Michael Bentwood and RJN Motorsport struggled to find pace during the final round of the British GT Championship at Silverstone Circuit. With both races hampered by problems, both the team and drivers were unable to make any significant gains over the weekend.

The race programme at Silverstone was the same as at Mondello Park two weeks earlier with Bentwood starting Saturdays race in the Nissan 350Z and Anthony Reid starting Sundays. Both races were to last for 1-hour with a driver change after 30 minutes.

"In Free Practice we just managed to stay in the top six, and we were progressing well with the balance of the car,” said Bentwood. In qualifying I managed P6 for my race and Anthony managed P7 for his race.”

Just one hour before RACE 1 of the weekend the heavens opened and it was obvious that starting the race on wet weather tyres would be the only choice. "I was really looking forward to driving in the wet, especially as we had gone so well there previously on the GP circuit and the rain tends to even things out" said an enthusiastic Bentwood. “The spray at the start was incredible but unfortunately within 3 laps there was so much water on the inside of the screen that I could barely see where I was going!”

“The water was unbelievable,” continued Bentwood. “Once it was in the footwell it hit a very hot transmission tunnel and soon turned into steam. Visibility was really hampered so I was struggling to perform at my best. I was on the radio before the pit stops so the team had chance to reduce the problem for Anthony, but in the time frame it was very difficult. Its the first time the car has ever run properly in the wet so nobody would have realised without proper wet testing that the powerful demister was not sufficient. We eventually finished the race eleventh.”

In contrast RACE 2 was completely dry, but unfortunately on the first lap Anthony found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Nissan 350Z made contact with a GT3 Porsche which resulted in a spin and Anthony falling to last place. Anthony was able to continue but it left him with a huge amount of work to do before the pitstop. Anthony had moved up to 12th spot before the driver change but had reported on the radio that he had "right hand down", this meant that tyre wear during Bentwood’s stint would be uneven, potentially causing a puncture or handling problems. To overcome this the team changed both front tyres during the pitstop.

"I was on it straight away," said Bentwood," I was determined to make up some of the time we had lost from earlier incidents. My first lap was just one tenth of a second off Anthony's quickest and I was pleased to see that the front tracking was not as bad as expected.”

Sadly for Bentwood, the strong start to his stint was short lived when a puff of smoke entered the cockpit. Just a few seconds later the engine went into safe mode, resulting in a significant loss of power. "It lost more and more power every lap and retirement was inevitable," said a disappointed Bentwood. "It has not placed us in the championship where we wanted to be, nor is it how I wanted to finish the season, but on a positive note, to compete with the Porsche’s and Ferrari’s in Nissan’s first season and scoring a podium is a great achievement. I’m looking forward to a competitive season next year."