Ricard for the Blancpain Endurance test itself. Round one at Monza was tough – but it was always going to be in the face of the series’ many Ferraris, which always go well at their home track. Bartrum and all at Motorbase are eagerly awaiting round two at Silverstone next month, where the Aston should be able to show its true pace.

Stephen Errity