I cannot believe that it’s the end of the season already. It feels like no time at all since heading out of the garage for the first time at Oulton Park back in April. Since then my first season of GT racing has certainly been very up and down, with bad luck striking far too often but when it’s come together it has been fantastic.

We were coming into Silverstone 3^rd in the GT4 championship, with our only hope of winning being a retirement for the championship leading KTM. Our aim of the weekend was to beat the ultra consistent Lotus Evora of Freddy Nordstrom and Leyton Clarke and take 2^nd in the championship.

The weather all weekend was overcast and very cold and the track was damp for a frustrating first practice session, where a number of red flags meant only David was able to get out on track. He excelled in the slippery conditions, posting the 2^nd fastest time outright in the session – certainly not a bad way to start the weekend!!

I got out in the second session, though only for the first 20 minutes in order to give David more time on the new Silverstone GP layout as he had less prior knowledge than me. In the now dry conditions our pace was strong, 2^nd fastest in class only to the no 48 Lotus that was running on new tyres. This good form continued into qualifying, I went out first and got the car into provisional pole – about half a second ahead of the 48 Lotus. David got in second for what would be an exhilarating second half of the session, with David & Phil Glew in the Lotus constantly swapping pole times, lap after lap. Eventually it was the Lotus that took pole, just 6 hundredths of a second ahead of us.

We went into the race with championship in mind, knowing that the pole-sitting Lotus would have an extra 20 seconds in the pits following its win at Donington the plan for my stint was just to stick behind it as we could jump it in the pitstops. We had to win if we were to have any chance of winning the title. In the first half hour this plan worked well, as I was able to keep right on Phil Glew’s bumper . However just over halfway into my stint, the car dropped off a proverbial cliff-face with the car developing crippling oversteer all round the circuit causing the Lotus to establish more of a lead.

More problems came in the pitstop, as a safety car just after we pitted effectively put us a lap behind the leaders. With David still struggling for pace it was looking like we’d end up 3^rd in the standing, but a change in fortune saw the 49 Lotus (sitting ahead of us in 2^nd place in the championship) break down on the final lap, meaning we inherited 3^rd place and what turned out to be 2^nd in the championship – tied on points with the Lotus but having had more race wins than them it put us into 2^nd place.

Whilst it’s never nice to beat an opponent due to a breakdown rather than racing on track, it emphasizes the importance of reliability in GT racing. I’m sure if we’d had better luck at a number of rounds this year we could have been higher than 2^nd, but that’s the way it goes.

Overall it has been a fantastic season, and I would like to thank David and everyone at Scuderia Vittoria for being great all year. Would also like to congratulate Peter & Marcus on winning the GT4 Championship.

Now I must look ahead to next year, where the plan is to sell the Ginetta GT4 and move up to GT3. I look forward to seeing you then

Dan

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