Britcar 24 Hour

On paper a 28 car grid for a 24 hour race does not sound like a recipe for a great race but the first twice around the clocks race at Silverstone for 3 seasons, proved to be an epic and one packed with stories of heroism. With the field split in to 5 classes and only two small manufacturers, Ginetta and Radical running works cars as such, this race is more about the private teams and clubmen. It turned out that it was the class 3 and 4 cars which filled the podium as the faster class 1 and 2 cars suffered mechincal gremlins and/or incidents on track which saw the consistent runners come out on top.

Britcar 24 Hour – The support races

Before the main event there were 8 support races of which we caught 5 of them, (as we were not in attendance on the Friday). The Production BMW & Toyo Tires Racing Saloons were 1st up and a bumper field saw the BMW E36 M3 of Stephen Pearson victorious. In the MSA British Superkarts Liam Morley dominated in his Anderson/DEA. Michael Gibbins took the Sports 2000 race in his MCR. The Britcar Trophy race was dominated by the Riley of Nigel Mustil & Craig Dolby and last but not least the History of the BTCC 1958-1966 race was won by Mike Gardiner in his Ford Falcon.

Somerset Stages Rally

The final results will show a victory of one minute for David Weston & Kirtsy Riddick (Impreza WRC), combined with 11 stage outright or shared fastest times. After 2 stages Paul Bird & Aled Davies (Focus WRC) along with Hugh Hunter & Andy Marchbank (Impreza WRC) were early retirements so it was Charlie Payne & Carl Williamson (Fiesta) who took up the chase but they then went off on stage 5, so by the mid event it was Luke Francis & John Roberts (Evo IX) who were in 2nd place. Damian Cole & Jack Morton (Focus WRC) were 3rd but closely followed by Jamie Anderson & Jon Scott (Lancer WRC). Through the afternoon stages it was Anderson who made the most progress and lost little time to Weston but gained on both Francis and Cole to take 2nd place. Francis completed the podium a further 29 seconds back with Cole slipping back to 5th on the final stage as Stephen Petch & Ian Windress (Fiesta R5+) grabbed 4th overall on the final stage.

World Endurance Championship – Silverstone 6hrs

A superb six hour race saw the no.7 Audi Sport R18 e-tron quattro of Marcel Fässler/Benoit Tréluyer/Andre Lotterer take victory by less than 5 seconds from the no.18 Porsche 919 Hybrid of Romain Dumas/Neel Jani/Marc Lieb with a similar margin back to the no.1 Toyota TS040 Hybrid of Anthony Davidson/Sébastien Buemi/Kazuki Nakajima in third place. A late stop & go penalty for the lead Audi had made the final stages of the race closer than they should have been. It proved to be a great start to what promises to be another season to watch in the World Endurance Championship. The sister cars of the 3 works teams all figured in the top 3 at various points through the race with the no.17 Porsche 919 Hybrid of Timo Bernhard/Mark Webber/Brendon Hartley retiring from the lead just before the quarter way mark of the race.

European Le Mans Series – Silverstone 4hrs

Unlike our last visit in 2013 this race went the distance and was not short of controversy. With the top 3 finishing just over 20 seconds apart after 4 thrilling hours of racing it was the Greaves Motorsport Gibson 015S-Nissan driven by Gary Hirsch/Bjorn Wirdheim/Jon Lancaster that took victory by less than half a second from the Jota Sport Gibson-Nissan of Simon Dolan/Filipe Albuquerque/Harry Tincknell. The talking point came when in the last 15 minutes of the race when Lancaster appeared to take out the Thiriet by TDS Oreca 05 driven by Tristan Gommendy at Aintree, whilst team mates Ludovic Badey & Pierre Thiriet could only look on. When Gommendy regained the track they had dropped to third and could not fight back.