Beechdean Motorsport made the long trip up North knowing that they would have to do well in both races to be in with a chance of winning the championship. Free practice saw the Beechdean Ferrari, RSS Porsche and the Team Aero Morgan all set good times, making the qualifying hard to call.
QualifyingAndrew Howard was halfway through his 15min qualifying run, when the Ferrari 360 developed a gear change problem that led to him pitting early to see if the problem could be fixed for Aaron Scott’s qualifying session.The problem was not cured in time for Aaron, so he had to qualify with a Ferrari that would only change gear when it wanted to.
So Beechdean would be 3rd on the GTC grid for both races with the Morgan getting two pole positions and the Porsche two 2nd’s.
Race 1The gear change problems led to a busy 2hrs for Beechdean Motorsport before the race. Then having studied the data it was found that the Ferrari’s alternator had also broken, with all the required spares in the truck the car was ready to race with 1minute to spare, but had to start from the back of the grid. Andrew started the race well, but within 5 laps the brand new Ferrari alternator had broken and the battery voltage was dropping. This forced him into an early pit stop with only 15 minutes of the race completed. With the championship still in sight the team strapped a spare battery into the car and set Aaron out for his stint, 10mins had been lost in the pits, but the hope was to get some points from the race.
With the voltage dropping steadily it was not too long before the car was back in for its next battery (stolen from the pit wall beacon). Aaron ran for the final 12mins making minimal gear changes and trying to use as little power as possible. The car crossed the finish line but needed to have completed another 11 laps to have been classified as a finisher. So despite all the work the Ferrari finished with no points, the only consolation was that the Morgan had managed to take some points off the RSS Porsche.
The race finished with all 4 GTC teams needing to burn large amounts of late night oil to get the cars back on the grid for the Sunday race. The Porsche needed a new gearbox, the Morgan continued from previous rounds with engine problems, the Ginetta had a broken driveshaft and the Beechdean 360 needed another alternator.
Race 2All four teams managed to get cars on to the grid for race 2. The race started very well for the 360, with Aaron getting into a class led by the 3rd lap. Aaron then set about building a lead to hand over to Andrew during the pit stop. An early safety car period saw an 8 second lead over the Porsche disappear. After this it was harder to pull out a lead from the Porsche, but Aaron gave the car to Andrew with a 6 second lead. This combined with a good in lap, pit stop and out lap meant that at the end of Andrew’s 1st flying lap he was 17 seconds ahead of the Porsche with 20 minutes to go. However, as the race went on it was clear that the Porsche had the legs on the Ferrari and was cutting the gap by a second a lap. With both cars being slowed, having to let a pack of fighting GT3 cars passed, the Porsche took the GTC lead back with only 4 laps to go and this is how the race finished!
RSS will take their Porsche to Rockingham at the end of the month knowing that they will only need one point to win the 2007 British GTC Championship. However, Beechdean will be looking to finish the year on a high, with a double win, keeping the pressure on the Porsche.
