This weekend saw the Britcar MSA British Endurance Championship (BEC) race at Donington full of action - mainly in the teams’ garages!
British F3 racer Felipe Nasr still remains at the top of the standings in the Sunoco Rolex 24 At Daytona Challenge despite not racing. The challenge is based on average point scores, and with the Azteca Mosler having gearbox failure causing Javier Morcillo not to finish the race, the gap between first and second place has widened with Nasr now leading by over 25 average points.
In the BEC qualifying was a mixture of highs and lows. Morcillo kept up his 100% record adding a third BEC pole position to his personal record and scoring 20 points towards the Sunoco Daytona Challenge.
MJC ran into problems early on in qualifying and the team were left thinking they would have to retire from the race. The Gamski/Robinson pairing were joined by John Gaw, who was part of the successful Britcar 24 hour race winning line-up, and with the car starting qualifying late due to driveshaft problems the team were left scrambling to fit in enough laps for all three drivers. With Robinson finally in the car the engine gave up in a dramatic fashion returning to the pits in a ball of smoke. This was the team’s first engine problem for several years and it was thought the car would have to retire until a late night deal with Dutch Supercar Challenge squad VEKA Racing secured the team an engine. VEKA had a spare engine which was an exact match to that of the MJC Ferrari – despite there only being four of them in the world!
With a new engine installed in the Ferrari 430 the team put in an impressive performance resulting in a fifth place finish and 30 points towards the Sunoco Daytona Challenge. Morcillo, who once had been leading the challenge, saw his average point score lowered due to gaining no race position points. The Morcillo/Cintrano Mosler retired two hours into the four-hour race after gearbox failure, however Morcillo did not loose out completely as he not only scored 20 points towards the challenge by placing pole position but also gained another 20 from setting the fastest lap.
There was however no stopping the McInerney brothers in their Ferrari 430 who took their second win of the season and 100 points each towards the Sunoco Daytona Challenge. The brothers finished 51.98 seconds ahead of Paul White and Calum Lockie who finished second with their Mosler MT900R and with 75 points each towards the challenge. Third place went to Aaron Scott and Craig Wilkins each taking 55 points.
This weekend sees the Cooper Tires British F3 international series and the Avon Tyres British GT championship racers compete at the new Snetterton 300 circuit in Norfolk. With a new circuit layout and everyone eager for a place on the podium it is going to be an action packed couple of days – will Nasr remain on top?
