3rd April 2005 British GT Championship - Round 1, Donington Park
A two hour race saw plenty of action in both classes. The Ferrari of Kinch/Kirkaldy led from the start, pulling out a ten second gap in the first ten minutes. But behind there were strong performances from the Porsche of Embassy Racing team’s Collins and Cunningham, the Eurotech Porsches of Jones/Jones and Jordan/Caine and the second Scuderia Ecosse Ferrari of Mullen/Niarchos. In the GT3 class the lead changed again and again with the Tech 9 Porsche of Masarati/Deverikos taking the lead in the closing stages when six cars in the class were not only on the same lap, but were separated by only 35 seconds. Michael Butler, Dunlop Motorsport:
“From out point of view it was perfect. Four of the top five finishers double stinted with no problems. The drivers were delighted with the performance and grip in a race of over 100 laps – what a great opener to the season!” Warren Hughes, LNT TVR, 2nd: “Absolute mega consistency on the tyre side! Patrick [Pearce] did a great opening stint and even with still trying until I backed off with about 5 laps to go the tyres just stayed with me.”
POS CL DRIVERS CAR GAP BEST
1 GT2 Kinch/Kirkaldy Ferrari 360 GTC 1:08.368 2 GT2 Hughes/Pearce TVR T400R 41.854 1:09.779 3 GT2 Mullen/Niarchos Ferrari 360 GTC 1 LAP 1:09.402 4 GT2 Jones/Jones Porsche GT3 1 LAP 1:10.452 5 GT2 Jordan/Caine Porsche RS 3 LAPS 1:10.119 6 GT2 Cole/Hooker Corvette C5R 3 LAPS 1:11.184 7 GT2 Johnson/Balfe Mosler MT900R 4 LAPS 1:09.733 8 GT2 Collins/Cunningham Porsche RSR 5 LAPS 1:09.645 9 GT3 Masarati/Deverikos Porsche GT3 Cup 5 LAPS 1:12.582 10 GT3 Beighton/Finnemore Marcus Mantis 6 LAPS 1:12.909 11 GT3 Mortimer/Quaife Porsche GT3 Cup 6 LAPS 1:12.963 12 GT3 Hulford/Smyth Ferrari 360 6 LAPS 1:13.573 13 GT3 Burton/Flux Ferrari 360 C 6 LAPS 1:13.417 14 GT3 Lester/Simonsen Ferrari 360 7 LAPS 1:13.142 15 GT3 Britnell/Stockton Porsche GT3 8 LAPS 1:12.761
