British GT – Rockingham – Saturday Morning
Significant Numbers

GTO Class

Eighteen may not have been terribly significant (the number of entrants this week), but 35, 50 and seven were: those were respectively the ballast in kilos carried by the Eclipse TVR and the Rollcentre Mosler, and the number of out laps (and in laps) completed by Martin Short in the #33 car.

“We’re paying the penalty for doing Spa. We’re still chasing the set-up.” Attention at each visit was focused on shock absorber settings, and only in the last three or four minutes did Short go for a time. His first flying lap was a 1:39.5, followed immediately by a 1:39.365. Unfortunately, Shaun Balfe was following him round, and having had Jamie Derbyshire quickest for most of the session in the same car, Balfe then found another second to set the only 1:38 – a 1:38.166.

John Griffiths at Eclipse fully expected the pole this afternoon to be a 1:36 something. The Eclipse TVR felt good, with plenty of power, but he didn’t think Piers Johnson would get near that. Piers’ best this morning was sixth, a 1:40.126.

Colin Blower was going very well almost immediately, with an early 1:41, which Jay Shepherd improved to a 1:39.670, third fastest. Fourth was Steve Hyde, having lost part of the session having the battery changed on the CDL TVR, Hyde confessing to “loving the fast corners, and there’s enough of them here.”

Graeme Mundy was fifth for Peninsula, the last man under 1:40. Dan Eagling went well to set a 1:40.866 in the Mantis, quicker than the Masters Ultima - which had a very good front end but felt nervous at the back. A change of rear compound was expected to do the trick.

Ricky Cole was the only man to go out in the Xero Corvette, but although Dave Beecroft was happy with his times, he was frustrated to have to replace the clutch before qualifying, after Cole went off avoiding the V6 Clio - and the plates suffered. And those were the nine GTO runners.

Cup Class

We’re expecting 35,000 spectators here on Sunday, so would Saturday morning provide any clues as to what can the 34,900 who were absent on the Saturday expect for the Cup race?

All nine Cup entries were in the pitlane at the start of the session and all set off without any problems. As expected, Patrick Pearce immediately took the #76 Porsche GT3 to the head of the Cup timesheet, followed by Liz Halliday in the #77 Gruppe M Tech 9 sister car. Liz had a minor spin at the gloriously named Pif Paf early in the session, but explained that she was still on a learning curve with this car. “I sat in the car on Friday and knew straight away that it was very different from Nick Staveley’s, that I drove at Oulton. It is much sharper on the throttle and is much stiffer – a set-up I prefer. I suppose it’s the difference between a 2002-spec car and an older model.” Liz handed over the car to Tom Shrimpton, who was on an even steeper learning curve, “It’s a new car, a new circuit – I have driven here before but on a different track-configuration, so I know about three corners – and a new co-driver. The Porsche is very different to the Marcos.”

The International Circuit being used at Rockingham this year is shorter than that used in the two previous visits, so even those drivers who had been here before were having to learn something new.

At the opposite end of the Cup field to the Porsches was the Clio of the returning Atlanta Motorsport team. According to team manager Ben Owen, the car running at Rockingham was “Evo 2 of 3.” He went on to explain what was different about this car. “The bodywork, chassis, engine, shocks and various other things. Basically this car is as far from the original as it can be and still be called a Clio!” So why was the car so slow in the warm-up (a 1:53.091 being its best lap, slowest in the field)? “Well, because the car was on quarter-throttle! The car was built in six days. The engine arrived on Thursday last week, the gearbox arrived on Monday and we have had to combine two ECUs into one as the new one hasn’t turned up yet. Also, we’ve had to ditch the fly-by-wire throttle and go back to cable because parts aren’t available yet. Before we arrived here, the car ran for thirty minutes only at Donington.” Bravo to the team for getting the car to this race. When can we expect to see Evo 3? “Possibly at Brands Hatch. Otherwise, we’ll develop the car over the winter ready for next year. This was always intended to be a development year.” The Clio is being pedalled at Rockingham by regular driver Enzo Mucci and series debutante Rob Durrant.

The main challenge to the Porsches is likely to come once more from the two Morgans. Neil Cunningham is sharing the #66 Aero 8 with Henry Taylor, while Keith Ahlers and Rob Wells return in the #46 Team Aero version. Ahlers is hoping that this weekend will see an end to the bad luck experienced at the previous two rounds. “We lost an engine at Castle Combe and didn’t race. We had that fixed for Oulton Park, but a £20 part failed in the gearbox there and we missed that race as well. So far, it’s looking good for here,” explained Keith. Their Aero 8 is sporting extra ventilation for this race. “The car acts as a real heat sink from the engine with all that aluminium. Even the road car gets very hot after sitting in the sun for 15 minutes. We’re making sure we get as much fresh air into the cockpit as possible for this weekend.”

After about 20 minutes, the Richard Thorne Morgan was splitting the Tech 9 Porsches, in the hands of Neil Cunningham, but Tom Shrimpton reclaimed second near the end of the session, the youngster getting faster with every lap. On his penultimate lap, a slowing Mosler scuppered his chances of setting a faster time than his final 1:45.207. This was nearly two seconds slower than the #76 of Patrick Pearce and Matt Griffin, but as we have learnt, Tom and Liz still have much to learn about the car.

The rest of the Cup runners had an uneventful session. The yellow Golf was the fastest of the non-Morgans, followed by the Mantis of ISL Motorsport. The Orange Marcos broke its diff-mountings on Friday but had been repaired overnight. The Virgo Motorsport Ferrari 360 was next up on its debut, with the Grifo Corse Elise coming home ahead of the Clio.

On this evidence, Pearce and Griffin have pole in the bag. How close behind will the others be in the afternoon’s hot and sunny qualifying?
MC & MH