In a display of ability and endurance, Gregor Fisken and Richard Westbrook secured their first victory of the 2013 Avon Tyres British GT Championship at Rockingham. The maximum points haul from the two-hour endurance race now places the pair third in the Championship standings, with David Ashburn and Steve Tandy still occupying the top spot, despite not making it to the finish line this weekend.
Following the one, two, three placing’s in qualifying, it was a trio of Trackspeed Porsches that lead the 31 car field around for the start of the 120 minute showcase event. Maintaining his position at the front, Ashburn in the No.31 GT3R lead the Trackspeed cars around the opening corners, despite an ambitious attack by United Autosports Zak Brown. As a result of Brown’s failed attempt to take the lead, a safety car was issued on the opening lap, so when the race restarted it was Ashburn, Jon Minshaw and Fisken line astern, and leading the field.
Within a few laps of the restart, Minshaw in the Trackspeed Porsche was having his turn at the front, and once past the sister car of Ashburn, the Demon Tweaks livered machine was establishing a healthy lead. Several circuits later, Fisken obligingly moved into second position, to leave Ashburn to defend from a fleet of GT cars behind him. Unfortunately for Ashburn, it was to become the turning point of the race for the No.31 car. With yellow flags waving at the Gracelands corner, Andrew Howard’s Beechdean Aston Martin made an illegal pass on the 2010 British GT Champion, which the Vantage received a 60 second retrospective penalty for. Then, trying the same trick on Ashburn, the BMW of Marco Attard attempted to follow the Beechdean car, but instead, collided with the Trackspeed Porsche, causing heavy damage to the body-work and suspension. The move by the Ecurrie Ecosse Z4 saw the it excluded from the race results for avoidable contact, but the damage caused was to prove decisive for the pole setting car.
Valiantly, Ashburn continued to nurse the Porsche around the two-miles of Rockingham tarmac for another 15 minutes, before handing over to Tandy. Once in the 997GT3R, the Porsche Works driver used all his guile to push everything he could from the car, but alas, the damage was so substantial, that Tandy had to return to the pits and retire with 40 minutes of the race remaining.
“The positive thing is we lose the pit-stop penalty for the next race. When we start again at Silverstone, we won’t have any extra time in the pits.” Tandy shared post race. “There’s a vast amount of body damage, exhaust damage and subsequent suspension damage as a result of David getting hit. There was a huge vibration in the car, so even down the main straight, the car was vibrating itself to pieces. So we thought it was better to just stop and not do any more damage to it.”
Meanwhile, when the pit-stop window opened, Minshaw and Fisken headed to pit-lane to hand over to Phil Keen and Westbrook respectively. Once the remaining field had made their driver changes, it was still Trackspeed Porsches leading the way, with Keen first and Westbrook second. With the pit stop window closed, a second safety car of the day was issued to recover a GT4 car, bunching the field up together once again.
As the race restarted, Westbrook was able to cruise into the lead at the Deane hairpin, due to a throttle body problem with Keen’s Porsche. Whilst Le Mans regular Westbrook powered into a lead of 20 seconds, Keen was using all his experience to keep the 997 in the hunt for points, in an exercise of damage limitation. However, as the issue with Keen’s car became more severe over time, it was decided to retire the former race-leading car with 15 minutes remaining.
This left Westbrook to fly the flag for the Trackspeed Racing team as the only car remaining, and he duly displayed why he’s one of the world’s best sportscar racers. Carefully negotiating his way around lapped traffic, Westbrook managed his gap at the front to steer the Tartan Porsche to the chequered flag with a 16 second margin over the M-Sport Audi of Warren Hughes.
“Gregor really pulled out a fantastic drive there and gave the car to me in a good position.” Westbrook enthused post race. “The car was fantastic. I was able to pull out a big gap and then look after the tyres, which was the important thing.”
As a result of their dominant display around Rockingham, Westbrook and Fisken have marched to third in the standings, just 5.5 points off Ashburn and Tandy, who continue to lead the British GT Championship. It’s a major boost for Fisken and Westbrook who’s missed out on points finishes at Oulton Park.
“I have to say credit to Trackspeed, Richard and Rafel our engineer for giving us a car with a good setup.” Fisken offered. “It was a quick car, which we knew in qualifying, but it turned out to be excellent in my stint. Tyre degradation wasn’t the issue I thought it’d be; sure they dropped off, but they didn’t drop off a cliff, the car was good. Once I got past David, I really just had to focus on what I could do to keep up with Jon and try to close the gap. I was really pleased at the end of the stint, as we came into the pits absolutely on his bumper.”
Despite a brace of retirements for Trackspeed this weekend, team manager Keith Cheetham was upbeat about the pace and performance on show at Rockingham. “It’s great to see Gregor get his first win of the year, which brings them right back into it.” he said. “Gregor’s got a world class co-driver in Richard Westbrook, so they can only go forward on this. Gregor’s pace this weekend was spot on. It’s the same for the Minshaw and Keen car, they were just on it.”
Next on the Avon Tyres British GT agenda is a trip to Silverstone for the three-hour attack around the grand-prix circuit at the end of May, where Trackspeed will be looking to continue the momentum that sees them lead the driver and team championships.
Source : Trackspeed