There was sense of déjà vu at Silverstone, as Mark Poole and Richard Abra lifted the same trophy that they had proudly held aloft 12 months earlier. The pair, part of last year’s Britcar 24hr winning squad, had triumphed again in the 2013 iteration of the event, the Britcar 1000km, this time driving the Barwell-run Aston Martin Vantage.
The car was new, delivered just before the catastrophic accident at Barcelona which had destroyed the team’s original 2013 BGT machine a fortnight earlier, so came to this event with little long distance running. Both Abra and Poole, though, made no secret in pre-race conversations of their intention to reclaim the trophy, but held reservations around fuel economy. What transpired, though, was a fairly straightforward six-hour run, for them, and just about everybody else who finished in the GT section of the joint BEC/Production race. This was also a race where, in the main, the two factions, and certainly the two classes in the BEC, kept themselves to themselves, rarely encroaching into one another’s territory, so there were few giant-killing stories to tell in this race.
Sadly missing from the grid was the MacG Racing Ultima, which had blown it’s Chevy engine in the early stages of qualifying.
Javier Morcillo, in the Neil Garner-run Mosler, had bagged not just pole position on the aggregated grid, but a desirable Joseph Kaspar watch as an additional prize for his efforts; but it was fellow front-row starter Mike Simpson, in the Team LNT Ginetta G55, that seized the lead into Copse, with Richard Abra’s Aston following.
Morcillo wasn’t going for any heroics in this opening sequence; there was some serious competition at the front end, the most serious in the race, including Bob Berridge in Nigel Mustill’s Riley ersatz Daytona Prototype, who made short work of grabbing third place on Lap 2, after starting from the fourth row of the grid.
First to fall was the Strata21 Praga, Adam Sharpe crawling into the pit lane and reporting the engine alarm flashing.
Sadly that was the end of their race, but out front, Simpson had given best to Abra, who established a lead that he and Mark Poole would only relinquish for 11 further laps of the total race duration. Things weren’t so good for Simpson, though – he lost second place to the assertive Berridge, then suffered a clash with a back-marker (allegedly a Lotus). The Ginetta came crabbing violently down the pit lane, and lost six laps while the LNT crew fixed the rear suspension. Apart from cutting through the Production field, Simpson was unable to make any ground on his front-running rivals and retired the G55 before the 90-minute mark, stopping out on the circuit with engine problems.
Also gone from Class 1 by that point was the Motionsport Wolf CN Prototype, started by Lars Viljoen. Having had front-end spares air-freighted from Italy overnight, the open-topper had bagged a second-row grid slot, and Viljoen had sprung some surprises by hauling it up the third place before retiring with problems around the left rear of the machine.
Behind the leaders – and the early retirements – Javier Morcillo had been disputing territory with his championship sparring-partner Andy Schulz, in the Horsepower/Scuderia Vittoria Aston Martin, with the visiting Ronnie Bremer’s Ferrari 430 closing the Class 1 field, leaving a gap to the squabbling Class 2 runners. The Ferrari, though, lost a heap of time when it pitted for attention to a loose rear wheel, and while Bremer and Christina Nielsen took the car to the finish, they were 34 laps down on the winner and not classified.
And so the leading bunch cycled through their pit stop sequences to the end, with only the Bailey/Schulz/Ferrier Aston assuming the lead other than the eventual winner, all mechanically faultless throughout, though there were a few driver-induced incidents along the way.
Paul Bailey confessed that, due to the proximity of the throttle and brake pedals in the Aston, he had inadvertently pressed both to cause a trip into the gravel, displace the front splitter, and compromise downforce. Javier Morcillo, even after relinquishing the Mosler to Paul White and Manuel Cintrano, was livid as he reached his three-hours maximum stint time. No tachographs here, but Neil Garner was a step ahead of the officials and played it correctly, pulling the Mosler in from second place and installing Cintrano once again for the final 55 minutes.
Obviously, the Spaniard was no match for seasoned veteran Bob Berridge, who was back in the Riley after stints by Nigel Mustill and Gareth Evans, and Berridge put on a phenomenal chase, bagging third place on the penultimate lap.
The initial surprise in Class 2 was the pace of the rejuvenated BPM Racing Renault Megane Trophy, and guest driver Martin Byford converted class pole to class lead at the green lights, with Ian Loggie’s Team Parker Porsche 997, Chris Hart’s TrackTorque Chevron, and Peter Cook’s Simpson Motorsport Audi R8 running as a train, ahead of the Niall family’s Porsche and Indy Lights star Matthew Dileo acting as the guards van in Cor Euser’s invitation-entry Lotus Evora.
The Evora sadly expired with gearbox problems just 75 minutes into the race, by which time the Chevron had established a healthy class lead, and Cook had made a masterful move from fourth to second in class, taking Byford’s Megane and Loggie’s 997 in one fell swoop into Copse on Lap 11.
Ash Woodman would take his stints in the Megane, but they were delayed by loose bolts and gearbox issues, finishing 22nd overall and 36 laps adrift.
The lack of mechanical attrition enjoyed by the front-running finishers was maintained in Class 2 as well, only the Track Torque Chevron suffering a stuck wheel nut that caused an over-long pit stop, and left the car, superbly driven by Hart, Tommy Field and Chrissy Palmer, to finish third in class; quite an achievement after the engine problems earlier in the season. Chris Jones and Julian Westwood both took their turn in consolidating the Team Parker Porsche’s class lead, ahead of the Simpson Audi R8, in which Phil Hopkins and Jacopo Sebastiani (son of the legendary “Stingbrace”) had assisted Peter Cook, and these top three finishers were covered by just one lap at the flag. Australians Malcolm and Brett Niall completed the Class 2 field in the Motorsport Services Porsche 997, coming home 10th overall, and split from their classmates by the two leading Production Cup competitors.
So, a pretty straightforward affair, ending only a surprising 80km short of the publicised 1000km, with little attrition and only two short Safety Car periods; both for Production cars that had stopped out on the circuit which the winners used to their advantage , as Richard Abra explained: “We followed the Safety Car in after the first caution, so could fill the full 75 litres. After that it was just a case of head down and build a lead, then once I saw the #28 Aston spin in the gravel, we could back off”.
Steve Wood
