After dominating the second race at the opening round of the British GT Championship at Oulton Park on Easter weekend, there were high expectations set for the Barwell Motorsport-run Ecurie Ecosse powered by Black Bull BMW Z4 at Rockingham last weekend. The team and drivers Marco Attard and Alexander Sims certainly didn’t disappoint, claiming a dominant combined qualifying pole position and leading the race comfortably in the early stages. Such was our pace that a second win in a row looked like being the odds-on outcome, but a Safety Car period late on into the driver change window handed the late-stopping FF Corse Ferrari a huge advantage. Although when it was established that they had left the pits whilst the pit exit was closed, it seemed that a suitable penalty would put them back down in the order. However they only received a drive through penalty which merely negated half of their 37-second lead! There was no way for our Calais Wine Superstore-backed Z4 to make such a gap up in the latter stages of the race, and thus we took second spot after a phenomenal performance. The result thus elevates <image006.jpg>Attard and Sims to the top of the Drivers championship table, and Ecurie Ecosse to the head of the Teams points.

Amateur driver Marco was determined to improve on last years lap times around the Corby circuit, and he certainly proved this by setting the fastest time completed by a Bronze graded driver in Sundays ‘Am’ qualifying session. BMW factory driver Alexander Sims continued to wow everyone with his flawless pace, by setting the fastest ‘Pro’ lap time and securing another pole position for the duo, as the combined time from both drivers amounted to being over a second faster than the factory Aston Martin of Andrew Howard and Jonny Adam in second position.

The race format for the second round of the British GT Championship differed slightly to Oulton Park. Instead of having two 1-hour races, this encounter consisted of a single two hour battle which Attard was able to begin from pole position with a clear road ahead. After making a fantastic start, it didn’t take too long for Marco to separate himself from the constantly place-changing pack behind him and he managed to establish a lead of over six seconds before a Safety Car period wiped out his hard-earned advantage. He re-opened the gap to his pursuers to over two seconds over the remaining three laps of his stint, before coming in after the 50-minute mark to hand over to his Pro driver – like the majority of the field. Marco did a fantastic job by staying at the front of the pack throughout the entire duration of his stint and was able to hand over the Ecurie Ecosse BMW Z4 to Alexander in the best possible position. Unfortunately, due to winning the second race at Oulton Park, the team had a 20 second success penalty, which has to be added onto our mandatory driver change pit stop time. Due to the Safety Car period wiping out Marco’s earlier time gain, it meant that Alexander would rejoin the fray back in eighth spot.

Unfortunately, a Safety Car was introduced towards the end of the driver change pit window, meaning that the cars that had unusually left their slower Amateur drivers out for longer than was strictly necessary were able to take full advantage of this. One car who benefitted greatly from this Safety Car period was the #18 FF Corse-run Ferrari of Gary Eastwood and Rob Barff who, after completing their mandatory driver change under full course yellow flags, came back out nearly half a lap in the lead. However, they were later given a drive through penalty for leaving the pit lane whilst it was closed, but even after this infringement discipline, the Ferrari still re-joined with more than a 20 second lead over the Ecurie Ecosse BMW Z4, Alexander having by this time worked his way up to second place after just eight laps of his stint, setting the fastest lap of the race in the process. After the Safety Car period had finished he took just over a lap to dispose of both the Triple 8 BMW Z4 of Joe Osborne and the Beechdean AMR Aston of Jonny Adam to move up to fourth. He claimed third from the sister Triple 8 Z4 of Luke Hines on the next lap and then made short work of the Richard Lyons-driven AF Corse Ferrari to elevate the Barwell-run BeeEm to the runner-up position.

Sims did a superb job in trying to hunt down the Ferrari of Rob Barff and was closing in on him with each lap. Sadly there was not enough time left in the race for Alexander to regain the lead. However, he brought the car home in a very respectable second place, almost 20 seconds clear of the Lathouras/Lyons Ferrari, who were later on penalised for driving infringements.

Marco Attard: “Great result for our 3rd race, fantastic effort by everyone in the team except the ‘safety car fairy!’ The pace, set up of the car was really good and even the tyres lasted well which is unusual for Rockingham!  Looking forward to the 3 hour at Silverstone.  Thanks to everyone!”

Alexander Sims:  “It’s a great result to be heading out of the second race weekend of the year with our second podium finish! We had a challenging start to the weekend as we weren’t where we needed to be pace-wise in free practice, but the team worked really hard throughout Sunday and gave me and Marco a fantastic car to secure pole position with.  Marco did a superb job to pull out a lead in his stint, so it was a little frustrating that the safety car periods fell when they did, just before and during the pit stop window. However we responded well and did all we could to maximise what was in our control, so to come away with a 2nd place finish is still very satisfying.”

Mark Lemmer, Barwell MD:  “We stepped up a gear at the weekend with fantastic & faultless performances from both Marco & Alexander. I’m also satisfied we got the most from the chassis at a difficult circuit to set up for. In the end we were a little unlucky not take the win but can look forward confidently to Silverstone & beyond.”