After the highs and lows of the 1st Round of the FIA GT3 Championship with HowardSpooner and Adrian Willmott of the Damax stealth Ascari car #29 leading the Brits in theDrivers championship, and taking two Manufacturer podiums at Silverstone, Damaxsigned two new drivers to race the #30 Ascari in Round 2 of the FIA GT3 Championshipin Bucharest.
Richard Stanton and Edward Morris joined Howard Spooner & Adrian Wilmott #29 andAndy Thompson & Martin Rich #28 in the #30 Damax Ascari for the 2nd Round of the FIAGT3 Championship in Bucharest.
Robin Ward (Damax) said "Richard raced the Ascari successfully in British GTs last yearand I am sure Ed will take to the car quickly with the help of the other drivers. Damax arelooking forward to this weekend in Bucharest”
A quick turnaround of the cars after round 1 at Silverstone the GT3 teams risked life andtruck, driving through Romania to the 2nd round of the GT3 Championship at Bucharestthis weekend.
When the trucks finally arrived at midnight on Wednesday we had time for a quick sleepbefore waking up to a lovely warm and sunny day on Thursday for setting up.Robin ward said “The track is dificult and with high kerbs and concrete walls there notmuch room for error”
Friday PracticeIn the 1st practice car #28 suffered a gearbox issue preventing it from running and withthe drivers learning the new circuit we were happy to be running in P2 with the #29Damax Stealth Ascari of Spooner & Willmott & P22 with the two new drivers Stanton &Morris of the #30 Damax Ascari.Having fixed the gearbox issue in time for the 2nd practice things were starting to lookbetter for Andy and Martin in the #28 Damax Ascari. Andy Thompson put in a fantastictime of 1.22.852 which put us in P2 and the #29 Stealth Ascari put in a good time placingthem in P10 with the #30 car in P26
Qualyfying 1Cloudy and damp conditions on Saturday for quali 1 made the track a little moreinteresting. After starting quali on wets we then changed to slicks which meant Martinwas able to put in a good time to put him in P10 followed closley by Howard Spooner inP11 and the #30 Damax Ascari in P35 for the 1st race
Qualifying 2Unfortunately the good luck was about to run out! The #30 Ascari of Morris and Stantonbroke a drive shaft. The #29 car had a bit of a moment and ended up hitting the wall quitebadly and unfortunately coming round the corner and unable to miss the accident wasAndy in the #28 Damax Ascari. With all 3 cars out of the session early which meant theother teams on slicks with a drying track were going to be putting in some quickers timesand as we sat there watching the rest of the session we watched our cars fall further andfurther down the grid ending up with #28 in P29, #29 in P30 & #30 in P32
Race 1Richard Stanton was not feeling very well so we put a request into the Stewards for adriver change. Adrian Willmott would replace Richard for the 1st race.After a great effort from the team to get all 3 cars fixed for the 1st race unfortunately theclose encounter with the wall was just too much for the #29 Damax Stealth Ascari and wehad to retire it from the race weekend.
With just seconds to go we got the #28 and #30 Damax Ascaris to the grid but as wewere waiting for the grid to clear we noticed fluid leaking from the front of the #28 Ascariand Martin had to pull off on the Green Flag lap at the 1st corner.With just one car left we were hoping a bit of stealth would live on and it did moving upthe grid from P35 the #30 Damax Ascari of Adrian Willmott and Ed Morris took theManufacture cup for Ascari and finished P14 overall.
Race 2With Richard feeling better he would re-join Ed Morris in the #30 Ascari for race 2.The race started under safety car conditions as in race one but this time I think there wassome confusion over the number of laps it would do. There was a gap of about 45seconds between the front running cars and the cars in the middle of the grid. On lap 7the #28 Damax Ascari being driven by Andy Thompson caught fire and put him out of therace. Once again only the #30 Ascari of Morris was left. After a couple of laps behind thesafety car the pit window opened and we pitted putting Richard in the car. The trackconditions were getting worse and the next lap we pitted to change to wets. The safetycar came in and we were racing under green flags again but not for long as there wasanother accident and another safety car. With 5 minutes to go and a stop and go penaltyfor apparently jumping a red light at the end of the Pit lane we decided to retire from therace and at least bring one car home in one piece.
Robin ward said “ I am flabbergasted at the amount of cars that have been damaged over the weekend.It’s a shame that the track isn’t safer, as the setting is great and the locals are soenthusiastis”
