British GT - Silverstone 500 - Round 4
By Rory Butcher
The Silverstone 500 was a real challenge but after 3hours of racing Liam and I secured our first top ten finish of the season and our sister car of Ahmed Al Harthy and Michael Caine scored its second victory in a dominant fashion.
After my simulator training at iZone Performance on Friday I felt very prepared for what Silverstone and the Aston were to bring and we were competitive from the outset. In Free Practice 1 we were 2nd quickest overall - only two tenths of a second behind BMW works driver Alexander Sims and in Free practice 2 we posted the 6th quickest time. During practice we made some small changes to the setup of the car, as both Liam and I were experiencing rear end grip issues as we accelerated out of both high and low speed corners, meaning the rear tyres would lose traction making the car difficult to drive and this didn’t inspire confidence.
The changes we made in practice made the car more driveable for the race.
The format of qualifying works like this: both the pro and the amateur driver within each pairing must set a fastest lap - their best lap times are then added together to create an aggregate time and this combined time determines the grid position.
We ran the car on a very light fuel load and made the set up slightly more aggressive to squeeze as much performance out of the Aston as possible. During my fast lap the car really came to life, which allowed me to attack the faster corners and be very confident in the braking and acceleration zones. I crossed the line 5th quickest overall and Liam posted a very solid time too.
Once they were combined our aggregate time placed us 9th on the grid which really opened up a great opportunity for a top 5 finish. 3 Hours of racing is the longest race both Liam and I have undertaken so there was an element of the unknown - but we both understood that if we stayed out of trouble and held a strong, consistent pace, we could make up positions.
The amateur drivers were to start the race so it was down to Liam to pull off a good first stint. All 38 cars headed towards the red lights on the rolling start and as the lights went out it was all go. Liam held 9th over the first few laps and was lapping quicker than the cars in front. He managed to make up one position and challenged Sir Chris Hoy in the Nismo Nissan GTR before pitting in 8th place. Our first stop was really slick and we managed to overtake the Nissan of Chris Hoy as he was also pitting for his driver change with Nissan’s works driver Alex Buncombe at the same time. It’s great how the mechanics and engineers play such a big part in these longer races, by devising strategies and working together to pit stop as quickly as possible!
My first stint of 1 hour was really tough and I must say over my initial laps the full fuel load of 100 litres really affected the balance of the car. I lost two positions to the Bentley of Steven Kane and the Nissan of Buncombe but as the laps passed the car came to me and I started to reel in the guys in front. I managed to get the undercut on Luke Hines in the BMW as we exited the Club chicane and challenged Guidi in the Ferrari. As I pitted for our second stop we were well within the top 5.
During pit stop number two we encountered an issue with the fuel rig, which delayed us by over 30 seconds. The mechanics did their job superbly as usual but this problem really undid their good work and dropped us down the order. Liam kept pushing in his second stint and held on to a steady 10th position.
Our last pit stop came at 30 minutes to go and this went much more smoothly. I entered the circuit in 10th position and just pushed as hard as I could over this short stint; the car really had a different balance to my first drive. My initial three laps were all personal bests and I started to make up ground on Tom Onslow-Cole in the Strata 21 Aston Martin. I slowly closed in on Tom to within striking distance and unfortunately for him he received a drive through penalty for exceeding track limits which promoted us up one position.
We finished a steady 9th after a great team effort and must look at the positives from the event. Without the 33 second loss of time during pit stop two we would have placed 5th overall, but this is endurance racing and so many things can go wrong over long race distances from bad pit stops to car reliability and punctures. We are looking to into what happened so it doesn't affect us again.
Next we head to Snetterton circuit on the 21st and 22nd of June for two one hour events - but the one I really can’t wait for is Spa Franchorchamps on July 11th and 12th!
Please find all relevant links and info below.
Championship Information
Please have a look at the British GT website to keep up to date with news stories, photos, race dates and tv times;
www.britishgt.com
TV Times
All British GT events are televised one week after the event on Channel 4 and Motors TV with the Silverstone 3 hour race being broadcast live on Motors TV on June 1st.
http://www.britishgt.com/television.php
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