Two top 10 finishes for the Damax Ascari of Tommy Erdos and Stephen Keating in Rounds 3 & 4 of the Avon Tyres British GT Championship has given the team a boost ahead of the next round at Snetterton in six weeks time.
Following a good test the team were confident to do a better job in the races at Donington. However a lower ambient track temperature fro qualifying meant the harder Avon tyre compound used by the Ascari meant that the tyres take at least 10 laps before performance starts to come in. This had a detrimental effect on the performance of the car during the short qualifying sessions and Erdos and Keating could only qualifying in a lowly 16th place for race 1 and a better 6th place in race 2.In race one, the team started with Steve Keating from P16 and once the tyres were warm Keating started to move through the grid, handing over to Tommy Erdos without incident on lap 19 positioned in 14th place.
With the tyres now up to temperature Erdos made good progress through the field and 10 laps later had climbed four further places. However a technical problem with the new exhaust system on the Ascari caused an increase in the fuel consumption and the Ascari ground to a halt on the last lap with no fuel pressure but good enough to classified 10th overall.Tommy Erdos said: "To start from so far back it was really difficult to move through the field. Near the end of the race, when the tyres started to come in our lap times were similar to the front runners”Starting from a better grid position for Race Two Erdos fell back to 7th trying to be cautious on his hard cold Avon tyres, which he knew from the previous race would be a problem to bring in. By lap 9 he could start to push and quickly worked his way up the field to 5th before handing over to Keating, who bought the car home to a strong 7th place, gaining two championship points in the process. Damax Team Principle Robin Ward said: "With limited testing being carried out on the Avon tyre we are now beginning to understand the issues and setup requirements for this tyre. We are going to continue to test on the Avon tyre and try to improve our performance for the next British GT race at Snetterton on the 2 & 3 June. We will use the next month to improve our set up but of course this will be limited to within the GT3 homologation, which limits the amount of changes we can make to the car."
