GT TROPHY ROUND ONE - BRANDS HATCH GP May 22nd
Paragon Porsche wins inaugural GT Trophy Endurance race
Inaugural round of the GT Trophy Endurance Series got off to a bright start at Brands Hatch on the Grand Prix Circuit in spectacular sunshine on Saturday 22 May. The entry attracted a glorious variety of marques made up of BMW, Ferrari, Lotus, Porsche, Ginetta, Marcos, Mosler, Corvette, KTM and Honda plus some highly experienced driver and team combinations. This was also organiser Bute Motorsports opportunity of trying out its innovative and handicap system whereby variable length minimum pit stops were calculated to help even the score and encourage competitive racing to the finish. The formula was strategically developed to still allow the best team who put on the best performance to win but also give teams the opportunity of using tactics to gain the advantage.
Proving that experience counts however was the overall victors, Mark Sumpter and Adrian Slater in the Paragon backed Porsche 997 RSR in its first outing since winning the Silverstone 24 hour in 2009. An early pace car period on lap one caused by the unfortunate early demise of the JDR Honda NSX of David and Rob Fenn handed the teams an opportunity to pit early and get one of their two mandatory stops out the way. After eight laps behind the safety car there were still teams who had not pitted to take advantage of this tactically vital stop. Paragon, quick to take the initiative, took the lead early on which they were not to relinquish despite the hard charging Mosler of Beamont and Fores beginning to eat into the Porsche's lead. Had the Mosler's second stint been fractionally quicker they might have pulled it off. Instead the Mosler got involved in an epic tussle with the ‘mature' Marcos Mantis GT who hounded them all the way and finally got past when the Mosler spun relegating them to third place. Being the surprise package for many, the very fast Topcats Marcos Mantis of Fletcher and Fiorentino finished in a very creditable second position. The Xero-Competition Corvette of Millett and Vergers struggled with mechanical reliability. Despite turning in the fastest lap at both the one hour and full distance mark, the Corvette was unable to close the gap and came in fourth, two laps down which belied its true potential.
In Group two there was an amazing race with six of the cars all finishing on the same lap after two hours with the top three separated by just eleven seconds. This seemed to prove that the handicap system had worked. Probably the most unlucky team in this Group was the Dryburgh/Gaw Porsche 997 GT3 Cup car. Dryburgh had done an excellent job eating away at their handicap and when he handed the car over to Gaw they looked set for an excellent finish. But fate struck in the form of a puncture which put them out of contention immediately. The Alfatune Porsche 996 GT3 Cup car being driven by Bentley and Medeiros put in a faultless performance and had a reasonably quiet race working their pit stops and overall strategy well to come home in first place in Group Two. The Wilkins/Scott Ginetta had been looking threatening and Scott did a rapid middle stint handing the car over to Wilkins who succumbed on lap 49 when the car over heated. The Barwell run Julian and Matt draper Ginetta G50 had a great race and were looking strong at the chequered flag finishing just 2.49 secs behind the Porsche 996 giving a grand stand finish after two hours of racing. Next up in third place despite an early off at Surtees which nearly ended their race was probably the biggest surprise of the weekend.... Colin and Sam Mowle in their KTM XBow. Maybe the handicap had played into their favour but whatever happened they were just 0.4 secs behind the Ginetta after two hours and around 160 miles. Proving again that the handicap system had delivered on it's promise!
In Group Three having lost the Honda NSX on lap one and after a difficult race with various vibrations the Lotus Exige of Doug and Chris Setters eventually retired after 19 laps. This left the Bailan/Mason Lotus 211 with the job of fending off the surviving Lotus Exige of Barclay and BTCC regular Onslow-Cole. They did this with a lap in hand after nursing the car home. They had been suffering from mechanical problems all weekend.
Bute Motorsport Race Coordinator Belinda Edwards later commented "we have learnt allot from this inaugural race which we always said was designed to help us hone the regulations and we will probably have a minimum and maximum pit window in future".
At the end of the race Marc Haynes MD of organisers Bute Motorsport said "Drivers and teams seemed unanimously to approve. The feed back I have had tells me that we will broadly stick with this format and develop this concept for our ‘Race in the dark' at Snetterton later this year. I am already talking to MSVR about organising between four to six rounds of the GT Trophy Endurance Series next year with at least one race abroad and one of the races being of six hours duration."
