Lamborghini’s California Kid: Andrew Palmer

It’s easy to imagine that you’re talking with someone much older than his years when in the company of Andrew Palmer. Despite his relatively limited experience, having only made his car racing debut at the 2013 Lamborghini Super Trofeo World Final at Vallelunga (incidentally, he won it), the Californian 21-year-old has quickly established himself as one of America’s brightest young talents, winning a race and finishing fifth overall in the 2014 Pirelli World Challenge before making the leap across the Atlantic as part of Lamborghini’s factory roster in the Blancpain Endurance Series for 2015, where he won first time out at Monza.

Palmer has impressed in his first season in Europe with Lamborghini (Xynamic).

Next up is this weekend’s Petit Le Mans, which could see Palmer complete a remarkable season by sealing the North American Endurance Cup, having won both the season opening Daytona 24 and Sebring 12 Hours – his first experience of driving a prototype – before adding a second at the 6 Hours of Watkins Glen in the no. 52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports LMPC he shares with Mike Guasch and Tom Kimber-Smith. Although the CORE Autosport machine shared by Colin Braun, Jon Bennett and James Gue enjoy a commanding 12 point advantage over Guasch and Kimber-Smith in the regular points after victory at COTA, they must overturn a three-point deficit to add the Endurance Cup, with a possible 15 points available over the 10 hours.

“We’ll try to close it out at Atlanta but it will be really tough, so we can only hope for the best and just keep doing what we’ve been doing the whole season,” Palmer said. “The US has been really good to me this season – the whole deal only came together at the last minute, about two weeks before Daytona happened, so to win both [Daytona and Sebring] was really awesome. We rode that high into Monza and after getting the win there I was just pinching myself, thinking ‘what’s going on? Why are we winning so much?’ That’s a good problem to have I guess!”

There isn’t much comparable between the Chevrolet V8-powered Oreca FLM09 and GT3-spec Lamborghini Huracan, but Palmer believes the experience of driving both – in addition to learning the European circuits for the first time – will ultimately prove beneficial to his development.

“At the end of the day, they all have a steering wheel, a gas pedal and four wheels on the road, so there are definitely transferrable skills from one car to the other,” he says. “I love the prototype but I also really love the Lambo; I’m still a student at university and that’s like the ultimate ice-breaker into a conversation, although I try not to mention it straight away! Of course all the cars over here are fantastic to drive, but somehow it doesn’t carry as much weight as saying ‘I race for Lamborghini’ because it’s such a recognisable brand.

Palmer believes GT cars are reaching prototype levels of development (Xynamic).

“I think we’re seeing more and more GT cars approaching prototype levels of development, whether it be the chassis, the aero components – this car has been in the wind tunnel for hours and hours at Dallara – so every car you drive teaches you something new. The level of technology that every type of class is using is stepping up, so it’s really helpful to run both classes. It’s cool to walk both worlds, not too Americans get to do that, so it’s fun to fly the Stars and Stripes over here.”

The ultimate dream however, remains the Le Mans 24 Hours, a race Palmer admits to having watched since childhood. With the Lamborghini not homologated for Le Mans, Palmer’s route to La Sarthe is as yet unclear, but he’s optimistic that 2016 will present an opportunity of some form.

“I think probably starting when I was ten, we always had it on in the house and the same with Daytona, so it was great to go to this big event I had been a fan of as a child and win," he says. "I would love to have the same feeling at Le Mans, but I’m not sure exactly what route we’re going to take to get there.

“There’s not a lot of Americans who get to have that opportunity, so even getting there would be a great accomplishment. I think 2017 is going to be a golden year in the United States for manufacturer involvement, so anything we do next year to position ourselves well for those opportunities we have to pursue.”

Teams respond to proposed Blancpain GT changes

Reaction among team owners was largely positive following Stephane Ratel’s raft of proposed changes for the 2016 Blancpain GT season, outlined in a press conference at the Nurburgring last weekend. 

In response to concerns that the better-funded teams were gaining an unfair advantage by refuelling more quickly and not having to change their brakes, Ratel announced a minimum pitstop time, sought to address the worrying decline in entries to the Blancpain Sprint Series with revised calendar of five races and an increased cash pot to be distributed among more teams than ever before, and launched an Intercontinental GT Challenge for 2016 - comprising Bathurst, COTA, Spa and Sepang - to give the teams much food for thought heading into the off-season.

JRM are looking to add more cars to the grid in 2015, such as the Always Evolving
entry, which qualified third at the Nurburgring (Always Evolving Performance).

JRM Partnership manager James Walters was wholly supportive of plans to reduce the Sprint Series calendar from seven to five rounds, with Grand Prix venues Hungaroring and Barcelona replacing the little-loved Nogaro and Moscow rounds.

“I’m quite happy that there’s been a reduction in the Sprint Series, ten rounds is good and the move to better circuits is definitely a big plus. For teams that are maybe just looking at Sprint it might look like a small calendar, but for us it’s better to focus on a couple less races and then have a better testing programme,” said Walters. “Especially coming from the side of the manufacturer, we want to attract more young drivers in regularly, so having less commitment on races means we can run more driver coaching programmes and get new prospects in, so I’m pretty happy with it.

“I also think it makes a lot of sense to standardise the classes in Sprint and Endurance. We’re looking at adding an Am car to the full season programme for next season and it was going to be a bit tricky before with the Cup, Pro-Am and Silver in Sprint, so the introduction of a Bronze-Bronze category will help.”

M-Sport team manager Matt Wilson similarly welcomed the alterations to the calendar, but cautioned that levelling the playing field will be no easy fix.

The Bentley Continental GT3 is by no means the lightest
car out there - which affects brake wear (Bentley Motors).

“I think it’s really positive, obviously the Sprint Series was suffering a little bit so losing the smaller circuits like Nogaro can only a good thing,” he said. “And the Intercontinental Cup which doesn’t have a full name looks really interesting; obviously we’ve done Bathurst before, we’re planning to go to Sepang and Spa we’ve done, so on the whole it’s very interesting, the calendar looks really strong.

“The BOP question is a really difficult one to answer; if you look at how close all the manufacturers were to each other at Spa, it was fantastic, but you’ve got some cars that take much less fuel than others and others that can run 150 kilos lighter which is going to be easier on it’s brakes. It’s an interesting preposition, but trying to balance them is probably an even bigger job than trying to balance them on track.”

SRO also announced that Pirelli would take on the tyre contract for the 2016 British GT championship, replacing long-serving suppliers Avon. Whilst Barwell Motorsport boss Mark Lemmer remains unconvinced that his team will extend themselves to a full Sprint campaign alongside prior commitments in the British GT and Endurance championships, he approved of SRO moving to a single tyre supplier across both series.

“We’re very happy in many respects because it reduces our testing costs,” said Lemmer. “The only thing that would change slightly is going from an extremely durable Avon tyre to a slightly more regular-life tyre means we would probably have to increase the number of tyres we use in British GT, which will increase the budgets slightly, but it makes sense on a lot of levels and should make life a lot more straight-forward.

Bartrum (pictured with Liam Griffin, left), was sorry
to see Avon go (Motorbase Performance).

Not everyone was entirely happy however. Motorbase Performance Team Principal David Bartrum was disappointed with the decision to split with Avon, but praised Ratel for listening to the team’s concerns.  

“It does make sense in a lot of ways because if you’re using Pirellis in Blancpain and Avon in British GT, you’re more likely to make a mistake and take a British GT tyre to a Blancpain round – but I’ve got a lot of time for Avon, they work really well with the teams and deserve great recognition for that. They’ve refined their business to a local championship in the UK and they did a good job with it, so it’s an absolute travesty that they won’t be there in future,” said Bartrum, who also runs a successful touring car team.

“I think the gulf has opened up in the teams within Pro, which he has identified, and Pro-Am a little bit as well. They’ve identified that some teams have got a lot more money to spend on their fuel rigs and on their brakes, which will keep the series alive,” he continued. 

“If you don’t let people like Ahmad [al-Harthy] and the Silver-Bronze guys get a result, or feel like they’re getting somewhere, then they’ll be driven away from the series and you’re left with a load of manufacturers, so it’s very important that they do make these changes and they keep it balanced and realistic - rather than futuristic and up in the sky somewhere!”

Osborne believes the move to a single tyre supplier
will mean a better deal for GT racing (Xynamic).

Drivers view: Joe Osborne, Triple Eight Race Engineering

“It works both ways, I’ve been in British GT for nine years so I’ve known Avon a long time and they’re top guys, but I think for the greater community of GT racing it’s better to have a uniform tyre, so teams can jump in and out of the series and know what setup to go for. The Pirelli is probably the better Pro tyre but the Avon is very good for gents, so there’s not all positives but when you look at the bigger picture it’s a better deal for GT racing.”

Von Ryan win in strategy masterclass as Nissan take the title

Von Ryan Racing played a strategic blinder to deliver Kevin Estre, Shane Van Gisbergen and Rob Bell their second win of the 2015 Blancpain Endurance Series season in the final round at the Nurburgring, as Alex Buncombe, Wolfgang Reip and Katsumasa Chiyo collected the Pro Cup title with a steely drive to third. 

The McLaren's cause was helped substantially when the Safety Car was sent out following a heavy shunt for Harold Primat's HTP Bentley just inside their pit window. Gambling that Estre would be able to make it to the end without exceeding his maximum driving time of 1hr 10 minutes, Von Ryan called van Gisbergen in at the first opportunity while the race leaders trailed behind the Safety Car, which had mistakenly waved Reip past. 

Estre takes the flag for Von Ryan's second win of 2015 (Olivier Beroud).

Amid the confusion, Estre was able to catch back up to the field, who with the exception of Maxime Soulet and Yelmer Buurman pitted en-mass on the following lap. Once the final round of stops had cycled through, Estre promptly found himself in a comfortable lead, which just as at Silverstone, the Frenchman would successfully manage to the finish. 

“The pace was good, but basically without the strategy we wouldn’t have won,” he admitted after starting a lowly 24th. “The team did a magic job behind the monitor, we had the opportunity to win and we took it.  

“You can’t do more than one hour ten minutes in a stint [without exceeding the maximum drive time] and we took a big risk there pitting, but the guys at Von Ryan did a good job to calculate this and knew exactly when we could pit. Everybody else had to do another lap, and during this lap I had to drive fast to catch up to the Safety Car, which is where we made the gap."

After a sterling final pitstop from the  M-Sport crew, the no. 7 Bentley of Steven Kane, Andy Meyrick and Guy Smith emerged from the pits in a net third, and set about chasing Buncombe, while Reip retreated to his hire car, too nervous to watch.

Third place yielded the 2015 Pro Cup title for Buncombe, Riep and Chiyo (Olivier Beroud).

Needing to win the race with RJN finishing third to snatch the title from their grasp, Kane pursued Buncombe relentlessly for lap after lap, and finally seized his chance when the Nissan was delayed lapping Oliver Bryant’s Ecurie Ecosse BMW. Kane stuck his nose down the inside into Turn Three, nudging Buncombe wide and allowing him to edge past around the outside of four, but any hopes of setting off after Estre were soon put on ice when the stewards ordered that he let the Nissan back past. 

A fired-up Kane - who also set the race's fastest lap - didn't take long to get back to second again with Buncombe's tyres now long past their best, but there were simply not enough laps to make any inroads on the McLaren.

“Guy and Andy gave me the car in a good position, but it was difficult to get past the Nissan because it was very quick on the straights," Kane said. "I thought I got past fairly with the first one but obviously I didn’t so I had to do it again, and it was a bit too late to catch up to Kevin. I just want to thank the team for giving us a great car all year and to Andy and Guy for driving well all year.”

For his part, Buncombe felt the move was fair, but in the end it was largely academic. Despite being baulked by Sascha Bottemanne  allowing Laurens Vanthoor to close right in, Buncombe was able to bring home third place and with it, the championship - mission accomplished.

“It was a tough stint, probably the hardest of my career I would say," he said. "As soon as I came out of the pits, just in front of Steven, I knew the Bentley was going to be fast, so I just tried to push as hard as I could in the first five to ten laps. We know our car is not the kindest on its rubber and that was the case again today, I was really struggling with the car towards the end of the stint, but we had a really fair fight."

Despite his best efforts, Kane ran out of laps to catch Estre (Olivier Beroud).

Vanthoor would have to make do with fourth, ahead of the charging second Bentley of Andy Soucek, who came back from a drive-through penalty for pitlane speeding to pass the pole-sitting Lamborghini of Giovanni Venturini and Christopher Mies in the Sainteloc Audi.

Eighth place was scant reward for a strong run by the Always Evolving Nissan crew, which had led throughout the first hour after a cracking start from Craig Dolby. With Adrian Zaugg inadvertently acting as a rear-gunner by holding up a train of eight cars, Dolby was able to pull out a commanding nine second advantage before the intervention of the Safety Car to retrieve Garry Kondakov from the gravel trap wiped out his lead. 

After the first stops, Sean Walkinshaw found himself shuffled back to fourth, but had battled his way past Robin Frijns and showed genuine race-winning pace before losing more ground in the final pitstops, a clash with Stephane Ortelli hardly helping their cause. Dolby was disappointed to miss out on a podium, but proud of his efforts all the same. 

“Definitely we should have been closer to the podium but there’s some races you win, some races you lose, that’s just motorsport," said the pragmatic Dolby. "It is what it is. I think the positives are a lot bigger than the negatives today and even though I’m a bit down right now, I think when I watch the race back tomorrow I’ll be proud of myself and proud of what we’ve done as a team. Today has been a big step forward and we've shown that we can fight for race wins if we can get all the little bits right. I've got to be happy with that."

Dolby (far left) charged into the lead on the first lap, but the
Always Evolving Nissan wouldn't stay there (Olivier Beroud).

Using the same strategy as Von Ryan, the Emil Frey Racing Jaguar took a popular maiden win in Pro-Am by just 0.3 seconds. Fredy Barth, Lorenz Frey and Gabriele Gardel were made to sweat however, as newly-crowned Pro-Am champion Duncan Cameron's reluctance to be lapped almost allowed Cedric Sbirrazzouli's sister no. 52 AF Corse Ferrari to snatch victory on the final lap. 

“It was four years of hard work, tears and joy sometimes, but more tears than joy, but I think now we have tears of joy,” said Barth.

“I don’t understand why he would decide to block me on those last three corners, I think the blue flags were waving and he just turned in on me, we could have lost the position so that was unfortunate, but in the end I could finish and this was the best result we can have,” said Gardel. “I was not going to make it easy to pass, especially in the last three corners - he would have to go over me to pass me!”

Having worked their way to the lead in Pro-Am at the half-way mark after strong stints from Michael Broniszewski and Alessandro Bonacini, Kessel Racing looked to be in the pound seat with Michael Lyons to come, but found themselves outmanoeuvred in the pits and had to work their way back from sixth to third. Early leader Maro Engel's Black Falcon Mercedes was similarly affected and finished seventh in class. 

GT racing debutant Harry Tincknell (right, with Al Buncombe) was punted
into the pitwall by Morgan Moulin-Traffort after a sudden loss of power
left the Ferrari with nowhere to go (Olivier Beroud).

“Driving-wise the first stint went really well, the car was good and I made up a fair bit of ground, so the Safety Car was a real shame - I’m not sure if it was quite necessary because we do have a Full-Course Yellow procedure," said the German. “We were able to still hold onto second with Oliver [Morley], but then I honestly I don’t know what happened. The other five cars came from nowhere; we went from second to seventh, the Ferrari was first to sixth and the Leonard car was third to eighth – it’s fair to say the Safety Car ruined our day today.”

Fifth in class was enough for Team Parker Racing's Ian Loggie and Julian Westwood to claim the Am Trophy ahead of the Attempto Racing Porsche. Anthony Pons and Fabien Barthez beat Karim Ojjeh and Olivier Grötz to take their first class win of the season in their Akka ASP Ferrari. 

Bortolotti on top for Nurburgring GT 500 as Always Evolving Nissan shines

Mirko Bortolotti collected his second pole of the season in damp conditions at the iRacing Nurburgring 500. Back on form after a difficult Spa, the Italian pumped in a 1:54.5 to deny Alex Buncombe's RJN Nissan GT-R top spot and give the Grasser Racing outfit a good chance of adding their second win of the season. 

Bortolotti delivered again in the morning gloom (Olivier Beroud).

A season’s best third was the sister Nissan of Craig Dolby, running under the Always Evolving Motorsport banner for the first time this weekend. Dolby's team-mate Martin Plowman - who is carrying a tribute to the late Justin Wilson this weekend - topped Q2 with a new-tyre run before Dolby improved again in Q3, and was duly elated to be starting the race from row two.

“We’ve never been up this far before, we’ve always had a very good car in the race, but this year we’ve started outside the top thirty in most of the Endurance races and had to work our way up in the first or second stint, so it’s going to be unfamiliar territory to start; now we just need to work on staying there and enjoy the last race of the year,” said the Briton. “Maybe the perfect time would have been to go later, but at the same time it was still drizzling, the track was still very green in a few places – it shocked me a little bit because I didn’t realise we could gain that much time!”

More late improvements from Alvaro Parente’s Von Ryan McLaren and Yelmer Buurman’s Black Falcon Mercedes deposed Andy Soucek’s M-Sport Bentley to sixth, a remarkable effort nonetheless considering his time was set in Q1 when track conditions were not at their best.

“First of all I got a free lap which makes a big difference and then when the rain came it was already my last sector, it was very light, just drizzling, and the grip was still there, so happy days,” said the Spaniard. “I knew in Q3 people would improve and I’m sure we could have been fighting for it but unfortunately Buhk had traffic in his last sector when he was up three tenths. But sixth is not a bad place to start the race, we know our car is good in race conditions and we have three good drivers, so all we have to do is stay out of trouble and we can finally score a good result this year.”

Lee Mowle awaits Ryan Ratcliffe in the Triple Eight BMW. Joe
Osborne would qualify the car fifth in Pro-Am (Olivier Beroud).

Nissan’s excellent qualifying was continued in Pro-Am as Gaetan Paletou collected pole and an impressive eighth overall, narrowly ahead of Domink Schwager’s Black Pearl Ferrari. Meanwhile, Michael Meadows was delighted to qualify fourth in class and 16th overall in the Leonard Motorsport Aston Martin he shared with team-owner Stuart Leonard and Paul Wilson, who topped Q1. 

“Generally this year we’ve qualified better than we raced, but the car was pretty good, I don’t think we had much more in it,” said the two-time Porsche Carrera Cup GB champion. “We took a second set of tyres to see if we could improve, but only by a couple of tenths and we were probably better saving our tyres for the race to be honest. But it’s good to be top Aston, Stefan Mucke is in the Motorbase car this weekend so for me it’s a good personal benchmark to see how we’re progressing.”

Elsewhere, Alexander Mattschull was quickest in the Am Cup at the wheel of the no. 34 Car Collection Mercedes. 

Kuno Wittmer: Finding redemption at TRG

It’s October 2014. Within 48 hours of beating Corvette’s Antonio Garcia to win the inaugural Tudor United Sportscar Championship at the season-ending Petit Le Mans, Chrysler drop the ultimate bombshell; they would be withdrawing funding for the SRT Viper GTLM programme with immediate effect, leaving newly-crowned Kuno Wittmer on the side-lines. Now an integral part of the TRG Motorsports family, James Newbold spoke to Wittmer, the man behind Christina Nielsen’s surge to the GTD class points lead.

Few could have seen it coming. At a time when Viper’s stock ought to have been at its most marketable, with a title defence and a return to Le Mans on the cards for 2015, instead there was only regret for the opportunity missed.

“It definitely hurt a lot,” Wittmer admits. “When you become teams champion and drivers champion in Atlanta, then Monday morning you get the call to find out that all of a sudden the journey that I’ve been on for the last five years with Chrysler was over and done with, it’s heart-breaking.

Wittmer took the 2014 GTLM title, but funding for the SRT
Viper programme was cut shortly afterwards (IMSA).

“The five years I had at Chrysler were five of the best years in terms of my career. We pushed hard, we delivered on track, we delivered off-track, both my team-mate [Jonathan Bomarito] and I, and of course my two other team-mates on the 91 car [Marc Goosens and Dominik Farnbacher]. But it wasn’t just the drivers that got hurt in this whole thing, it was the team itself, Bill Riley and all his staff, everyone was affected by it.”

Aside from taking GTD honours in a one-off outing at Daytona in Ben Keating’s privately-entered Riley Viper, Wittmer’s outings in 2015 were limited to a few appearances in the Continental Tyre SportsCar Challenge. Although spending time with his young family was appreciated, the 33 year-old Montreal native was eager to get himself back in a competitive ride, and leapt at the chance to join Kevin Buckler’s TRG Motorsports, who needed a new co-driver to partner GTD title contender Christina Nielsen.

“You definitely never want to stay inactive for a long time, you want to always stay active as much as you can and always keep yourself going,” he says. “In the time I had away, I had around six or seven months to reflect and look at where I should go with my career. Yes of course spending time with family and staying physically active was good, but to align myself in my career was the most important thing.

“It’s not something you want to go crazy about, sitting on my couch all day long looking at my phone and waiting for it to ring – I’m not like that, I always try to stay positive and I knew something was going to come up. The deal with Christina was a really great option, she gave me a really good opportunity to help out.”

Wittmer didn't take long to gel with his new team, collecting
three podiums from his first four races (Kuno Wittmer Racing).

Once it became clear that James Davison would be forced to miss two rounds due to prior commitments in the Pirelli World Challenge, Wittmer was parachuted into the Aston Martin Vantage GT3 for Watkins Glen and quickly immersed himself with the team. Coming off the back of three-straight podiums at Lime Rock, Road America and VIR, Nielsen now leads the championship by six points heading to the Lone Star Le Mans at COTA, with only the Petit Le Mans to follow. If they can get it over the line, would it come as some form of redemption?

“Absolutely – my main focus is to have her win this thing, that much is plain and simple,” says Wittmer. “As much as I’m not on the top of the charts with my points, that’s not really necessary for me; I’ll still feel very accomplished as a driver that I’ve helped out the team and hopefully her secure the championship.”

Nielsen’s upturn in form isn’t just down to Wittmer’s driving efforts however. Attending PWC races as her driver coach has helped Wittmer form a bond with the Dane, a vital component of any successful partnership, and the fruits are already beginning to bear.

“I would say the biggest improvements I’ve seen in her is in the way she applies the things she learned from one series to the other, Pirelli World Challenge being a sprint series means you’ve got to get on top of things quickly,” says Wittmer. “It’s just little things like that, where she improved her outlaps as far as getting up to speed, attacking right away and defending aggressively and she’s brought that over to the IMSA side as well.

The TRG Aston is firmly in the GTD title fight with just two rounds to go (IMSA).

“I think she’s got it all going for her. You just have to see in the last five or six races, the consensus in the paddock is ‘hey, we don’t want to mess with this girl on track, she can really race.’ People are really starting to notice her talent, which is really great.”

The one thing missing thus far has been a win, but that’s hardly unusual this season, with the Scuderia Corsa Ferrari of Townsend Bell and Bill Sweedler at VIR the only winners amongst the top four in points. Wittmer feels the elusive first win is not far away, but rightly points out that it is of secondary importance at this crucial stage of the season.

“We’re absolutely due for a win, we’ve had three podiums and we’re right there, but priority always has to be the end game,” he says. “All through my career it’s always about where we want to be at the end of the season. If the second place championship contender is running P1 in COTA or Atlanta and we’re running second, we’re definitely going to go for it.

“We absolutely can’t take anything for granted, there’s nothing won yet, we need to stay humble and treat every round as just another race weekend. We can’t be thinking about what ifs and start putting strategies in our mind. All we have to do is stay clean, race hard and make no mistakes.”

TF Sport win the battle, but Beechdean win the war

Fifth place was enough for Beechdean’s Andrew Howard and Jonny Adam to wrap up the 2015 British GT title in a madcap season finale at Donington Park, as Matt Bell and Derek Johnston took an unlikely victory from sixth on the grid.

Adam was able to share in the spoils this time (Jakob Ebrey).

With four cars entering the championship decider still in title contention, the cards were stacked for a thriller, and so it proved to be. Pole-sitter Andrew Jarman's Aston Martin led away from the start as Howard slipped to fifth behind the fast-starting Triple Eight BMW of outside bet Lee Mowle, championship leader Marco Attard and Johnston.

With the top four pulling steadily away, and a 20-second pitstop penalty to serve courtesy of their victory in the last round at Snetterton, Howard had good reason to be worried, but the balance of the championship shifted dramatically when Johnston tapped Attard from behind at Goddards. The contact was enough to send the rear-drive BMW into a spin and dropped Attard to the tail end of the GT3 field, but all was far from lost.

Sadly, Attard’s recovery didn’t last long. In a flash, a seemingly innocuous move on GT4 champion Jamie Chadwick at the Melbourne Hairpin resulted in contact which eliminated both cars, putting Howard and Adam firmly in the box seat for the former’s second title.

“Marco was up behind me, I checked my mirror and he wasn’t pulling out for a move, so I turned into the corner and then he was there,” reported a distraught Chadwick. “It wasn’t the ideal end to the season by any means, but it’s just one of those things.”

Attard’s team-mate Alexander Sims, who is contracted to BMW and likely to move on next year when Barwell becomes a Lamborghini customer, took the incident with good grace.

Griffin's slim hopes came to an end when he assaulted Mowle (Jakob Ebrey).

“We were making the best of a difficult situation, it’s just a shame,” said the philosophical Sims. “I think it was just a racing incident, I don’t think it was malicious in any sense. Of course, it would have been lovely to win, but we’ve had lots of highlights this year, lots of races which have been thoroughly enjoyable, and we’ve to all intents and purposes dominated at times, so we should be proud of what we’ve done.”

After the stops, Adam resumed in tenth, but picked his way methodically through the field, crucially avoiding the madness unfolding all around. Liam Griffin and Rory Butcher’s already slim title hopes were firmly extinguished when the Motorbase Aston Martin clattered into Mowle – already hamstrung with exhaust problems following a “touring car move” by Johnston – at the Melbourne Hairpin, sustaining terminal damage to the right front, while a terrific run for GT3 returnee Bradley Ellis in the RAM Mercedes was cut short when Lewis Plato was turned around at Goddards.  

“It was just busy, frantic, people were diving all over the place,” said an elated Howard after sealing his second British GT title. “It was an unbelievable race. Having done it a few seasons, early doors I’m not going to bang doors with the guys going past me. The pace of the front-runners was absolutely unbelievable. Of course you’re not happy about it, but you just have to let them go and settle into a rhythm.”

Up front, Jarman now led from TF Sport team-mate Johnston, with Ellis and the battle-scarred Mowle third and fourth. Johnston pitted first to hand over to Bell, who pumped in a quick outlap to leapfrog ahead of Jody Fannin and pull away to record the team’s first win of the season.

Bell and Johnston (right) finally delivered on their promise (Jakob Ebrey).

“At the start of the year in pre-season testing we showed race-winning pace, but we had a whole host of bad luck in the first three or four rounds,” recalled Bell. “It was all looking a little bit doom and gloom after Silverstone to be honest, but we all rallied together and we got the car to a window where we were all really happy with it. We could really do with another two or three rounds, then we could still win it! Hopefully we can come back with the same crew and use this as a platform to have a bit more of a consistent year.”

Fannin looked comfortable in second until the final lap, when a flurry of GT4 traffic allowed the fired-up Joe Osborne to close in at the Old Hairpin. However, Osborne was unable to make the move stick and spun, dropping to fourth behind the Demon Tweaks BMW of Phil Keen and Jon Minshaw, which recovered well from a 15-second pitlane penalty. Special mention too for Benny Simonsen, who stormed through from last to sixth and took fastest lap in the Rosso Verde Ferrari he shared with Hector Lester.

But the day belonged to Howard and Adam, who finally adds his name to the roster of champions after being denied his share of the silverware by a points deduction in 2013. 

“At the moment it just feels surreal; I genuinely didn’t think we would win it today,” Howard reflected. “It’s great to see Jonny win the championship – he’s in the history books now. He wasn’t there in ’13 as he should have been, but he is now.”

Dan Lloyd starred on his first time in the GT4 Aston Martin (Jakob Ebrey).

In GT4, Daniel Lloyd and Chris Webster carved through the field from 11^th on the grid to deliver Academy Motorsport their first win of the season. Having started the season in the Motorbase GT3 Aston Martin, Lloyd showed that he is equally adept in GT4 machinery, hunting down and passing long-time leaders Dennis Strandberg and Will Moore in the sister Academy Aston Martin at the Melbourne Hairpin with just minutes remaining. 

“Every lap I saw a different car at the end of the straight, caught them, passed them, and then as soon as I passed them I saw another car,” Lloyd said. “I was trying to look after the tyres at the same time because I knew it would be important to have some life in them for the end. It’s all a bit surreal, we didn’t expect this result this weekend, so it’s a nice way to end the season.”

Nathan Freke was also able to pass the Swede in the closing stages to take second in the Century Motorsport Ginetta with Ian Stinton, while James Nash and Richard Taffinder's Stratton Motorsport Lotus narrowly missed out on a maiden podium visit by three seconds.  

Jarman and Fannin on pole for #DoningtonDecider

Snetterton polesitters Andrew Jarman and Jody Fannin continued their rich vein of form with pole position for the final round of the British GT Championship at Donington Park.

Jarman’s 1:29.342 was comfortably the quickest time in the Am session, half a second ahead of the chasing Andrew Howard and Lee Mowle. Crucially, championship leader Marco Attard could only manage 11th, which meant team-mate Alexander Sims’ ballistic 1:28.276 in the Pro session could only elevate them to fifth overall. Despite having not lapped the Grand Prix loop in the dry since 2012, Fannin set a lap just two tenths slower than Howard’s team-mate Jonny Adam to solidify their second pole in three races, with the Beechdean duo having to make do with second. 

The Eurostar Aston continued where they left off in Norfolk (Jakob Ebrey).

“It would be nice to be on pole, but TF were really quick, which could be good for the championship if they can take some points of the others,” said Adam, who carries a 20-second penalty over from victory in Race Two at Snetterton. “We were quick in testing on Thursday last week but the track is a lot different with the rain, so hopefully it’s dry tomorrow, the track improves and the car will come into the sweet spot. We’re not going to tinker with it too much tonight.” 

Triple Eight’s Mowle and Joe Osborne share an all-BMW second row with John Minshaw and Phil Keen, with Sims and Attard back in fifth. Liam Griffin and Rory Butcher are the other championship contenders, but have their work cut out from eighth place.

In GT4, Oz Yusuf and Kavan Kershaw gave themselves the best possible chance of sealing second in the championship by taking their sixth pole position of the season, ahead of the Academy Motorsport Aston Martin of Dennis Standberg and Will Moore. Newly-crowned champions Ross Gunn and Jamie Chadwick were a strong third and the guesting PROSport Porsche Cayman of Adam Christodoulou and Henry Hassid fourth. 

Jota inch closer to ELMS title with Paul Ricard win (updated)

Hours after taking their second European Le Mans Series win in succession at Paul Ricard, Jota Sport were hit with a 45-second penalty for exceeding Filipe Albuquerque's allotted driver time by 1m57s. As a result, Albuquerque, Simon Dolan and Harry Tincknell drop to third, cutting their initial 18-point advantage over the Greaves Motorsport lineup of Bjorn Wirdheim, Jon Lancaster and Gary Hirsch - promoted to first place - to just a single point ahead of the final round at Estoril. 

Having grown so accustomed to seeing Albuquerque take the start in his tenure with the British team, Jota surprised everybody by deciding to change tact and start silver-rated Dolan, a move which initially looked to have backfired when he was jumped at the rolling start by the fast-starting AF Racing BR01s of Mikhail Aleshin and Nicolas Minassian. However, Jota were playing the long game, and truly came into their own once Dolan handed the Gibson 015S over to Albuquerque in fourth place, despite a quick spin.

Dolan was swamped at the start, but kept his head (Adrenal).

With the two Russian-entered BR01s, still only in their fourth ever meeting, dropping away once the platinum-rated Aleshin and Minassian had completed their stints, Jota’s main challenge came from the charging Greaves of Jon Lancaster, although the Brit had used the best of his tyre life catching and passing Pierre Thiriet and Victor Shaytar, the former with a mesmerising move around the outside of Turn 11 in traffic. With little threat from behind in the final stint, Tincknell was able to pull out a 30-second gap at the flag; although it was not to stand. 

Jota's penalty was small consolation for the TDS by Thiriet Oreca 05, which lost a near-certain podium in the final hour with a brake fluid problem. Coming into the weekend only two points behind Jota, the team were confident of a strong result on home turf, but all went awry from the off. 

Ludovic Badey was ordered to relinquish two places to Dolan and Bjorn Wirdheim having gained an advantage by using the run-off at Turn One, and shortly after picked up a left-rear puncture, which nearly dropped them off the lead lap. Sterling work from Tristan Gommendy and the help of the Safety Car to recover Gaetan Paletou’s stricken LMP3 Ginetta helped get them back to the sharp end, only to be forced into the pits for repairs when Thiriet was in line to collect third.

TDS were out of luck at Paul Ricard (Adrenal).

That promoted the AF Racing no. 21 of Aleshin, Shaytar and Kirill Ladygin to their second consecutive podium finish, ahead of the sister car of Minassian, David Markozov and Maurizio Mediani. A typically brilliant final stint from Olivier Pla helped the Krohn Racing Ligier to beat the disconsolate TDS crew to fifth, while early frontrunners Leo Roussel and David Cheng in the Pegasus Morgan collected seventh after Le Mans winner Richard Bradley retired the Eurasia Motorsport Oreca late on. 

Elsewhere, Murphy Prototypes were out of luck again, although Michael Lyons thankfully emerged unscathed from a heavy shunt at Signes while well-placed. Paul Ricard expert Nathaniel Berthon was due to take over in the final stint, but didn't get to drive; a bitter disappointment for the Frenchman, who to the delight of team owner Greg Murphy had given up a GP2 ride at Monza to be in attendance.  

In GTE, a fortunately-timed Safety Car helped the Formula Racing Ferrari of Johnny Laursen, Mikkel Mac and Andrea Rizzoli to a dominant win which sees them extend their championship advantage to 19 points.

As is now customary, the AF Corse no. 55 of Aaron Scott charged through to the front in the opening stint after an enthralling battle with Alex Talkanitsa Jr. and Laursen, who was the first of the lead group to pit. Rizzoli made excellent use of his fresh rubber to jump into a class lead they would never lose after the Safety Car gifted them almost a full lap’s advantage over the Marc VDS BMW of Henri Hassid, Andy Prialux and Jesse Krohn.

The battle for third was not decided in favour of British GT regular Rory Butcher, Jonny Cocker and Rob Smith until the final minutes, when impressive debutant Butcher caught and passed both the Gulf Racing Porsche Adam Carroll and the Proton Competition Porsche of Marco Mapelli, both struggling for tyre life. After Scott and Duncan Cameron lost time in the middle stint, Matt Griffin could only salvage a sixth place finish, which drops the 2014 runners-up behind Marc VDS to second in the standings.

Butcher impressed on his debut, taking JMW to a well-earned podium (Adrenal).

Paletou’s retirement brought an abrupt end to what had been a fascinating battle for LMP3 honours and confirmed Charlie Robertson and Chris Hoy as the inaugural champions. The Scottish duo have rarely been threatened this season, but GT Academy winner Paletou, sharing with Ginetta regular Mike Simpson, was in the mood for a scrap and running ahead of Robertson when he spun into retirement, leaving the way clear for the champions-elect to pick up their third win from four races.

There was some consolation for TDS however, as Franck Perera, Dino Lunardi and Eric Dermont took their second win of the season in the GTC class. Second for Stuart Hall, Francesco Castellacci and Thomas Flohr ensures the AF Corse no. 62 remains in title contention, while the Massive Motorsport Aston Martin of Casper Elgaard, Kristian Poulsen and Simon Moller completed the podium after a titanic scrap with the no. 64 AF Corse Ferrari of Adrien De Leener, Mads Rasmussen and Francisco Guedes. 

Pipo Derani: 'We’re not here to finish second'

Pipo Derani is a very determined sort of character. It’s an impression which becomes apparent as soon as the interview commences – the Brazilian has just completed a run after a transatlantic flight from Germany – and can be detected throughout the 21 year old’s young career. 

“To be honest, I’ve never had someone who has already been on top in the sport and has helped me, it was most of the time on my own and learning from my own mistakes,” Derani admits. “Most of the time it gets much easier if someone has already made a way up to the top categories and if you listen to these people then your chance of making mistakes gets a little bit smaller, so it’s never been easy for me getting through the difficult times.”

Going it alone has given Derani an inner steel and a maturity which belies his years. Recognising early on that without enormous financial backing, his Formula One dream was destined to be perpetually out of reach, Derani switched his attentions to the fertile land of sportscar racing and hasn’t looked back since.

Pipo Derani has struck out to a career in the WEC (Pipo Derani Media Office).

“It’s a bit of a surprise to be honest because it’s two different worlds, single-seaters and sportscars,” he says. “I had good results in single-seaters, but it doesn’t really matter to be honest, in any case you won’t be successful unless you have a big cheque. I changed the route of my career and made the decision to give up on the Formula One dream, which is not easy for a young driver, but looking back now I can see that it was the right choice. I had to make that decision quite early in my career and knew that if I was going to be successful then I would have to change my aims and today I couldn’t be happier to be here, fighting for a World Championship so early in my career.”

It was a “life changing” third place on the unforgiving streets of Macau in 2013 that opened the door to the possibility of a career in sportscars. Building on a fine sixth from 13^th on the grid in 2012, Derani started well and kept away from the walls to join Williams development driver Alex Lynn and DTM race-winner Antonio Felix da Costa on the podium, ahead of the fancied Alexander Sims, Carlos Sainz Jr. and Harry Tincknell.

Greg Murphy knows a talent when he sees one and made sure to get Derani on board for the following season’s European Le Mans Series rounds at Paul Ricard and Estoril.

“Macau is the biggest event on the F3 calendar and it showed he has a head for the big events because he didn’t make any mistakes,” says the Irishman, who plucked Brendon Hartley from single-seaters before his ascension to the Porsche LMP1 line-up. “He came to the workshop in the early stages of that year and after Macau we started talking more seriously. When I first met him I instantly liked him, he’s a good kid, with an old head on young shoulders, very mature.

“I’m sure he’ll go onto bigger and better things, he’s gone from being a quick single-seater protégé to a pretty good ticket for an LMP1 team to have a look at.”

The calm before the storm. With Murphy's Alan McGarrity
and Rodolfo Gonzalez at Paul Ricard (Pipo Derani Media Office).

It didn’t take Derani long to learn the ropes in his two race cameo with Murphy and he could count himself unlucky not to win on his debut thanks to a stop-go penalty for a pit infringement. Looking back, he says the confidence-boosting experience served him well ahead of his graduation to the world stage with G-Drive for 2015.

“Racing with Greg was a great experience and I don’t regret anything because if it wasn’t for those two races, I wouldn’t be in the WEC at the moment,” he says. “People weren’t expecting anything from me, I was just a new young driver coming into sportscars, where there is so much to learn. I just fell in love with it; it was amazing to start on the pole and be on the podium in my first race. If I am where I am today, it’s because I had that chance and not many young drivers coming from F3 get that.”

That grounded approach would serve the Brazilian well on his first attempt at the Le Mans 24 Hours in May. Derani was suitably respectful of the Circuit de la Sarthe and duly rewarded with a solid haul of points for fourth place, ensuring that he, Gustavo Yacaman and Ricardo Gonzalez are still very much in the hunt for the LMP2 title heading into the business end of the WEC season.

“Every single team in the WEC, ELMS and America who do Le Mans work for the whole year just for that race, so the amount of pressure on the driver not to make a mistake is huge,” says Derani. “The whole experience from the first test until the end of the race is just immense, you never realise how big it is until you actually take part. It was the hardest race of my life; now I understand why manufacturers usually pick drivers who have experience there!

“Obviously we wanted to be three steps further up, but at the end of the day to finish that race is a big achievement and we got good points for the championship as well. And now I know more of what to expect, it will hopefully make life much easier the next time. I hope to keep coming back for another twenty or more years.”

Fourth place was a reasonable return on Derani's
first LM24 apperarance (Pipo Derani Media Office).

Consistency has been the key to the Latin American crew’s title challenge, having finished inside the top three WEC-registered point scorers at every round so far, but Derani is itching to register that all-important first win and has been quietly putting in the hours behind-the-scenes to attain his goal. The fruits were evident at the Nürburgring as he showed well against Sam Bird’s sister car in the first stint, and ended being the third fastest LMP2 driver after Bird and Le Mans winner Nick Tandy.

“It’s my first ever season in WEC and first complete season in sportscars so there are a few things that will come with time, especially now being in the car for much longer than I used to be before, because with that you have to manage tyres and fuel,” he says. “Every time I get in the car I’m improving bit by bit and I am aware of the areas I need to work on. In motorsport you can never relax, so I’ve been pushing myself a lot to be able to reach the top in this type of racing. It’s not only about driving fast, you’ve got to be reliable and have a pair of safe hands because you’re not only driving the car for yourself, you have to always be thinking about your team-mates.

“This year we have a great opposition in the new Oreca, and so far they’ve been showing that they’ve made good improvements to their car and they’re very quick, so on our side, we’ve got to keep pushing to be in the fight. We are not here to finish second, we are here to win this championship and to win races. It’s a real team effort, so you can be sure that me and the team are pushing for it.”

That team is Jacques Nicolet’s Onroak, a bona fide constructor in their own right, having produced the Ligier JS P2 in-house and sold it to customers on both sides of the Atlantic, including Michael Shank Racing, Krohn Racing and Extreme Speed Motorsports; whose fleet were entrusted to Derani to shake-down before Spa. And with the news that the French outfit will be designing an all-new LMP2 car for the 2017 regulations, the Brazilian can expect to play an important role in the testing and development should he stay for another season.

Derani chats to Lucas di Grassi ahead of the Silverstone 6 Hours. The Brazilian
aspires to join him in LMP1 before too long (Pipo Derani Media Office).

“It’s funny because it’s only been a few months or a year where everything has changed in my career and to see that they trust and respect what I’m doing is a great feeling,” he says. “It’s very satisfying that they’ve given me this responsibility to shake down cars for Onroak and for my career it couldn’t be a better learning experience because it pushes me forward every time I put on the helmet.

“It’s a great team and apart from being really professional, it’s like a big family. We have a lot of fun together, but in the end what makes the difference is the level of professionalism from the mechanics and everyone. If you look at the last race at the Nürburgring, every single pitstop and every crew member was spot on, we never made a single mistake. I’m really enjoying being able to race for this team, because when it’s time for work, we all know that we have to perform 100% otherwise it’s not what the big boss expects. But also when it’s time to enjoy ourselves and have fun together, we do so.”

Following in the footsteps of Hartley, Tinknell and Mike Conway by using LMP2 as a springboard to a manufacturer seat in LMP1 remains the final hurdle, but with the addition of a mandatory rookie test to be held after the final race in Bahrain, we could well see Derani with one foot in the door before too long.

“Obviously the aim for any young driver is to reach the top of what they want to do; LMP1 is the top class in sportscars and to get the chance you have to be one of the best out there. I’m pushing really hard to be one of those, so hopefully I get the chance to test and show them what I can do. So far I know only four drivers will be chosen, at least one new driver per manufacturer, so I’ve got to keep working hard and delivering good results. I have my fingers crossed that I can sit in one of those machines soon.”