Initially we had 31 entries for the Dutch round of the British GT Championship, but Blendini / PE Group and Complete Racing were last-minute withdrawals for Zandvoort. Blendini / PE Group pulled out due to a part supply issue, while Complete Racing’s Steve Chaplin had other business to attend, reducing the grid to 29 cars. 18 GT3s, 1 GTC and 10 GT4s – including 5 Dutch GT entries.
The Trackspeed Porsche 997 GT3 R topped the times in the opening practice session this afternoon, with a 1:41.899 from Nick Tandy. Tandy was the only driver to get into the 1:41s – early in the session. Beechdean AMR finished the session in second place, followed by the WRT Audi of Warren Hughes and Dutchman Rembert Berg.
It wasn’t all good though in session 1. As soon as the lights went green the cars rushed out and there was contact between the #6 PGF-Kinfaun AMR Aston and the #14 Fortec Motorsports Mercedes. Phil Dryburgh returned to the pits with left front damage, while Jason Minshaw returned with a right rear puncture.
Only a couple of minutes later the session was red flagged as the #8 888 Optimum Racing BMW of Joe Osborne stopped at the pit entry. It turned out that Osborne had hit the wall at the Slotemakerbocht and nearly made it around to the pit. “I did that corner in the Ginetta and the Audi, but the BMW just bottomed out on the exit of the curve and I clipped the barrier,” said Osborne after he had returned to the pits and the team had assessed the damage – and it was obvious that the suspension had been damaged.
Another team to hit trouble was APO Sport Ginetta. The car spun several times, but managed to make it through the first practice session without any damage. GT4 Championship leader Ryan Ratcliffe was less fortunate and he did hit the barrier, damaging the right front section of his Ginetta G50.
Just before the second session the rain that was expected hit the circuit and the waterpoofs were brought out. Soon after the session had started two cars were caught out by the track conditions. The #44 Ginetta G50 ended up in the gravel at Tarzan and only a couple of minutes later the HDI-Formido Corvette C6 GT4 went off at the exact same corner, this time requiring a tractor to pull it out of the gravel.
Next up all attention was on Hugenholtzbocht again as James May in the APO Sport ran out of luck and ploughed into the tyre barrier. The Ginetta G50 suffered damage to front, rear and side and with the track full of debris race control couldn’t do anything other than red flag the session once again.
As the track conditions improved the Trackspeed Porsches moved up into first and second, but soon after the session was stopped once more when the AF Corse Ferrari ran wide into the gravel trap. A crane was required to remove the stricken Ferrari.
After the session had been restarted once more and on a drying circuit the lap times tumbled down and positions kept changing. In the end it was the Trackspeed Porsche of Nick Tandy and birthday boy David Ashburn that topped the times again, ahead of the Ferrari of John Dhillon and Aaron Scott and the FF Corse Ferrari of Rob Barff and Gary Eastwood. The PGF-Kinfaun AMR Aston Martin Vantage was fifth fastest, behind the Minshaw-Keen Porsche.
After the session Michael Caine and Jon Minshaw were summoned to race control. Caine received a EUR 250 fine and a five-place grid penalty for race 2 for ignoring red flags. Minshaw received a five-place grid penalty as well for race 1 for ignoring yellow flags.
MtC
