TEAM NEWS: It was a very busy race event for Barwell Motorsport last weekend, when both the Avon Tyres British GT and Belgian GT Championships descended upon the beautiful Spa-Francorchamps Grand Prix circuit. With the entries for both series being combined into one big grid (but with separate results classifications), we were thus running both of our Aston Martin DBRS9s in the race – for British campaigners Andrew Howard/Jamie Smyth and also the Belgian Championship example of Eddy Renard/Vincent Vosse. To make matters more complicated for us, we were also running the new ‘GT3-spec’ Ginetta G50Z-Zytek in the British field (as a non-homologated Invitation Class entry), with Olly Bryant and Andrew Smith performing the driving duties.

Race 1

Unfortunately for both Astons, their races were badly compromised after being hit by other cars at the first corner, in separate incidents. This was especially galling for Andrew Howard, after a great qualifying performance which had put him fourth British car on the grid. His Beechdean Dairies DBRS9 was whacked in the side by a Ferrari at La Source hairpin, however, and then became entangled with the errant Italian machine which dropped both cars to the back of the field. The front splitter and dive planes had been damage in the impact as well, which was to cause further problems later on. Similarly, Eddy had been given a hefty knock at La Source, but while this didn’t cause any delays at the time, it had knocked the front steering geometry out of line on his car which then started to understeer badly only a few laps into the race.

Andrew Smith, meanwhile, had put in a great debut British GT performance to qualify the Ginetta second for this field, and was revelling in the Zytek-powered machine. He managed to emerge unscathed from the first corner kerfuffle, but got blocked in behind a slower Belgian car as the field blasted up the hill out of Eau Rouge and demoted to fourth spot. Smith then battled it out with the leading three British cars for the remainder of his stint and then headed towards the pits to hand over to Olly at the half way mark, with the duo in with a great shout of an overall podium. Just before it came in for the driver change, however, the G50Z had suffered an intermittent fuel pressure problem. When Olly jumped in the car and tried to restart it, the engine wouldn’t fire up and this car then lost an agonising 30 seconds in the pit lane until it burst back into life. After a great stint where he was lapping as quick as the leaders, Olly brought the car home in sixth place but the restarting drama had almost certainly cost them a top-three overall finish. The Ginetta’s first performance against quality opposition had certainly showed it to be competitive, but at the same time with a performance level that was well balanced with that of the other – GT3 homologated - front-running cars. The drivers were definitely having to work hard to be competitive, and that is the way it should be.

The Barwell Aston of Howard was absolutely storming its way back up the order, as Andrew was clearly very fired up after the first corner incident. This was a stonking recovery drive, which took him back up to sixth place by the end of his stint after he had been lapping very close to the pace of the leaders. Unfortunately, however, the damage to the front splitter and aerodynamics meant that the front tyres had been working overtime during the first half of the race, as they were trying to make up for the lack of aerodynamic grip. Jamie duly took up the cudgels at half distance, but was unable to progress things further as the front tyres really started to give up the ghost. By the end of the race they were worn almost to the canvas, and eighth place was the best that could be achieved. This situation was not helped by a problem with the ‘fly-by-wire’ throttle late on in the race, which shut the throttle off on one lap. The Barwell crew changed the throttle potentiometer for race two, and this cured the problem.

Tyre problems were also the undoing of the Belgian duo, as Vosse moved the Aston Martin Brussels-backed car up to a comfortable fifth place (and chasing down fourth spot) only for a puncture to undo all of his hard work. This happened just after the 130mph Blanchimont corner, giving Vincent a hairy moment but luckily he wrestled the car under control and brought it into the pits in one piece. The only tyres you are allowed to fit in this case are the ones reserved for the next race of the weekend, but the problem is that you are then severely compromising your performance in that race. With Vincent on pole position for Sunday’s race, we decided to retire the car from this encounter as there was no chance of a decent points-scoring result.

Race 2

Vosse had scorched to pole position in the ‘pro’ qualifying session for the second Belgian GT race at Spa, posting two laps good enough for the spot and the better one half a second clear of the opposition. We thus had high hopes of achieving a strong podium result in this race, as Eddy was also driving well and really enjoying Spa in the high-downforce DBRS9. Sunday morning’s weather was to throw us a curved ball in the shape of heavy fog, however, and the organizers unfortunately didn’t seem to want to delay our early 9.05am start. Hence the race was started in dense fog behind the safety car, and everyone’s mood became darker as the fog became worse.

After 15 minutes of running behind the safety car, the visibility on circuit was still quite poor (one GT4 car had crashed during this period!), and it seemed that a race stoppage or even cancellation could be on the cards. There was then a small lift in the mist, however, and the organizers made a very quick decision to start the race. Unfortunately Vincent, leading the pack around, was slightly caught out by this and on cold tyres he suffered a few off-course excursions during the opening few laps. This dropped him down to eighth place out of the Belgian GT runners, and Eddy then had his work cut out to make up positions in the second half of the race. With the tyres now well and truly up to temperature, the car was working well and Renard put in his best performance of the season as he fought his way back up to fifth place by the finish.

Also impressing during his stint was Jamie, who showed his good feel for driving a car on slicks in slightly greasy conditions and was hounding the Ferrari of Adam Wilcox for fourth place. Although Jamie had superior pace and would get past Wilcox on the exit of Eau Rouge, the Ferrari’s better braking ability into Les Combes meant that he couldn’t hang on to the place. He thus handed over to Andrew in fifth, but the Ferrari team held their car in the pits for longer than necessary and more accurate pit stop timing by us meant that Andrew emerged from the pits ahead. With the track still slightly greasy from the mist, Andrew was driving confidently and was able to reel in the Mosler of Short/Fisken (the winners of race 1). Just as the Barwell Aston was in position to pounce on its rival for third, the sun came out and very quickly heated up the track. This had the result of then increasing the tyre wear as the race entered its closing stages, something which the Mosler is much less affected by and it enabled Fisken to put some clear air in between his car and the Aston. Fourth was still a very good result for Jamie and Andrew, after two good drives.

Between the two races we had carried out a thorough investigation of the Ginetta’s fuel pressure problems, and done some work which we believed had cured the problem. Unfortunately, however, the problem manifested itself again in race two, and after the first three racing laps caused the G50Z to stop completely on the track. This was a terrible shame, as Olly was absolutely flying and had just put a move on the Dodge Viper of Aaron Scott to take third place… this Viper then went on to win the race… The pit crew was then giving Olly instructions over the radio as to where they thought the problem might be, after he had parked up just off the circuit. After 20 minutes Olly found the problem, made a temporary fix and was able to restart the engine! He then came in to the pits and Andrew rejoined the fray to finish off the remaining 15 minutes of the race, and was the fastest British GT car on the track during this period.