GruppeM – Silverstone August 14th
Sunday Report – Race 1

The team had always known that this was going to be a tough one – but just not this tough! A hesitant gearbox at the start cost Jonathan Cocker dearly, and he spent the rest of his stint playing catch-up as he diced his way through some very determined competition, before handing over to Tim Sugden. Slick work in the pitlane, and some quick laps from the experienced campaigner saved the day, but that all-important podium was touch-and-go for a while.

Starting from the third row, Jonathan Cocker had the leaders clearly in sight as the pack rounded Woodcote and the Audi Course Car veered off into the pitlane. It was a slow approach, as such rolling starts so often are, with guile and cunning playing their part as the pole-setter attempts to make the most of his moment of control. Kinch ran a fair game, gunning for the line at the last moment and taking Chris Niarchos with him from the second row. Cocker, however, suddenly found himself struggling with a gearlever that wasn’t doing what he asked. From that crawl in second gear he wanted to whip through the box and chase after the others. Instead he was left all-but standing as first one, two and then three cars swept around him like the tide round a breakwater. “The gearbox was in second, and it took me four or five attempts to get it out. I was being passed by everyone!” Notice the red Porsche in mid-pack, lights ablaze.

Out at the front Mike Jordan had made the kind of start Jonathan Cocker could have wished for, and was challenging Kinch as they headed down into Copse. Holding the favoured line the Ferrari was able to master the corner and emerge on the far side with a narrow lead. Others too had made strong starts, including Cunningham in the Embassy Corvette and Steve Hyde in the Eclipse TVR, and by the time the jostling had settled down, Jonathan Cocker faced Stowe from eighth position. He was still in the thick of things for the remainder of that opening lap, but being monstered by Jonathan Coleman in the #41 RSR T400. As they twisted through the stadium complex the bronze TVR made a lunge for eighth and was through, leaving the GruppeM youngster to contemplate the most frustrating race start he’s probably ever endured in his short career.

Thankfully the gear selection problem had sorted itself, but if ninth place at the end of lap one seemed discouraging, worse was yet to come. Ricky Cole had been a witness to all the chopping and changing at the start, having qualified tenth, and was finding the Xero Corvette’s straight-line grunt very effective around Silverstone’s Grand Prix circuit. Coming through to complete the second lap, he too made his challenge stick as they powered out of Woodcote. Although Cocker fought back as they descended on Copse, the yellow C5 had the legs, and ninth was Cole’s, at least for the time being.

To say things settled down over the next few laps would be to simplify the tale. It was still frantic stuff throughout the top ten, even if the three leaders had eked out a modest advantage over Hyde in fourth, and he enjoyed a modest buffer over the battle for fifth between the two RSR TVRs and Godfrey Jones in the JWR Porsche, and Niarchos, slipping to eighth. Having seen the Corvette through, Jonathan was now finding firmer footing, and daylight was closing between the two once more. “I’d been struggling with the handling for the first few laps,” he explained later. “I was faster than the others through some sections, but the car felt as through it was about to throw itself sideways whenever I put the power down out of a corner.” Initially this appeared to unnerve him, but by the sixth lap his pace had upped significantly, and he was able to cut back at Cole, who was challenging Niarchos. It was at this point that Mike Jordan took to the pitlane with a misfiring flat-six, leaving Cunningham to take the fight to Kinch. Everyone else stepped up a place, except for Coleman in the #41 RSR TVR. His brief error, self-inflicted or otherwise, allowed Niarchos, Cole and Cocker to pile through in quick succession. Cocker was happy to regain what was now eighth, but less pleased to see the recovering TVR now filling his rear-view mirrors. On the very next lap, eight for those counting, it was Lawrence Tomlinson in the other RSR TVR who made the mistake, but his was far more spectacular. “If they were handing out points for style, he’d have won hands down. It was the most balletic spin I’ve ever seen!” said an admiring Cocker. “He just nailed it and spun back round. There was tyre smoke everywhere!” That was at the exit of Abbey, and by the time the pack crossed the line, the GruppeM Porsche was running seventh.

There was no doubting the pace of the TVRs, and like the Ferraris and Corvettes, they were making the most of Silverstone’s generous proportions. Within a couple of laps Coleman would get back ahead of the GruppeM Porsche. Ricky Cole, meanwhile, had been maintaining his assault on the #34 Ferrari and was taking some risks in his attempts to get ahead of the wily Niarchos. The amiable Canadian was adding significant width to the Ferrari at every opportunity, and Cole’s challenges at Woodcote, Copse and Stowe repeatedly failed. It would all end in tears on lap ten, when a big moment for the Corvette sent it tumbling down the order. Close to its blunt yellow tail, Jonathan was forced to swerve, and in doing so opened the door for Tomlinson, who gratefully snatched back seventh.

It had been a turbulent first twenty minutes, with more overtaking and incident than F1 sees in a season. After his troublesome start, Jonathan was finally into a groove that was allowing him to match, or better, the pace of those around him, but any chance of making up for lost ground was about to be denied him by the clock. It was actually perfect timing, with the leaders just beginning to encounter tail-end traffic, and Kinch was first to take to the pitlane at the end of lap twelve, seven seconds clear of subsequent leader Neil Cunningham. More significant, however, was the forty-three second margin he enjoyed over Jonathan Cocker, who would join him in the pitlane shortly afterwards. The driver change from the well-practiced GruppeM crew was as exemplary as ever, although getting there was slightly exasperating. Having been tucked tightly under Tomlinson’s rear wing for the previous two laps Cocker was close to the TVR as both cars rumbled down the pitlane. “He was so slow! I was on the limiter and still almost tripping over him.” Luckily the GruppeM garage was closer to the pit entry, and Cocker snicked neatly aside, braking quickly to a halt. Both cars were stationary for the same length of time, but having taken so much longer to travel the rest of the way down the pitlane to his appointed stop, Tomlinson cost Nigel Greensall the position as Sugden swept by and accelerated back into the race.

It would be almost a quarter of an hour before the confusion that always accompanies the driver-change “window” could unravel. During that time Neil Cunningham enjoyed his period of glory, leading the field for five laps before pitting at the end of number seventeen. Paula Cook, taking over from the Kiwi, emerged on track fifty yards ahead of Tim Sugden, who dispatched the Corvette unceremoniously within the lap. Godfrey Jones, leading briefly, passed the baton to his brother that same lap, and with their pitstop complete the true nature of the race could be revealed. It wasn’t quite as expected. It was no surprise to see Andrew Kirkaldy out at the front, but few could have predicted second place for Tim Sugden so soon. A combination of five quick laps and a slick pitstop had earned the GruppeM Porsche the best part of eight seconds, and with it almost as many places. Other teams were surprised to lose out to the red Porsche so quickly.

By comparison to all that had gone before, the remainder of the race was routine. “Boring” was how Tim Sugden described his view of it, and save an initial challenge from Nigel Greensall, the GruppeM driver was on his own for most of the time. He took just a handful of laps to ease clear of the TVR, and the Yorkshireman’s pace was such that he was actually circulating two seconds faster than Kirkaldy at this stage, an initial gap of twenty-four seconds narrowing encouragingly for a while. The team must have enlightened Kirkaldy of the situation because he promptly threw down the fastest lap of the race. In truth the Ferrari driver had so much in hand that he could afford to relax, and if 1:55.236 had proved a point, it didn’t need reiterating too frequently. Tim Sugden continued to plug away(!), consistently posting times in the low one-fifty-sixes, while Kirkaldy was content with fifty-sevens and eights, punctuated by the occasional quick one for good measure.

Elsewhere, there was still racing to be had, and incident too. Two laps after taking over from Godfrey, David Jones was an innocent passenger when the #44 Porsche’s rear suspension failed on the run down to Vale. A short while later, having been passed by Nigel Greensall, Paula Cook’s race took a further turn for the worse when she and Tim Mullen came close at the entrance to Stowe. Was there contact? Whatever, Paula spun and Mullen took to the grass, but he regained control the quicker and was through into fourth. Two laps later it was Greensall’s turn to pirouette at Stowe, offering Mullen an opening into third. He took it before the end of the 23rd lap.

For the best part of ten minutes the gap between Kirkaldy and Sugden had stood remarkably constant at 25 or 26 seconds, fluctuating a little with traffic. When three quick laps from the Scot coincided with a brief hold-up for Sugden, detained by a less than co-operative Ni Amorim in the dailysportscar.com Cup class-winning DRM Ferrari, the gap was suddenly thirty seconds. “Oh, Ni wasn’t really problem,” insisted a charitable Sugden afterwards, happy to have clinched second place at the flag. “Cars like that have a shining, flashing beacon on the roof saying ‘Beware!’ I half knew he was going to turn in on me even before it happened.”

There was an emotional mixture of relief and celebration coursing through the GruppeM team members as they congregated beneath the podium a short while later. In all honesty, second had seemed an unlikely result forty minutes beforehand, yet circumstances had contrived to give Jonathan Cocker and Tim Sugden another valuable shove up the championship ladder. Credit for that rests with the team’s exceptional pitwork and Suggy’s blast through the driver-change window, both elements accounting for half a dozen places in as many laps. The significance wasn’t lost on the winners, however. “There’s a lot more in [the car] than that!” claimed an exhilarated Kirkaldy, while a more pragmatic Kinch acknowledged the task still facing them if Scuderia Ecosse is to maintain hopes of wresting the title: “We need to win every race, and hope that GruppeM don’t come second!” This time they had, but what would happen in race two?

Race 2

If Tim Sugden thought Race One was boring, then Sunday’s second race was a very different kettle of fish. For one thing he’d be taking the rolling start, for another it would rain, and to round off everything perfectly, GruppeM Racing would record a resounding victory, thanks to an inspired tyre choice and an awesome drive from Master Cocker.

If the youngster had felt disappointed by his morning’s performance – and he did, even though the start-line hiccup was none of his doing – then he grasped the opportunity to shine beneath the afternoon clouds, with a dominant stint that highlighted his talent and belied his years. He couldn’t have done that, of course, without a blistering first half-hour from Tim Sugden and a brilliant tactical decision from the pitwall, but it was still the kind of run one expects of a champion-in-waiting.

In many respects GruppeM counted themselves fortunate to emerge with a satisfying second in the day’s earlier race. “There’s nothing particularly wrong with the car,” insisted Tim Sugden. “The track’s just very slippery, and that’s compounding a [handling] problem we have with the car. Generally, we just don’t have enough grip, and the car’s very sensitive to any throttle input. The problem seems singular to this weekend and it’s hard to pinpoint. The 60 kilos [success ballast] doesn’t help, but the Ferrari’s got the same penalty, so we can’t blame that. Mind you, it doesn’t appear to affect them in quite the same way!” With this in mind, Sugden actually relished the prospect of a wet race, which might favour the Porsche, but the skies were relatively clear and the track dry when the cars headed out onto the grid at five o’clock. “Rain is always good for us,” smiled Kenny Chen, searching the skies. “It’s a great leveller.”

Red was the dominant colour at the head of the field as the grid lined up beneath the Fosters Bridge; the two scarlet Scuderia Ecosse Ferraris dominating the front row, backed by Tim Sugden in the GruppeM Porsche and Nigel Greensall’s red-bronze TVR alongside. The second RSR TVR #41, which had played such an entertaining part in Jonathan Cocker’s morning, would not be repeating that role in Race Two, with Rob Croydon already languishing in the pitlane with a misfire, although still counted as one of twenty-three starters.

The green-flag lap set the tone for what looked certain to be a compelling race. The two SE Ferraris hared off into the distance, opening up a huge gap over Tim Sugden, who deliberately held the rest of the field in check. By the time they rounded Club, Kirkaldy and Mullen must have wondered if they were going to be racing alone, but that shrewd campaigner Sugden knew what he was about. While the Ferraris’ tyres would be cooling over the final half-mile as they eased back, he floored the throttle and let loose the pack, making a fast run through Abbey and Bridge to arrive on their tails through the complex; tyres sticky and ready for the off.

The tactic must have worked. As Kirkaldy’s 360 wailed across the line to start another hour’s racing, Tim Sugden was already alongside Mullen on the run towards Copse. It was edge-of-the-knife stuff through the corner, with Mullen holding the wider line, but unable to shake off the tenacious Yorkshireman. It was hard, but it was fair, and by the time the trio emerged along Hangar Straight the position was no longer in doubt. Sugden was second and chasing Kirkaldy through Vale and Club, while Greensall was already showing Mullen the TVR’s nose at every opportunity. By the end of that opening lap there was less than a heartbeat between the two leaders, but a gap of almost two seconds had already appeared to Mullen and Greensall. The race looked set for a titanic struggle between Ferrari and Porsche, Kirkaldy and Sugden, and by the end of the second lap that scenario was reinforced – still nothing between these two, but a yawning canyon appearing between Sugden and the rest of the pack. That, however, was about to take a dramatic turn.

Towards the back of the field Colin Broster was driving the #70 ABG Porsche tentatively down the pitlane, unable to see where he was going. His windscreen was coated with a thick film of oil, but where had it come from? The ‘La Squadra’ Lamborghini was following him and moving very slowly. Elsewhere the Gavan Kershaw Lotus, fitted with a replacement engine following problems in the earlier race, was also covered in oil, but still running strongly. The oil flags were out at Bridge, but that didn’t prevent the Eclipse TVR #60 taking to the gravel at Priory, and a safety car seemed inevitable.

The two leaders hadn’t given any indication that they wanted to slow down. “We both nearly went off so many times,” grinned Suggy later. “It was such a shame when they Safety Car’d it really, ‘cos we were having such fun!” The sight of the SC boards and yellow flags around the circuit eventually reined them in, although not before they’d completed another hell-for-leather lap. They were long gone from Copse before the Course Car finally appeared, picking up Martin Short’s Noble from thirteenth on lap three. Kershaw, meanwhile, was being shown the accusatory finger, the black and orange flag calling the diminutive Lotus into the pitlane for a check up. There’d be red faces all round soon enough; embarrassment from the officials when it became clear that the rear-engined Elise had oil across its front, and anger from a rightly indignant Kershaw for having his race pointlessly ruined. The true culprit, already in the pits, was the Lamborghini Diablo, the oily contents of its engine already liberally distributed round half the track.

At the sight of the safety car, Andrew Kirkaldy’s heart must have sunk. This was the last thing he or Nathan Kinch wanted. Faced by the prospect of an extra 20-second pitstop penalty during the driver-change, they relied upon a fast first stint to establish a leading buffer, but as the field bunched up, that hope evaporated.

Four laps into the race and fate had another twist in store. It started to rain. It was only light at first, and localised, but the already-slippery nature of the Silverstone surface was being made doubly glacial by the unhappy mix of both oil and water. By lap five, still under the safety car, the rain was getting heavier. Cement was being dusted through the Complex, so the marshals were still on the track and it was as yet unsafe to release Martin Short and the rest of the tail enders from behind the Course Car, although doing so was essential so that the leaders could be collected before the restart. Finally, half way through the sixth lap, the lime-green Noble and half a dozen colleagues were waved through, and scampered away in their attempts to catch the tail of the queue before the restart. They’d have no chance. In a bizarre and, for this season at least, an oft-repeated example of incompetence, they were no sooner out of sight than the Audi’s flashing lights were extinguished, heralding an imminent restart.

When Andrew Kirkaldy and Tim Sugden came through Woodcote to begin lap seven and the restart, the whole complexion of the race had changed. The track was now wet and exceedingly slippery, the cars were all still on slicks, and Kirkaldy’s lead was a mere two-tenths. Ten minutes or more remained before the pitlane “window” opened and teams could make their driver changes, so what could happen in the meantime? It could rain some more, of course, although to complicate the issue, the sun was shining at Club. Oh to be in England when summer comes!

Let loose, the pack thundered down the main straight, rooster tails of spray adding to each driver’s desire to be first out of Copse, clear-visioned and leading. Unexpectedly, it was Nigel Greensall in the RSR Tuscan who was bravest of all, tucking down the inside through Copse and carrying them three-abreast into Becketts. The bronze TVR hit the front mid-Chapel, and by the time they arrived on Hanger Straight was already a clear leader over Kirkaldy in second, Mullen third and Sugden fourth. Sugden tried a pass on Mullen through Vale, but wisely backed off as they scrambled through the tight left-right. “It was obviously very slippery and very difficult, and it became a case of just how far you were prepared to stick your neck out and go for it,” he said. Greensall evidently had a huge performance advantage and was pulling away easily, but there was a mad scramble behind him. Did Kirkaldy have a problem? Mullen was suddenly second, and Sugden then out-gunned Kirkaldy from the exit of Woodcote to start lap eight from third.

Greensall had found four seconds in a single lap, while Pearce had come up from nowhere in the Mosler to be a strong contender in fifth, thanks to the demise of Mark Sumpter’s JWR Porsche. All was not yet settled at the front, however, and as the rain eased slightly, Kirkaldy snatched third back from Sugden, who was actually content to hang onto the Ferrari’s tail at this stage. ““I stayed with Andrew, but for the sake of the championship decided that keeping him in sight was enough.” Greensall’s charge continued unchecked, the #40 TVR relishing the conditions and consistently two or three seconds a lap quicker than anyone else – except, perhaps, for Martin Short in the Noble, who was quicker still. Where might he have been had the officials not got it all so woefully wrong?

Ten laps into the race and Greensall’s lead was a whopping 8.6 seconds over Mullen, then a further five seconds stood between him and the neck-and-neck Kirkaldy-Sugden duel, with Pearce a fine fifth. “The TVR was incredible in the rain,” acknowledged Sugden. “We saw that earlier in the year at Donington. He had so much balance and grip; he just went!” The rain had eased off towards the end of the next lap, but it would still be change-your-partners time all over again. Pearce, nibbling away at Sugden’s heels, had got out of shape coming under Bridge and headed straight into the gravel. Yellow flags for the Mosler soon became a second Safety Car period. Just as Kirkaldy had suffered before him, all Greensall’s hard work would be for nothing as the leaders bunched up once more behind the Audi. Out in the pitlane teams were readying themselves for the driver change, and GruppeM had a fresh set of tyres waiting.

First to stop was Paula Cook in the Embassy Corvette and, significantly, Neil Cunningham headed back out still sporting slicks. A lap later just about everyone else streamed down the pitlane, Tim Sugden included. With the mandatory forty-five second pause there’s plenty of time to change tyres as well as drivers, and GruppeM was quick to do so. While the rain may have eased, there were dark clouds looming once again, and Tim Sugden’s reports from the track had warned of damp patches and slippery conditions. Fitting Jonathan Cocker’s car with a full set of Intermediates appeared to be a logical decision. Strange, then, that so few others followed suit, although it later transpired that Kirkaldy and Kinch had wanted to, but their car’s airjacks failed at the critical moment.

It didn’t take long to recover the Mosler, and the restart came at the end of the next lap with the two Corvettes, earliest to pit, crossing the line almost side by side, but with Godfrey Jones the true leader almost a lap ahead – such is the confusion often instilled by the Safety Car! More confusion was created by the timing screens, which initially showed Jonathan Cocker as being a lap down on Jones, while reality placed him fourth and just a few yards behind the black and silver GT3 RS #44. A stunning second was Marco Attard in the Damax Ferrari, while third was Lawrence Tomlinson in Greensall’s TVR. His chance to shine was brief. About to overtake one of the tail-enders, the backmarker spun directly in front of the TVR, forcing Tomlinson to swerve and hit the barriers. That left Cocker with only Attard between himself and the leader, and passing the Cup-class 360 was a matter of moments.

When the dicing duo came through to begin their fifteenth lap it was evident that GruppeM’s tyre choice had been the right one. Godfrey Jones may have exited Woodcote in front, but by the time they crossed the line Cocker was already alongside, easing comfortably ahead on the run down to Copse. Lapping nearly ten seconds faster than almost everyone else, Cocker was soon romping away into the distance, setting two-fifteens to a race average twenty-four. Critically, close rival Nathan Kinch was struggling in sixth place, over a minute behind and lapping in the low 2:27s.

Cocker was going faster with every lap, and his times had dropped to a regular two-twelve before the eighteenth had passed. With fifteen minutes of the race remaining the GruppeM lead stood at 30 seconds, but signs of a dry line were starting to appear around the circuit. The sun was actually shining over Stowe, despite light drizzle nearer the pits, but Cocker was splashing through the puddles wherever he could to maintain his tyres, and it was working. His times were consistently in the low teens and, if anything, he could afford to slow. So too, it seemed, could Chris Niarchos in the #34 Ferrari, who visibly eased down the main straight on lap twenty to allow team-mate Nathan Kinch through into fifth, still ninety seconds adrift of Cocker’s lead.

Just a brace of laps remained for Jonathan Cocker, and if conditions were starting to favour slicks once more, he had more than enough in hand. Settling back as he took the chequered flag, he swept up beneath the pitwall to acknowledge the efforts of his team. He’d driven a blinding stint, but true recognition had to go to whoever made the decision to switch to Intermediates. “The best thing was the tyre choice,” agreed Sugden in the de-brief. “‘Doc’ and Adam – OK, Kenny apparently – chose the Inters, and that was what made all the difference.” Clearly the team boss was intent on gleaning some credit! The team had also been in radio contact with Tim throughout his stint, checking on the weather and seeking his advice, so just about everyone in the squad could take a bow after this one. “We’ve got twenty eight trophies already this season,” enthused Mr Chen, “but I still want to fill up the whole world!” His delight is infectious and his passion clearly inspires the team. “There’s only one winner, and that’s what matters,” he added. “I feel disappointed when we finish second. We now need to look forward to the next two races, and repeat what we did last year. It would be good to wrap it up at Thruxton, and that’s do-able, I think.” Jonathan Cocker, who’ll be eighteen by then, was evidently pleased by the outcome of the day’s second race. “Today we’ve had a second and a win, and that’s been brilliant. We’ve extended our lead in the championship and taken more points out of the others. I’m delighted.”