Race Report
22 racers took part in the the debut of our new extended GT Championship format. That meant four teams of four and two of three. Of our six gold-driver team managers, Oliver was unable to attend and passed responsibility for his 2022 championship-winning team Slot Carazing over to Terry. We used Simon's track design from March of this year and crunched the data to decide a 500-lap race would last about 2-hours... RCS64 being unable to run timed-format races of longer than an hour...
After 30 minutes of practice, it was time for a driver briefing and then a quick-fire Super-pole qualifying. The drivers qualifying each car would take the first 20-minute stint of the race. A delighted Ollie grabbed pole position - and an extra championship point for his team - with a sensational 11.407 second lap in the Fundamentally Barley Mercedes AMG GT3. Qualifying maestro Ryan had to make do with second in the Smooth Operators' Mercedes and Dean was third with the AST One-Mosdell Corvette C8R. Those were the three teams under twelve seconds...
The race began at 7.20pm and we were off into unknown territory. Last year's 45-minute race settings had been tweaked a little, but were mostly similar. Three random weather types would feature, there'd be a 2-minute driver-change window every twenty minutes and there's a requirement for the combined bronze-rated drivers to race for at least two stints in total. At the end of the first stint, Ryan held the lead with a huge 94 laps, with Dean just a lap behind in the 'Vette and then three teams in a close fight - Slot Carazing on 86, Fundamentally Barley on 85 and the Ardingly Aces on 84 laps. Race Control were eight laps adrift after a difficult start.
During the second stint, it was Ardingly Aces who had the bad luck - wing issues meant repeated visits to the pits... followed by a drop in performance that would dog the team until a long stay at the pit table in the final hour got the Chupa Chups Mercedes back on the pace. Meanwhile, bronze driver Daniel was top of the laps table, extending the Smooth Operators lead to eleven laps over the Corvette. Just one lap behind were Fundamentally Barley, with Slot Carazing's Porsche just a further lap adrift in fourth. Isaac moved the Race Control Aston Martin up to fifth.
The first two stints were raced flat-out in dry conditions, but the rain started to fall as we approached the 45 minute mark. AST One-Mosdell were the first team to go for Intermediate tyres - and although the pit stop lost them track position to Fundamentally Barley, they soon recouped their losses with bronze driver Martin at the wheel. Only Fundamentally Barley and the Smooth Operators pitted for Intermediates during the stint, the other four teams deciding to stay out on the less-than-ideal Hard compound and then changing at the driver change pits stop at one hour. Going into that scheduled stop, Smooth Operators had a 15 lap lead over Fundamentally Barley and AST One-Mosdell were two laps back in third. Slot Carazing had lost some ground and had Race Control just six laps behind them.
The track remained damp for the fourth stint, although Race Control took a gamble on conditions getting wetter and fitted full Wet tyres. It was a gamble that didn't pay off - Wets meant a tricky car to handle and rapidly deteriorating rubber. The Aston Martin stopped again for Intermediates - the perfect tyre for the damp conditions. By the end of the 20 minutes, the lead remained at 15 laps - but it was the AST One-Mosdell Corvette now back to second. Fundamentally Barley's car had a few minor issues towards the end of the stint and dropped to 40 laps off the lead, with Race Control now in fourth, just six laps adrift of the Mercedes ahead. Slot Carazing's Porsche was still in touch - eight laps behind Race Control - and the Ardingly Aces finally seemed to have finally got their car back near the pace of the pack.
The rain came down and drenched the track during the penultimate 20 minutes. Full Wets were the tyres to have, but Fundamentally Barley took a gamble on track position and stayed out on Intermediates. Mike handled the conditions well and moved the car back to second place. The Corvette haemorrhaged laps with an extended stop for repair work. That dropped them down to fifth, with Race Control up to a podium position. The Smooth Operators had a mammoth lead of 43 laps, but behind them it was all up for grabs. Race Control were ten laps behind Fundamentally Barley, the Corvette had recovered to fourth, five laps behind the Aston and four laps ahead of the Carazing Porsche. And the Smooth Operators still needed to negotiate that final stint without any dramas...
In the early stages of the stint, Ryan eased out his team's lead, while Rob edged away from Isaac in the Race Control Aston. Sadly, it was the turn of the mostly-reliable Aston Martin to experience some issues... Alex moved the Corvette back onto podium and Terry began hunting down the ailing Aston for fourth. Isaac held on for a while, but by the end of the race the Porsche slipped through - then dramatically moving up to third when the Corvette required repairs to get it to the chequered flag. One car that didn't make it to the end was the Ardingly Aces Mercedes - coming out of the pits to complete one final lap. The total race time - RSC64 called it at 498 laps - was 2 hours, 1 minute and 27 seconds. This is how the final results and stats looked (click on the image to make it bigger)...
Huge congratulations to Ryan, Jeremy and Daniel on their win - and to everyone who took part...
Here are the individual driver stats for each stint...
A very big thank you to everyone who came along for an excellent evening of GT endurance racing! Special thanks goes to the set-up and tear-down crews and to all who helped out on race control. We'll be back with a 4-hour GT endurance race on Saturday 24 June - followed by two more 2-hour Wednesdays in July and August.
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