British GT – Spa-Francorchamps – Warm Up & Pre-Race News
Whatever The Weather Will Do
A lack of laps, a lack of dry laps, uncertainty over what the weather will do (complicated by some teams running five wheel nuts on each wheel) – the story was much the same up and down the pit lane this morning.

There was a nasty surprise for Gareth Evans in the #127 CDL TVR in the dry, morning warm-up though, as the steering on the T400R gave up the ghost in the worst possible place: “I went through the left-hander into Eau Rouge and then went to turn right and the car just wouldn’t turn.” Evans gathered it all up and made it back to the pits, the hard-pressed CDL crew then setting to work replacing the steering rack and pump, straight after an engine change last night.

It’s been a taxing first season of GT racing for CDL

“No-one can say this is Shorty’s old car anymore, there’s barely a single part we haven’t changed apart from the dashboard and the seat!” reckoned Team Owner Bert Taylor.

Graham Nash was in better spirits this morning after a fresh engine for the 911 GT3R was delivered from Freisinger Motorsport in the wee small hours and fitted in time for the session this morning. He was full of praise for his cosmopolitan driver squad and in particular for Mauro Casadei: “Mauro has been fantastic, when we had the engine problems yesterday he was conducting negotiations in four different languages consecutively.” Huge thanks were proffered to Manfred Freisinger for providing an engine.

The Brunswick Motorsport Lotus is back for a second run in the British Championship this weekend. Peter Cate and Giles Groombridge were all but performing a rain dance in the paddock, the little Elise down on power on the class frontrunners but well able to hold its own in a wet race. Cate wasn’t quite flat through Eau Rouge in the drier parts of the Saturday sessions. “It’s a great circuit and the car is running very well, the prototypes are no problem in the wet, the closing speeds are huge but on the straights we can see them coming. In the dry though they are going to be closing even more quickly through the corners too, which could be tricky.”

In the Team Aero Morgan, new boy Christian Bock finally got his first dry laps this morning. “I’ve had plenty of time in the car but all of it has been in the wet so far.”

Bock is well used to racing Morgans in endurance racing: he shared his regular Plus 8 with Keith Ahlers in this season’s Nurburgring 24 Hours.

“That’s why Keith asked me, I’m used to running an endurance pace and to dealing with much faster traffic. The car though is very different from the Plus 8, far less agricultural, far more sophisticated.”

Joao Barbosa is another man well used to endurance racing, he joins the Short / Herridge combo in the #122 Rollcentre Mosler: “I raced here with Perspective in the Spa 24 hours so the circuit is familiar to me with a Mosler. We had one or two problems in the early part of the weekend but yesterday afternoon the car ran very well, very reliably and at the end of the session was getting quicker and quicker.”

Simon Pullan, returning for a one-off appearance with the Eclipse team, was standing thoughtfully at the back of the garage as the team went through final preparations for the race: “It’s great to be back and to see all the boys, the big challenge here is going to be to find a pace that keeps us in touch without stretching the car. With the weather being so variable that’s even more tricky than usual.”

In the guest class the “Pocket Panoz” Gillet Vertigo has been running well: it’s the same chassis as contested the Spa 24 Hours but with a 3.6 litre Alfa engine rather than the 2.8 run at the 24 hours.

Calum Lockie was looking forward to a return to top line GT racing with a run in the awesome Marcos Mantara, the car is proving very quick indeed (around 650 hp in its unrestricted trim here) but is, as always something of a handful in the wet.

“We’re looking to get amongst the smaller prototypes,” said Lockie.

Peter Cook with his #140 turbo Porsche was relieved to find a loose track control arm after Qualifying yesterday. “The car was steering itself down the straight. It was much better this morning, but with the weather and the track control arm, we’ve lost time to set it up as we’d like it.” Cook was looking forward to lots of driving with just one co-driver.

Marco Attard and the Damax Ferrari were in much the same state as every other team – lack of track time, but confused here because they are racing with four drivers: Attard, Robin Ward, Nick Adams and Steven Brady. The infamous Keith Greene is the team manager. Marco Attard has had just five laps in the car so far at Spa, while Steven Brady has had 15: quite a luxury for the Spa newcomer. The ex-MSB 360 didn’t go for slicks or inters yesterday afternoon, so it will start fairly well down.

John Greasley just cannot stay away from Spa (he’s in the Glenvarigill 360). “But what tyres do we put on? Hector said inters at the end of Qualifying and it should have been slicks. It’s very important to get it right, because we’ve got five wheel nuts on each wheel.”

With the morning starting with bright sunshine and ending with a torrential downpour, it looks like being another typical day at the fantastic Spa-Francorchamps circuit! What adventures does this place have in store for our GT boys?