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A dramatic Bank Holiday weekends'
racing saw Jon Barnes and his Brookspeed Team Trimite team mate James Gornall
score their first race victory in the British GT Championship at Rockingham in
Northamptonshire.
After a lengthy 6 week break,
Brookspeed Team Trimite arrived at Rockingham feeling very optimistic and
confident of being able to score some more valuable championship points. The
championship organisers had also announced some amendments to the equalisation
of the various GT cars in the championship in the week leading up to Rockingham,
with all of the Dodge Viper teams being allowed to remove their 48mm air intake
restrictors to help them claw back some of the advantage that the Ferrari's,
Lamborghini's, Aston Martin's and Porsche's were enjoying at Oulton Park and
Knockhill.
There was also more drama before any
competitive running at Rockingham, with some major amendments to the results of
race 2 at Knockhill. Jon and James had originally finished 6th in the race, but
after reviewing video evidence, the Clerk of the Course decided to exclude cars
22, 23, 42 & 1 from the race for overtaking under yellow flags, promoting
the Brookspeed Team Trimite drivers into 2nd place in the race and in the
overall British GT Championship table.
Sunday arrived and it already seemed
as though the rain had decided to settle in for the duration of the weekend.
James took to the circuit to qualify the car for the first race with the rain
falling very heavily. On a sodden track with new wet tyres, James stayed out for
the duration of the session and achieved a time of 1:36.74 to put the Viper an
excellent 3rd on the grid.
With another fresh set of wet tyres,
Jon settled into the damp seat for qualifying session two. With even more
standing water than in the previous session, a 1:37.42 put Jon 7th, over 1
second faster than any other Dodge Viper could manage. In the final minutes of
the session cars began falling off the track in all directions, and a number of
yellow flags prevented Jon from improving his time
further.
The rain continued to fall very
heavily throughout Sunday afternoon and the standing water on the circuit had
deepened significantly. After discussions with many drivers and teams, it was
clear that most did not want to start the race in the appalling conditions. The
organisers decided that the field would do two sighting laps behind the safety
car and then a decision would be made whether or not to abandon the race.
The Brookspeed Team Trimite Viper
formed up behind the safety car in its best ever qualifying position with James
at the wheel. With only two Lamborghini's ahead, things were looking very
promising for the team. As the cars exited the last corner for the second time,
the safety car pulled into the pits and the race was underway. The leading
Lamborghini of Leo Machitski had already stretched away from the chasing pack
along the Start/Finish straight, but James was soon chasing him down after
overtaking the second placed Lamborghini of Oliver Morley. James hounded
Machitski until a water related gearbox problem caused the Lambo to lose drive,
and subsequently the race lead. With the race now under his command, James
settled down into a consistently quick pace and was building a significant lead
over the 2nd placed Dodge Viper of Team RPM.
The pit window had opened and a
number of cars behind James had already pitted so that their faster “A” drivers
could take over. By this time a number of cars had already fallen foul of the
track conditions and were littering the gravel traps. The team noticed that the
Safety Car had been scrambled and was waiting for the race leading Viper at the
pit exit, so they immediately called James in for the pitstop to hand over to
Jon. The timing of the Safety Car period could not have been better as James was
just approaching the pit entrance. The hand over to Jon was as seamless as ever
and Jon rejoined the race in the middle of the pack. It took a few laps for the
order to settle down after pit stops and the safety car period, but Jon emerged
still running in 1st place with 16 seconds between him and the 2nd placed #21
Team Modena Lamborghini. With around 30 minutes of the race remaining, Jon had
caught two back marking Ferrari's and a Lamborghini that were busy battling over
11th position. Jon finally got past the battling cars with the assistance of
blue flags and flashing headlights, and he was then able to put a safe cushion
between his Viper and the second placed Lamborghini. From there, all that was
needed was for Jon to maintain his pace and the win was there for the taking. As
the seconds ticked away the chequered flag was waiting at the finish line and
the team were amassed on the pit wall. The Rockingham “bowl” seemed to fall
silent until the blue & white car finally emerged at the exit of the last
turn. A spontaneous cheer erupted from the wall as Team Trimite took their
maiden victory, and also rocketed the #40 Viper into
the lead of the championship!
The car and a jubilant team were
able to dry out overnight and thankfully Bank Holiday Monday morning arrived
dry, but still very windy.
During the 10 minute morning warm-up
session Jon took the wheel to scrub in a set of new slick tyres in case the
weather stayed dry for the race. Jon brought the car back to the pits after
completing just two laps, keeping the slicks as fresh as possible for the race.
Jon took up his 7th position on the
grid for race two with slick tyres fitted. On the rolling-up lap behind the
Safety Car, the pole-sitting Tech 9 Lamborghini of Jason Templeman spun at the
hairpin while trying to warm his tyres. He was unable to take up his correct
grid position and instead started just in front of Jon in the Viper. At the
exact moment that the lights went out at the start of the race, rain began to
fall heavily. The race got underway and Jon took advantage of the first banked
corner to sweep underneath the cautious pack ahead, up into 5th place. As the
cars scrabbled for grip around the twisty infield section of the track, an over
excited Templeman in the Lamborghini lunged inside Jon, losing control, sliding
sideways and causing Jon to take avoiding action over the wet kerbs. With the
Lamborghini now on the grass, Jon tried to coax the Viper back onto the circuit,
only to lose control of the car on the kerbs, spinning back across the track and
hitting the right rear corner of the car on the tyre wall on the inside of the
circuit. Although it was a big impact and there was significant rear bodywork
damage, Jon immediately spun the car around and back onto the circuit, losing
just 12 seconds to the race leaders. Rather than pitting to check the car over,
Jon bravely decided to stay on circuit to try to make up as much time and as
many positions as possible before the pitstop and driver change. Despite the
continued rain, damage to the car and poor handling, Jon was able to claw his
way past the GT4 class cars and he began catching back up to the train of
Ferrari's, Lamborghini's and Viper's at up to 4 seconds per lap! By the time the
team called Jon into the pits on lap 17, Jon had made his way past 15 cars, back
up into the points positions in 8th!
The driver change was the first
opportunity for the team to see the full extent of the damage. James took the
wheel but was not allowed back onto the track until the scrutineers were
satisfied that the car was safe to continue racing. The rear bodywork was
impinging on the tyre which potentially could have caused a puncture. A
significant amount of duck tape resolved the problem and James screeched out of
the pit lane. Over two minutes stationary had undone all Jon's work and James
was now two laps down on the race leader with a significant gap to the cars
ahead. Despite this, James continued the fight back, consistently lapping faster
than the cars ahead. As the weather became ever more unsettled a few teams
decided to make an extra pit stop to change to wet tyres, allowing the
Brookspeed Team Trimite car to pick up a couple more positions. James was able
to bring the car home a very hard fought 13th.
The team now have just 9 days to get
the Trimite Viper ready for Snetterton, where Jon and James will be out to score
more points and defend their 3 point lead in the British GT Championship.
Jon said, “This was a weekend of
fantastic highs and terrible lows! It felt superb to score our first win in such
awful conditions on Sunday and I must say a huge thanks to James, Andy, Mike and
the rest of the team that worked so hard to help us achieve the race win."
"Mondays
race, however, was a very different story. I was doing my best in the tricky
conditions on the opening lap to stay out of trouble because I knew that once
the race settled down I would be very fast. Unfortunately I basically got caught
up in somebody else's accident and the car sustained heavy rear bodywork damage.
Once I got the car back onto the circuit, I was one of the fastest cars despite
the damage! I only lost 5 seconds to the race leader during my 17 lap stint, and
that time was mostly lost when I was fighting my way past the 15 cars, back up
into 8th position. Again, more bad luck was to come at the pitstop with the
repairs that we had to carry out before James was allowed back onto the track.
Had we been allowed straight out, I am sure that we could have scored another
podium finish."
"We have many positives from this
weekend and we are still leading the championship. We should be strong at
Snetterton and I will certainly be going there looking to make up for the
accident this weekend."
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