The Barwell Motorsport-run British GT squad was up to three cars for Round 2 of the series at Rockingham on the bank holiday weekend, with the two regular BMW Z4 GT3s of Marco Attard/Olly Bryant (Ecurie Ecosse entry) and Ron Johnson/Piers Johnson being joined by the stunning Aston Martin Vantage GT3 of Mark Poole/Richard Abra. As the two-hour race unfolded, it was debutants Poole and Abra who were best poised to claim team honours, as with just under 30 mins to go they were lying 5th on the road but in reality this was 4th place as the Beechdean Aston in front had a one-minute time penalty for overtaking under yellow flags. With the MP Motorsport-backed Aston running very strongly and looking after its Avon tyres well, a podium finish was certainly on the cards for the British GT ‘new boys’, but either way it had been a highly impressive showing from Mark and Richard. Unfortunately they were not allowed to claim their just deserts, as a very unusual brake issue emerged (later discovered to be a result of a knock-on effect of an on-track incident during practice on Sunday which had damaged the front end of the car) that forced Richard to head to the pits.

The Attard/Bryant Ecurie Ecosse BMW Z4 would almost certainly have joined our Aston in the hunt for a podium finish (having run strongly in the top eight early on), but for an unfortunate incident during the first half of the race which meant the car required some repair work done at the mandatory pit stop. The time lost here restricted it to 11th place in the finishing order at the flag. Ron and Piers, meanwhile, enjoyed a trouble-free run to 16th spot in their OPC-backed Z4, after a race-long tussle with the Blendini Motorsport Audi R8.

Richard Abra produced a starring performance in qualifying, putting the Aston seventh on the 32-car grid and outqualifying the Aston Martin Racing factory-run Beechdean Vantage GT3 in the process – not bad for his first outing at British GT Championship level! Mark Poole took the start of the race and became embroiled in an extremely hectic seven car train that stemmed from the third-placed Porsche of Ashburn/Tandy. To add further spice to this equation, there were three cars in the mix that had their ‘pro’ drivers in and which were then frantically trying to carve their way up the order against the predominantly ‘Amateur’-mounted field. Mark was holding his own in this pack before a quick but harmless spin cost him some time, but he set about recovering the lost ground with renewed vigour once he had some clean air to play with. A perfectly-timed pit stop by the Barwell crew then fired Richard back into the fray and he immediately got hooked up on the pace of Jonny Adam in the Beechdean car ahead. The team was then gutted to hear him report the brake problem over the radio, and with his front brakes fading away he had no option but to pit with 19 laps remaining.

After posting the fastest time in morning warm-up, Attard took the start full of confidence and produced a spirited opening stint aboard the #79 Ecurie Ecosse machine, which saw him move forward and work the Calais Wine Superstore-backed Z4 into a position where Olly would be able to take the fight to the top three later on. Unfortunately contact with the championship-leading Porsche of David Ashburn damaged the front end of the BeeEm, which meant that the crew had to carry out some repairs and also had problems removing the right-front wheel during the routine pit stop. This cost Marco and Olly 45 seconds of extra time in the pits, and Bryant was now a lap down on the leaders in 18th place, but set about making up the lost time and was soon among the fastest cars on the track. Coping well with the bent steering, he enjoyed a race-long duel with the rival 888Optimum Z4 of Osborne/Mowle that saw the pair carve their way through the field. By the finish he had reached 11th place, but the car was subsequently excluded from the official results for the incident with the Porsche. Despite missing out on a points finish the Ecosse squad can take several positives from the weekend, as the car that eventually claimed second position was behind Marco prior to the pit stops, and the duo’s combined pace was good enough for a podium finish.

Ron and Piers worked hard at improving their pace throughout the weekend, and Piers made a good step forward in qualifying, taking the scalp of former Grand Prix driver Mark Blundell (United Autosport McLaren). Ron then diced with the Blendini Audi of Evans/Roche and the factory Ginetta G55 of Sykes/Simpson during the early stages, although the Audi slipped past him when he was caught up in being passed by some of the Pro drivers who had encountered problems early on. Piers then took up the cudgels during the second half of the race and repassed the Audi to claim 16th spot.

Source : Barwell Motorsport