Trackspeed – British GT Brands Hatch – 25 / 26 August 2006
Champions – Who Though?

For the second time this season, Trackspeed brought four cars to a British GT round - the usual three GTC 996s and, for the second time, David Ashburn’s GT3 Porsche 997. On this occasion, the car’s owner would be behind the wheel of the GT3, and keeping an interested eye on how his young team’s title aspirations would pan out over the course of the weekend.

#3 Ryan Hooker/Phil Keen & #5 Matt Allison/Jonny Lang

For the first time in a long while, Ryan Hooker had the luxury of not having to introduce himself to a new team mate, as Phil Keen renewed the partnership of a fortnight earlier. There was one clear goal for this pairing, and that was to gain ground on the sister car of Matt Allison and Jonny Lang in the race for the GTC title. Six points was the deficit after Rockingham and Hooker knew that there was no room for error.

With untimed testing going very well for Trackspeed in dry conditions on the Friday at the Kent circuit, the team sensibly decided that there was no point in pushing things during the Saturday free practice session; “The hard work was done yesterday,” said Piers Masarati. Thus it was that a fastest lap of 1:36.112 for #5 and a 1:37.306 for #3 - almost three seconds slower than the #96 RPM Porsche - raised not so much as an eyebrow in the awning. All four drivers were comfortable and the cars were good.

Matt Allison knew clearly what the task in hand was going to be; “We’ve just got to beat Ryan,” said the Norwich driver. “We saw the damage to the Aston when that crashed yesterday and we don’t want that to be us if we pushed too hard.

“We can theoretically win it this weekend – we need four points more than Ryan and we’re looking to get the job done. That way, we can go to Silverstone for the last race and enjoy it.”

By the time Ryan Hooker and Jonny Lang were in the drivers’ seats and waiting for the 15 minute qualifying session to begin, the clouds had grown menacing over the Kent track and rain was beginning to fall. Piers Masarati decided to put both the #3 and #5 cars onto intermediates and that proved to be the right decision.

The rain intensified even as the session started and Hooker got to work straight away. His first flying lap was a 1:43.701 and he immediately followed this up with an improvement to 1:43.504. That was as fast as he would go, because the rain was now so heavy that spray was being thrown up by the GT field and the inters had lost their advantage; but Hooker’s first lap had been enough to secure pole position for the first race - and he had struck the first blow of the weekend in the fight for the driver’s title. Jonny Lang had come very close to matching Ryan Hooker’s times, but ultimately fell three tenths short and would start second. “I was conscious that I had to get a quick one in early on,” said Lang, “but Ryan just pipped me.”

It was clearly going to be a close fought contest later in the day. ”It’ll be a great race to watch,” predicted Lang, “but I’m going to hate it!” The Barrow in Furness driver at least had the consolation of racing on the Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit for the first time; “It’s a fantastic circuit,” he enthused, “and our car is handling better here than on most weekends.”

The rain had stopped by the end of the first session, and both Phil Keen and Matt Allison would stay on inters for their qualifying attempts. This second session would prove to much more dramatic than the earlier one had been.

In contrast to the first session, the early advantage would lie with those cars running on full wets, so Keen found himself in only sixth place after his first fast lap. Matt Allison meanwhile was nowhere to be seen; floundering around near the bottom of the time sheets and giving every indication of having made a disastrous tyre choice. But as the track began to dry, the balance of power began to shift. Keen rose to fourth and then second (by just two hundredths) before improving to 1:42.985 and claiming provisional pole.

Thankfully, Matt Allison was also improving and began to rise up the field in leaps and bounds. With less than two minutes remaining, he went five hundredths quicker. He then followed this up with a mighty 1:42.060 and seemed to have secured the top position.

Keen, however, wasn’t going to let the matter lie and steeled himself for one last attempt. He gave himself space and went for it.

His effort was a mighty one, but the timing screens showed that his attempt had fallen eleven hundredths of a second short, and he would line up alongside Allison in second place.

Ryan Hooker was pleased with proceedings so far over the weekend and had yet more good news to relate; “We’ve finally found the cause of the electrical problems that have been plaguing us since Pau,” he related. “The team have run back to back ECU tests and identified the problem. We’ve got a new ECU now, but we’ve not had a chance to fine tune it; it’s good enough though.”

Hooker’s good mood was not however to last very far into the first race. Despite starting from pole on a dry track, “I was dismayed to find the car develop a terrible understeer on only the third lap,” explained the driver. By this time he had already lost the lead in a very hectic first couple of laps to a determined Jonny Lang, but the handling problems badly hampered his chances of fighting back.

Lang hung on to the lead for seven laps, before Bradley Ellis found a way past at Hawthorns in the #96 RPM Porsche. He began to drop away from Ellis, but not by a huge margin and only a flying Team Tiger Marcos Mantis was able to stop him reaching the pit window still in second place; the orange car passing the Porsche one lap before Lang stopped.

Unable to extract the maximum performance from his own car, Ryan Hooker had also earlier fallen back, behind both the #96 RPM Porsche and the charging #81 Team Tiger Marcos Mantis (above). Despite this, the car was by no means out of contention and Phil Keen still had plenty of time to see what he could do about recovering lost ground.

There is always confusion during the pitstop window, but normally the situation clears soon after the last stops to give a largely expected running order. This time however, heads were being scratched in the pitlane, in the media room and in the commentary box. Somehow – and with none of the frontrunners having encountered problems at their stops – Phil Keen was leading the race! Nobody could work out how, but there he was.

Matt Allison on the other hand was where he was expected to be after the pit stops – right behind Alex Mortimer in the #96 RPM Porsche, but obviously third instead of second. Allison’s stint would prove to be a frustrating one, with the grip levels disappearing and obviously hampering his progress.

Unfortunately for Keen, the understeer was still very much present in the car, as attested to by the pursuing Mortimer; “I could see Phil sliding around every corner – he obviously had no grip at all!” Mortimer took advantage and went by into the lead. But the RPM Porsche wasn’t destined to pull out a big lead, and as its driver began to worry about strange noises coming from the gearbox, Keen began to close the gap once more.

As the laps rolled by and the race neared its conclusion, Keen came ever closer; but with the gap down to below three seconds, the Trackspeed driver suddenly found two RPM Porsches up ahead. Matt Griffin was now pedalling the #17 Porsche and doing so considerably faster than his co-driver. This meant that he was able to lap at the leaders’ pace but was a lap down. He thus made it very difficult for Keen to get by (prompting Piers Masarati to have a word with the race officials) and when he finally did, just two minutes were left.

As the cars crossed the line at the end of that lap, 2.2 seconds was the gap and Keen was quicker. Unfortunately for him, the GT2 race winning Ferrari backed off and took the chequered flag just after the 60 minutes were up. This meant that Keen would only have one lap left to close the gap.

As the cars headed over the rise at Surtees, it would be another minute before they came back into view; and when they came through Clearways, the white Porsche still led. Keen had halved the gap, but had run out of laps. As if to rub things in, the RPM Porsche’s gearbox then exploded as the car crossed the line to take the win.

It had been a fine try by Phil Keen, and Ryan Hooker had gained two points on his rivals, Matt Allison bringing the #5 home in a relatively distant third place. The lap charts showed that Allison was losing at least half a second a lap to Phil Keen and that is far from an accurate representation of his normal pace.

The weather was altogether more pleasant on the Sunday than had been the case the day before and there were many sponsors, friends and fans on hand to occupy the team before the second race of the weekend began. Ryan Hooker was not idle, being one of the MSV drivers giving competition winners trips around the circuit in a (non-Trackspeed) Porsche during the lunch break.

The serious business began an hour or so later and this time Phil Keen and Matt Allison would start.

Once again it was action all the way, with Keen harassing Matt Allison all the way; but he was unable to get by in the early laps. His attempts were impeded by a GT3 Aston Martin on lap three, but before he could try again the safety car was on track.

Three laps later, the race resumed in earnest and Keen tried again, but with similar results. Then the #3 was itself passed for position by the Marcos Mantis.

On the next lap, however, with the Mantis through and into the lead, Keen tried again to get past Allison at Clearways. Unfortunately, there was contact between the two yellow Porsches and the #5 fell back.

Phil Keen didn’t have long to reflect on this incident, because the leading Team Tiger Mantis had a huge off at Westfield and brought the safety car out for a second time. With the earlier delay, the pit window was now open and Keen dived for the pits instantly.

For the second race in succession, the #3 resumed in the lead and Ryan Hooker stayed out in front when the safety car pitted.

The stop for the #5 shortly afterwards was anything but straight forward. Just as the car was being waved away, it was clearly reluctant to rejoin and a big plume of black smoke sent several Trackspeed mechanics quickly to the back end. The smoke was followed immediately by a big flame and the car moved backwards a few inches. But just as it looked as though the car was in big trouble, Jonny Lang found first and set off at normal pace. With the safety car still circulating, the effects of the delay would be minimised.

Tom Ferrier tried for the lead at the restart, but Ryan Hooker resisted and looked to have repelled the #23 Motorbase Porsche’s advances as the white and red car began to fall back. Hooker held on to his small lead and was looking comfortable.

But fate intervened again and a beached Ferrari brought out the safety car for a third time, bunching the field up once more. This gave Ellis renewed vigour and the RPM driver took first Ferrier and then the lead with a bold move at Druids with just five minutes remaining. But on the next lap he tried the same move on a GT3 Aston and got it wrong; hitting the green car and losing three places.

Hooker was now back in the lead, but had Tom Ferrier for company again. Unfortunately, the earlier collision between the two Trackspeed Porsches had affected the steering on the #3 and it was getting difficult to turn in to corners properly. On the last lap at Westfield, the bumpy track meant that the yellow car drifted just that little bit wide and Ferrier dived up the inside. Hooker tried to hang on, but as the cars crossed the line, Ferrier was a car’s length in front.

Ryan Hooker was understandably upset at losing the win so close to the end; “I’m really annoyed at losing the lead like that,” he began. “Had it been any other lap, I wouldn’t have minded so much, but it was the last lap. We basically defended for half an hour and I was just driving as hard as I could.”

But the drama wasn’t over.

Jonny Lang brought the #5 home in a disappointing fifth place and the resulting allocation of points meant that Hooker, Lang and Allison would all leave Kent with 80 points apiece. However, news quickly filtered through of a protest; and it was quickly confirmed as having been made by Matt Allison, against Phil Keen, and related to their earlier clash.

The stewards reviewed the evidence and ruled that the incident had been avoidable, thus upholding the protest. Keen and Hooker were awarded an eight second penalty and were demoted to fifth place as a result; Lang and Allison simultaneously rising to fourth. Keen lodged an appeal, the hearing of which will be carried out at Silverstone at the final round. So, dependant on the outcome, the points gap will be either zero or five points in favour of the #5 crew.

David Ashburn began to ponder whether he should think about building a wall in the awning at Silverstone to keep the two cars apart, and then thanked his lucky stars that he would be racing at Brands in the Carrera Cup while the final act of this dramatic championship is played out.

#4 Matt Harris

With Miles Hulford unable to attend the Brands round due to personal commitments, Matt Harris found himself being able to play with all the toys, and he was making the most of the opportunity; “It’s going really well,” he smiled on Saturday morning. “I got all of the testing time yesterday and I get all the seat time today and tomorrow. Miles not being here also means that the guys can set the car up just for me so I get it as I like it, whereas normally it is a compromise between what is best for the two of us.”

After the gearbox problems at Rockingham a fortnight earlier, the #4 would be running with an H-pattern ‘box and a missed gear was enough to pitch the Porsche into the gravel during free practice. Despite this mishap, Harris too was enjoying the Brands GP experience; “The back of the circuit is as close as you can get in the UK to the Nordschleife,” he smiled. “At times it feels like you’re completely alone. It’s a fast, flowing circuit and I love it.

“Mind you, I certainly wouldn’t want to crash here!”

In contrast to his team mates, the #4 Trackspeed Porsche was to take part in both qualifying session on full wets, as opposed to the inters sported by the others. This meant that he was denied the opportunity to exploit the almost-dry conditions at the start. By the time his wets began to come into their own, the track was a busy place and he didn’t get the opportunity to get in a really fast lap before the 15 minutes were up. His best time of 1:45.837 was still good enough for fifth on the grid and that was no disgrace.

The second session was even better. With the track still wet, he did what Ryan Hooker had done earlier and got in a fast one at the start before the circuit began to dry. He then immediately went quicker again and looked as though he may well hang on for his first BGT pole position. Unfortunately for him, the conditions suited his team mates’ Avon inters perfectly near to the end of the session and both Phil Keen and Matt Allison went faster.

Again, third place was highly commendable, but Harris was disappointed; “I really wanted to stay at the top,” he said. “I pushed really hard, but they got the better of me at the end.”

It transpired that first gear had started to become problematic during qualifying and so the decision was taken to replace the clutch and gearbox before the afternoon’s race. The repairs were completed with plenty of time to spare and an untroubled Harris sat on the Brands Hatch grid waiting for the race to start at 16:20.

The first few laps of his race were great to watch. Harris made an excellent start and was up into fourth place (at the expense of Tom Ferrier’s #23 Motorbase Porsche) by the end of the first lap. He then set about challenging Ryan Hooker for third place. With Ferrier catching up once more the gap from third to fifth was less than a second. But just as Hooker appeared to be within his grasp, Harris missed a gear on the H-pattern and spun; “I was lining up Ryan, but dropped it into first instead of third at Westfield and spun.”

He regained control and was able to rejoin without any damage being incurred, but the 20 seconds that the spin had cost him meant that he had lost several places.

His pace was soon back on a par with the lead cars, but with only tenths per lap separating his times from theirs, it was evident that any recovery would be difficult. Nor was it helped by the BGT pit stop rules, which dictate that any sole drivers must spend 60 seconds stationary, as opposed to 45 seconds for those cars with two drivers. This extra penalty made the task all but impossible.

But Harris pressed on and his determination was rewarded with a sixth place at the finish.

Sunday saw better weather, but a severe downturn in the young driver’s (and the car’s) fortunes.

Just four laps into the race, “I drifted wide at the exit to Surtees, which I normally do anyway to get the best run on to Pilgrim’s, but hit the kerb in the wrong way,” recalled Harris later. “The car spun and hit the wall, but then bounced back across the track where I was hit by the Ascari and that sent me back into the wall.”

Fortunately, Matt Harris walked away with just a headache, but the car had suffered major damage on three of its four quarters and Piers Masarati would once again be phoning his insurance broker after the race.

The Harris/Hulford partnership will be reunited for the final time this season at Silverstone in September, with the team manager hinting that their appearance may well take place in a different type of Porsche.

#9 David Ashburn/ Danny Watts

“Danny is under strict instructions to lap one and a half seconds faster than me, or else he’s sacked!”

It is always a pleasure to see David Ashburn at the track and the larger-than-life driver was on fine form at Brands Hatch. But what had brought him back to the series? “Well, I didn’t have a Carrera Cup race this weekend and Danny and I had intended to race together earlier in the season, so this was the perfect opportunity.”

The GT3 field at this round consisted of just five cars but four different marques for the first time (the others being Aston Martin, Lotus and Ascari) and so, while the race may be just a one-off for the Trackspeed drivers, this may well have been a possible glimpse into the future of the BGT.

Had qualifying taken place in dry conditions, the ever-impressive Danny Watts was predicting that, “I should be able to drop it into the 1:32s without any trouble.” As it turned out, he wasn’t afforded the opportunity; but given that he achieved a 1:33.916 in the Sunday race and having been spectacular in qualifying a 996 at Pau, there is little doubt that he could have achieved this.

David Ashburn may well be many years Watts’ senior, but he can still pedal a Porsche mighty quickly. In Saturday’s race, he was running comfortably in seventh overall and third in class behind the Barwell DBRS9 of Jonathan Cocker and the Damax Ascari KZ1 of Richard Hay. When Ashburn pitted, he was still in third and had managed to avoid any incident.

Watts took over and set about the two cars up ahead. He closed down on the Ascari, now in the hands of Richard Stanton, by a second a lap until he was past and into second place with a quarter of the race to go. Leo Machitski’s Aston Martin was, however, too far down the road even for Watts to catch and the white Porsche came home a comfortable second.

With David Ashburn failing to notice that Danny Watts’ fastest lap in the race had been just 0.670s quicker than his own best and thus failing to terminate his contract, the pair returned to contest Sunday’s race in front of a good crowd.

The Sunday race was notable for several incidents - the first of which removed the Ascari from the running after the collision with Matt Harris’s GTC Porsche – but also for the deployment on three occasions of the safety car. Several cars benefited from these SC periods, but not the #9.

With Danny Watts having once again established the Porsche in second place in GT3, each safety car eradicated any advantage built up, and on the third occasion, the Lotus Exige of Sam Blogg was able to catch and subsequently pass David Ashburn. As incident followed incident in this dramatic race, Ashburn stayed out of trouble and came home to his and Watt’s second podium of the weekend.

Conclusion

The Brands Hatch meeting had certainly proven to be a tense, and expensive, weekend for Trackspeed. But amidst the drama, there were successes to be celebrated. Almost unnoticed, the team claimed the GTC Teams Championship on the Saturday and, whatever happens at Silverstone, the title is guaranteed to end up with at least one Trackspeed driver.

Ryan Hooker, Matt Allison and Jonny Lang may not be looking forward to the final two-hour race of the season, but the contest promises to be a dramatic one. May the best car win!