Rallye Salamandre

A new rally for us and our first in Wallonie, as the RAC crews visited Belgium for the first time. A warm welcome made up for the changeable weather which made the stages treacherous. Florian Gonon & Michel Horgnies (Escort MkI) headed a tight battle between the top 3, edging out Stefaan Stouf & Wouter Knockaert (911 RSR) by just a single second. A further 4 seconds back and top RAC registered crew were Christophe Jacob & Isabelle Regnier (Escort MkII). Paul Griffiths & Iwan Jones (Escort MkII) were the first British crew home almost a minute and a half back.

World Endurance Championship – Silverstone 6hrs

The WEC season opener saw the three different works LMP1 teams fill the podium places, or at least that is how it looked. In post event scrutineering the Audi R18 of André Lotterer, Marcel Fässler & Benoit Tréluyer was excluded due to the thickness of the front skid block, (i.e. the car was too low). This handed victory to the Porsche 919 Hybrid of Romain Dumas, Neel Jani & Marc Lieb, subject an Audi appeal which is set for a tribunal before the next round at Spa. 2nd overall were Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi & Stephane Sarrazin in the Toyota TS050 Hybrid with the Rebellion Racing LMP1 car of Alexandre Imperatori, Dominik Kraihamer & Matteo Tuscher completing the provisional podium.

Somerset Stages Rally

It was memories of 2000 as we approached the Somerset Stages with snow falling on the Quantocks. It didn’t settle however and it was a largely dry day which saw Luke Francis & John Roberts (Evo IX) fight a day long battle with Charles Payne & Carl Williamson (Fiesta). Francis took an early lead through the first two stages to lead by 8 seconds before Payne got his first stage win at Chargot. The pendulum swung back before Porlock where the 2nd run saw Francis drop time and his lead cut to just 3 seconds. A push on the first few stages of the afternoon gravel loop saw Francis extend his lead and he eventually won by 8 seconds from Payne.

Alan Healy Memorial Stages

Mostly sunny and dry conditions greeted the crews at Cadwell Park and it was Ashley Field & Janice Moore (Darrian T90 GTR+) who opened up a commanding lead through the mornings stages. They held a 50 second advantage over 2015 winners David & Alice Tinn (MEM Proton Satria) by the end of stage 4 and looked good for the win. After going fastest again on stage 5 they were sidelined on stage 6 by a broken driveshaft, leaving Tinn with a manageable margin over the rest to take victory by 40 seconds. On the fateful 6th stage James Sharrock & Stuart Faulds (Escort MkII) moved ahead of Andrew Fenwick & Chris Lawrence (Satria Neo) and they were able to hold the position to take 2nd place by just 6 seconds.

Silverstone 24H

An early season epic on our 1st visit to Silverstone in 2016. We have seen this race in its Britcar incarnations but now under the governance of Creventic the Silverstone 24H looks to have a more stable, long term footing. With touring cars only and no GT’s the noise issue is addressed, for now, and close racing throughout the field guaranteed. In the final reckoning Richard Roberts/Charles Lamb/Martin Short/Richard Neary in the SP Touring class Team ABBA with Rollcentre Racing BMW M3 V8 took the victory by 3 laps. They started from the back of the grid after failing to set a time in qualifying but soon got up in to the top 6 overall as the first 6 hours of racing saw close battles.

Rally North Wales

A wet day greeted the crews for Rally North Wales, which saw Jason Pritchard & Phil Clarke (Escort MkII) do battle with Nick Elliott & Dave Price (Escort MkII). The final results will show that each crew took 3 fastest stage times but it was Pritchard who took the opening stage and made the critical time gains. Elliott lost 16 seconds through the opening stage and managed to claw the gap back to 8 seconds going in to the final run through Gathieniog. Needing a second a mile to win Elliott could not match Pritchard who instead extended his winning margin out to 21 seconds. Behind the top two was arguable the remarkable result of the rally as Matt Edwards & Will Rogers took the Pete Smith Kadette GTE to 3rd overall, almost two minutes behind Pritchard but 45 seconds ahead of 4th place.

Silverstone 24H – Support Races

As part of our mega opening weekend in April we spent the first day watching the practice and support races for the Silverstone 24H. As well as the main event, (covered in a separate gallery), we saw two of the three support series. First up was the Dunlop Prototype Series which saw a small field for the opening event. Made up of LMP3 specification prototypes and open top sports cars they were actually the fastest cars on display, over the weekend. The Super 7 Inter Series saw two classes of Caterham 7’s, along with Portuguese guests, make up a near 50 car grid of action packed racing.