Having begun the year with two 24-hour races in quick succession, it would be more than two months before the Deputy Ed found himself having to report on a race again, with the occasion being the first round of the 2012 British GT Championship at Oulton Park in Cheshire.
Races attended by DSC in April:
Grand-Am – Barber Motorsports Park
ELMS – Paul Ricard
British GT – Oulton Park
ALMS – Long Beach
VLN – Nürburgring R3
Blancpain Endurance Series – Monza
Britcar – Donington Park
FIA GT1/GT3 – Zolder
VLN – Nürburgring R4
GT Cup – Donington Park
I must confess that it wasn’t too long ago that the appeal of covering the BGT was waning, and not just because my DSC colleagues were spending ever more time jetting off to exotic locations to cover ‘the biggies’. No, the problem was that the series was in dire trouble just a couple of years earlier, to the extent that the media contingent left the final race of 2009 at Brands Hatch wondering if we’d be elsewhere in 2010. But somehow the championship survived and – under the guidance of Benjamin Franassovici – the average entry grew from 14 in 2009 to 18 in 2010 before exploding to 27 in 2011, its highest ever. And 2012 was looking even stronger (the average entry would again be 27 across the season), with new and returning teams – Motorbase, Ecurie Ecosse and RJN among them – bolstering an already impressive line-up.
At midnight on the Wednesday immediately before the Easter Weekend – the traditional date for this meeting – hosepipe bans had been introduced across the UK following a very dry winter. It was therefore inevitable that Oulton Park would see some truly awful weather throughout the meeting, with rain making conditions very difficult for racers and spectators alike. [Note for overseas readers – the rain has barely abated since that time, with the result that 2012 is highly likely to go down as the wettest year for the UK since records began!]
When asked for my pre-season picks for the championship I had tipped Matt Bell and Charles Bateman in the United Autosports Audi R8 LMS in GT3 and the Lotus UK Evora of Phil Glew and Sailesh Bolisetti in GT4. Both had seemed reasonable choices and it wasn’t long before I was feeling pretty confident about my GT3 pick (although I was rapidly backpedalling on my GT4 choice when I realised that the Indian newcomer would have to get a lot quicker very rapidly, and that even the speed of his teammate wouldn’t be able to compensate, at least in the early races).
While a lineup that included the likes of Richard Westbrook, Nick Tandy, Matt Griffin, Allan Simonsen and Jonny Adam was guaranteed to provide top quality racing, what perhaps wasn’t expected was the performance straight out of the box of Jann Mardenborough.
Considering that this was his first race in GT3 – and actually, aside from the Dubai 24 in January, pretty much one of his first ever properly competitive races – and definitely his first in the Nissan GT-R GT3, expectations weren’t particularly high; especially given that this was intended merely as a test outing ahead of the Blancpain Endurance Series opener the following weekend. It wasn’t the young Welshman’s qualifying pace that surprised (although fourth on the grid for Race 1 was impressive in itself), but the maturity and control he displayed in both races in the appalling conditions; his Race 2 pace seeing him set a fastest lap bettered only by Westbrook, Simonsen and Tandy. The performance of the car and its two drivers – Alex Buncombe being perhaps unfairly overshadowed by the media attention bestowed on his teammate – convinced RJN boss Bob Neville that his team had a real chance of challenging for the BGT title and it wasn’t long before the BES programme was dropped. A win followed at Brands Hatch – Mardenborough remaining calm under intense pressure from Jonny Adam in the Beechdean Aston to reach the line exactly one half of a gnat’s whisker ahead of the Scot – and it was ultimately only a damper problem at the series finalé at Donington that denied the team the title.
But what a journey it was over the course of that season, with Nissan’s Darren Cox able to see yet again the fruits of his gamer-to-racer vision harvested before his eyes. That the novice was reclassified as Silver after just four rounds speaks volumes.
But back to Oulton and that first race. Bell and Bateman looked all set to justify my selection as the Audi crossed the line to begin the final lap with a chunky lead, but the R8 would not be the car that took the flag. Instead, a miscalculation at the pitstop meant that its fuel load would be a couple of litres light and Matt Bell could only watch in disbelief as Olly Bryant blipped by in the Ecurie Ecosse BMW Z4 to take an emotional win. The United pairing were also denied a win in Race 2 after Bell had been demoted to the back of the grid following a qualifying misdemeanour; his car’s charge from 25th to fifth illustrating painfully what might have been. It was only when the team switched to the McLaren MP4-12C that the duo’s luck changed, with wins following at Snetterton and Silverstone, but by then their championship hopes were out of reach.
David Ashburn and Richard Westbrook took the win in Race 2 at Oulton, but that would be the Trackspeed boss’ only time on the top step, although he came very close to taking the title for a second time. Steve Tandy and Joe Osborne were the only other double-winners in 2012 in the #32 Trackspeed Porsche, while both MTECH’s and Ecurie Ecosse’s title hopes ended in unfortunate circumstances in an extraordinary final race. But what ultimately denied all these teams was consistency, and that was exactly what handed the title to Motorbase’s Daniele Perfetti and Michael Caine, who became the second champions in succession to have taken the crown without winning a race. GT4, meanwhile, saw a runaway and utterly dominant win for Jody Fannin and Warren Hughes, who proved to be unstoppable in the Team WFR Ginetta G50. Phil Glew did his best in the Lotus – taking a win at the Nürburgring – but visa issues meant that Bolisetti would miss most of the season and the Lotus challenge ended.
So 2012 turned out to be possibly the best year so far in the BGT’s two-decade history. Grids were large, attrition was low, and the racing was unpredictable and highly entertaining. With the likes of AF Corse and 888Optimum joining in next season, I can’t wait until Easter!
MH
