We expected rain at Oulton Park on Easter Monday – it was a Bank Holiday after all – but the sun shone and temperatures were high as the British GT season got underway in front of a very big crowd; but with 32 big GT cars on the tight, fast Cheshire track, some stormy track action was almost guaranteed.
The 10-minute morning Warm-Up session was a civilised affair, with Jody Firth successfully shaking down the #12 Trackspeed Porsche that would replace his own car, wrecked in that unfortunate and somewhat controversial shunt in Practice 2 on the Saturday. A spare car was no option for the other crew involved, 888’s Lee Mowle and Joe Osborne, so the GT3 field was down to 21 for the first race at 11:10 (five minutes ahead of schedule).
Ahmad Al Harthy had celebrated his first pole position in BGT two days earlier and was in no mood to relinquish his spot at the head of the field when the lights went from red to green at the end of the pace lap; the #4 Oman Racing Aston Martin Vantage powering into Old Hall Corner ahead of the #1 Beechdean AMR Aston of Andrew Howard. A year earlier this same corner had seen an opening lap shunt that resulted in the elimination of two cars, one of them being Howard’s, but there was to be no repeat and the entire field headed down to Cascades in one piece. The opening lap was not destined to be incident-free however, with a coming together between the #17 M-Sport Bentley of Rembert Berg and Jon Minshaw’s #33 Trackspeed Porsche seeing the former headed to the pits with a broken wheel and the latter spinning down to 31st place. Both teams pointed the finger of blame at the other, but both cars were able to continue.
The top five cars completed the first lap in the order that they had begun it, with Mark Patterson the first of the movers in sixth in the #23 United Autosports Audi, having taken a place from the #18 FF Corse Ferrari 458 of Gary Eastwood. Al Harthy held a 0.478s advantage going into Lap 2 and, despite Howard’s best efforts, continued to pull out an additional couple of tenths on each of the next few laps.
Behind the two Astons, Pasin Lathouras had made a confident-looking start in the #29 AF Corse Ferrari on his BGT debut, but Derek Johnston was keen to progress and the #888 BMW took fifth place from the Thai student on Lap 5. Ahead of him was the #79 Ecurie Ecosse Z4 of Marco Attard, but before the 888 driver could make any significant inroads into the gap to third, he found himself inheriting the place anyway as Attard headed to the pitlane with gearbox failure; a trail of oil marking his progress from pit-in to garage.
Further back in the pack, Sir Chris Hoy was beginning his first GT3 race in impressive style, gaining a place on the opening lap in the #80 Nissan GT Academy RJN GT-R at the expense of the #22 Preci-Spark McLaren of David Jones (and two more places as a result of the Berg/Minshaw misunderstanding) and then catching and passing Steve Tandy’s #2 Generation Bentley Continental on Lap 2. Tandy reversed the positions on Lap 4, but was forced to pit on Lap 11 after contact with a Ginetta (see GT4 race report). Hoy thus moved into ninth, but couldn’t shake off the #23 AF Corse Ferrari of John Dhillon, who harried him all the way to the pitstop.
The best start of the race had come from Paul White in the #21 Strata 21 Nissan GT-R, which went from 19th to 13th on the opening lap. Colin White reclaimed his place from the Nissan on Lap 4, but an off on Lap 10 – possibly oil-related – dropped the #40 IDL-CWS Ginetta G55 back down to 16th.
After his Practice woes, things looked to be going much better for Jody Firth as he scythed his way from the back of the field in the #12 997 GT3 R. He was clear of the GT4 field after just two laps and claimed the scalps of Hector Lester (#3 Rosso Verde Ferrari) and Paul Bailey (#28 HorsePower Racing Aston) on Lap 4 and 5. His next target was the Jones McLaren, but just as he had closed the gap to two-tenths on Lap 9, both cars hit oil – possibly from the #79 BMW – and contact was made. The MP4-12C was out on the spot, while Firth managed to get back to the pits with significant front-end body damage that would end its participation in the race.
With the leaders now beginning to lap the GT4 field, Al Harthy started to stretch his lead and by Lap 13 it was approaching nine seconds. Howard responded and brought it down by 1.6s on the next lap. Suddenly, though, the Safety Car signs were out, although the vehicle itself was still waiting at the end of the pitlane as the #4 Aston sailed by. Al Harthy radioed the team to ask what he should do; “Push like hell!” came the reply.
The Omani driver had crossed the line just before the pit window had opened, but Howard dived immediately for the pitlane and managed to time it to perfection; the Beechdean Aston entering the pitlane 0.464s after the window opened. The majority of the GT3 field followed the blue and white Aston down the pitlane, with Al Harthy, Johnston, Lathouras and Patterson stopping a lap later. In the interim, the Safety Car had finally ventured out and picked up the #80 RJN Nissan, now in the hands of Alex Buncombe. The GT-R was eighth at this point, while the actual race leader, Michael Caine, was towards the back of the queue of cars that followed it in the #4 Aston.
The order at this point was 4 (Caine), 888 (Luke Hines), 29 (Richard Lyons), 1 (Jonny Adam), 23 (Matt Bell), 18 (Rob Barff), 38 (Richard Abra), 6 (John Gaw), 80 (Buncombe), 21 (Tom Onslow-Cole), 33 (Phil Keen), 28 (Andy Schulz), 13 (Aaron Scott), 3 (Benny Simonsen), 17 (Steven Kane), 40 (Tom Sharp), 5 (Rory Butcher) and 2 (James Appleby).
With all stops completed, we waited for the wave-by; but suddenly the lights were out on the Safety Car and it was headed for the pitlane. Although officially on the lead-lap, positions 9 through 16 would have to fight amongst themselves and hope for a second caution period.
The race went Green again at the end of 19 laps and with 26 minutes remaining. With no clear air ahead of him, Caine had to use traffic to get away from Hines and the gap grew from a second to three over the next lap. However, as is often the case, the traffic went against the Aston on the next lap and the two seconds gained were lost. The BMW pressed home its attack and by Lap 24, Hines had closed the gap to 0.655 seconds.
Things were looking good for 888, but an ominous message had appeared on the timing screens: “Team Managers 21 and 888 to Race Control immediately”. Both cars had left the pitlane before the mandatory 65-seconds had elapsed and each would have to serve a stop/go penalty. This dropped Hines from second to seventh, and Onslow-Cole from 14th to 17th.
With the immediate pressure now off, Cain was able to control the four-second advantage he had to Richard Lyons’ Ferrari in second over the course of the final half-dozen laps and took the flag to the delight of the Oman Racing team.
“It was a perfect start and I made a nice gap between me and the other cars,” said a beaming Ahmad Al Harthy. “It was a matter of putting my head down and carrying on. I gave the car to Michael with a healthy lead. There were no mistakes and it was going very well to the point that I was checking my radio to see if the connection was working as it was too quiet in there! Unfortunately the safety car came out and our lead was really reduced. Luckily we stayed in front and obviously for the last 25 minutes watching Michael was very stressful, but there’s no one better you’d want in the car. You know his consistency is strong and he is reliable. The team did a great job everywhere, and everything. We’re happy with the car, we’re happy with the team and it is a team win.”
Matt Bell pushed Jonny Adam all the way to the line, but just couldn’t find the space necessary to make a move stick and it was the Beechdean Aston that completed the GT3 podium.
“We had the pace to get past the Aston,” said Bell. “We were strong today but he was very aggressive in defending his position, dangerously so at times. We touched a couple of times but there was no way through so I had to just maintain position.”
Rob Barff had been looking strong in the closing stages and was pushing Bell for fourth, but an incident on Lap 31 – the details of which are still unclear – saw the #18 FF Ferrari heading for the pits and into retirement with heavy rear-end damage.
The Aston Martins of MP Motorsport and PGF-Kinfaun had been virtually inseparable for the entire race. In the first half, Phil Dryburgh had chased Mark Poole hard – a little bit too hard at one point, with contact resulting in the PGF car losing its bonnet – and John Gaw and Richard Abra continued the duel after the pitstops. Gaw finally found a way past into fifth on Lap 26, but Abra never gave up and there was still just 0.207s between them at the flag.
While Hines had a lonely run to seventh, the battle for eighth had proven to be the most exciting of the whole race, with Steven Kane carving his way through from 15th to ninth by Lap 33. This left only the Nissan of Alex Buncombe to dispose of, but the RJN driver proved a tough nut to crack , with his dogged resistance being overcome only on the final lap. Kane traded fastest laps with the very impressive Rory Butcher over the course of their stints, and it was the young Scot in the #5 Oman Aston that took that particular honour. His car finished the race in 13th, having lost a place to the Ginetta of Tom Sharp on the final lap.
Tom Ferrier, meanwhile, had set the #28 Aston the target of a top-10 finish, and Andy Schulz was just one place off that goal with two laps to go and was only a couple of car-lengths back from the #33 Porsche of Phil Keen. Alas, Schulz’s last-gasp effort resulted in a spin and a drop to 15th.
“This championship is completely different to what I’m used to and is a huge challenge,” said Schulz’s teammate Paul Bailey. “The drivers are some of the best Pro-Am racers in Europe and I’m very pleased with how things have gone in my first British GT weekend, thoroughly enjoying myself. Andy got us up to 11th, but the difference between tenth backwards is nothing and if you make one little mistake, you drop back. We tried to get one point and it would have been absolutely amazing to achieve that.”
Despite only having three and a half hours between races, the professionalism of the British GT teams once more shone through and 21 GT3s took their place on the grid for the start of the day’s second race, which also began early.
As usual, the Pro drivers made up the bulk of the field for the first leg of this race and for the second time that day all cars made it round the first corner without incident. Alexander Sims held onto his pole position in the #79 Ecurie Ecosse, but Aaron Scott made a dive for second in the #13 AF Corse Ferrari; Jonny Adam seeing the danger and being able to close the door in time to keep his challenger behind the Beechdean Aston. Once obliged to hold station, Scott was soon preoccupied with keeping the very rapid Steven Kane-peddled M-Sport Bentley behind him.
Michael Caine stayed fourth in the #4 Oman Vantage, but John Gaw had a poor opening lap and dropped from fifth to 10th in the #6 PGF-Kinfaun Aston, allowing Rory Butcher a clear run at the Race 1 winner; the two Oman Racing cars swapping places on Lap 7. Further back, Rob Barff’s #18 Ferrari had lost places to the #80 RJN Nissan of Alex Buncombe and the #28 HorsePower Aston of Andy Schulz, while Tom Sharp had an off-track excursion at Shell Oils Corner and dropped to 28th overall in the #40 IDL-CWS Ginetta.
Following the template created by Ahmad Al Harthy earlier in the day, Sims started to pull away from Adam over the first few laps, but 1.7s was as big as his advantage got and by Lap 8 the gap was back down to just half a second.
Lap 3 was as far as Warren Hughes got in the ill-fated #12 Trackspeed Porsche. Having also started from the back of the grid, he had emulated his teammate Jody Firth and was past the GT4 field in no time. But now he too found himself behind the Preci-Spark McLaren, and when Godfrey Jones braked harder than expected, the Porsche ran into the back of the silver car. It wasn’t a huge impact and Jones was unaffected by it, but the radiator on the Porsche had been holed and the team gave the cut-throat signal when Hughes came in. This had truly been a weekend to forget for drivers and team alike.
The race now fell into a relatively quiet period, with the gaps between cars fluctuating, but without any position changes taking place (although Sharp had taken Jones for 19th on Lap 5). The pace remained as fierce as ever, and it was starting to look as though this would be decided by the Am drivers. On Lap 10, however, the #42 Century Ginetta found the tyre wall at Old Hall Corner and the Safety Car was scrambled again. This time, thankfully, it did pick up the leader.
After two slow laps, the race clock neared the pit-window-opening point. Normally, the Pro drivers would be expected to stay out until the latter stages of the 10-minute slot, but MP Motorsport saw the chance to gain an advantage and Richard Abra was called in. As Abra crossed the track/pit demarcation line, several seconds still remained on the clock and he slowed to a crawl and all but stopped before entering the pitlane. However, even though he had officially crossed the line two seconds after the pit-window opened, the race officials decided that his crawl towards the line constituted dangerous driving and Mark Poole would be obliged to take a 10-second stop/go penalty during his stint.
But things went better for Matt Bell in the #23 United Autosports Audi and Rob Barff in the #18 Ferrari, who both followed Abra in, but without having to slow ahead of the line. The Safety Car finished its stint one lap later, by which time both cars were back out and poised to benefit.
Over the next four laps the remainder of the GT3 field made their stops – and Poole took his penalty – with Sims stopping as late as possible, along with Richard Lyons, John Gaw, Phil keen, Mark Schulz, Benny Simonsen and Tom Onslow-Cole. Once the stops were complete (and with the top three in Race 1 having extra time penalties to serve) the order was as follows:
23 (Mark Patterson), 18 (Gary Eastwood), 79 (Marco Attard), 33 (Jon Minshaw), 17 (Rembert Berg), 1 (Andrew Howard), 6 (Phil Dryburgh), 888 (Derek Johnston), 29 (Pasin Lathouras), 38 (Mark Poole), 21 (Paul White), 4 (Ahmad Al Harthy), 13 (John Dhillon), 2 (Steve Tandy), 5 (John Hartshorne), 22 (David Jones), 40 (Colin White), 28 (Paul Bailey), 3 (Hector Lester) and 80 (Chris Hoy).
Hoy’s stint had begun in unfortunate fashion after a spin at Cascades, and with 25 minutes still to go, it looked like this would be little more than a test session for the Nissan driver. But things were heating up at the head of the field, and circumstances would soon make Hoy’s day a lot more interesting.
The restart found Patterson with a half-second lead over Eastwood, with these two a long way (11 seconds) clear of Marco Attard as a result of their earlier strategic move. The Ferrari pressed home its attack and it looked like the final 20 minutes would be very interesting. But just two laps later, Eastwood made an ill-judged move at Hislops – coming from too far back – and the resulting contact led not only to the immediate retirement of both cars, but also the summoning of the Safety Car once more.
“The team’s pit-stop strategy was outstanding handing me a 12secs lead in the second race,” said Patterson. “I had an off across the grass at the chicane as I pressed too hard, then two laps later the Ferrari rammed into the side of me. His front wheel tyre marks are on the Audi’s number panel and at no time was he ever ahead, so I’m a little annoyed.”
With two cars needing recovering, this turned out to be a lengthy caution period. Happily, though, the wave-by was given on this occasion and the field was in the correct order, and closed up, by the time the lights went off the Safety Car with seven minutes to go and with 28 laps completed.
The race was now led by Marco Attard and the Ecurie Ecosse BMW benefited from a three-car cushion of GT4 Ginettas between him and Jon Minshaw in the #33 Trackspeed Porsche. But the Demon Tweeks boss dealt with them ruthlessly and was actually half-a-second closer to the Z4 at the end of the next lap. Thereafter, the gap came down and down.
Rembert Berg now found himself in third in the M-Sport Bentley, but found his mirrors full of Scooby Doo as Andrew Howard went after his second podium finish of the day; and on Lap 30, the Dutch driver put a wheel on the grass and span down the order to 17th. Chris Hoy, meanwhile, was making the most of his unexpected reprieve and passed both John Hartshorn and Hector Lester before the race ended; the #80 Nissan ending up 14th.
“I’ve had an absolutely brilliant weekend,” said Hoy. “It’s a privilege to be here. I really enjoyed it and now I can’t wait for Rockingham. Those two races have just confirmed how much I enjoy this. I’ve definitely got the bug!”
But it was the fight for the win that attracted most of the attention, with Minshaw closing the gap to Attard relentlessly. By Lap 31 the gap had shrunk to below a second, and that visibly became two car-lengths by the time they reached Lodge Corner for the 32nd time. Attard held his line and ensured no opportunity presented itself to the Porsche and, crucially, time ran out on the clock as they headed for Deer Leap; the BMW driver holding on to take the flag by just 0.456s.
“Obviously I’m delighted with the win at Oulton Park, a race that changed direction so many times during the hour,” said Marc Attard. “But after all of Alexander’s hard work I was glad to see victory come our way and believe it was well deserved! The opening race was more disappointing as we were holding a very comfortable third place when the gearbox went, but the team did a great job to get us back out for the all-important second race.”
“Overall it was a great first weekend,” added Alexander Sims. “We demonstrated very good pace, the team worked well and Marco has made fantastic progress. Starting in the top three for both races gave us a great platform from which to build, so it was unfortunate that the gearbox issue ended our first race early. Of course the second finished exactly the way we had hoped; pole position, fastest lap and victory was spot on. It sets us up well for the rest of the season, and now we just have to keep that level of performance going.”
Howard held on to third, denying Phil Dryburgh a podium. Nevertheless, both Dryburgh and Gaw had shown real pace and were delighted to leave Oulton with a bigger points-haul than they had amassed throughout the whole of the 2013 season. Derek Johnston took fifth for 888, while Pasin Lathouras completed a fine debut for he and Richard Lyons to add a top-six finish to their earlier podium.
“That was a really enjoyable weekend,” said Johnston. “It was a real shame about the penalty in race one as I think Luke could’ve challenged Caine for the win. I really enjoyed my stint, but it was a bit frustrating not to get to overtake Attard and Howard! Race two was difficult because the safety cars cut my actual race time down quite a lot. Had we had a few more laps we might have been able to get a podium. The car is great, as are the team. Rockingham should be good!”
Jon Minshaw’s efforts earned him the Blancpain Gentleman Trophy, while Jonny Adam was awarded the Mobil 1 Service Centre Master of the Weekend award.
Oulton Park GT4 race report – here
Circumstances had arguably conspired to deprive the crowd of a real showing of what British GT has to offer this year, but all evidence from the weekend suggests that this is going to be a very, very competitive season. Next up is Rockingham on May 4th/5th.
MH
