Rounds 11 and 12 at Donington, Sunday, July 1, 2001
Team Kaliber Sport with Barwell Motorsport proved to be the class of the field at Donington Park yesterday, but were robbed of the victories we deserved in rounds 11 and 12 of the British Touring Car Championship by engine gremlins. Whilst Simon Graves (still replacing regular driver Peter Cate) led both races, team-mate James Kaye, afflicted by a massive 60kgs of 'success weight ballast', battled through a tough weekend but was able to extend his championship lead as main rival, Simon Harrison, suffered major mechanical problems.
Graves and the team were confident of showing well at Donington, after a successful performance in the official test day back in May refining the set up with Peter Cate at the wheel. Official qualifying did not quite go according to plan, however, as our Honda Accord engines were sapped of power by the heat and were mysteriously slow down the straights - a problem which strangely hadn't manifested itself last summer. This restricted James and Simon to fifth and sixth on the grid respectively - not what we had anticipated. After qualifying the team made some changes to the way airflow is ducted into the radiator, and during the Sunday morning warm-up this proved to be the correct solution as the engines ran much cooler and thus produced better power.
At the start of the Sprint race Simon was then able to take the fight to the Peugeot 306s of Harrison and team-mate, Roger Moen. Harrison initially held sway at the front, but soon Graves was closing them both down and his Honda Accord was clearly the fastest car on the track. As Harrison dropped out of the equation was suspected brake problems, the race became a two-way fight between Moen and Graves. Simon slashed the gap to his Norwegian rival, cutting it down from three seconds to just half a second in only three laps.
On lap nine he was ready to pounce and take the lead when the engine suffered a failure and went bang in a big way. Kaye, meanwhile, had worked his Ôlead weight special' into fourth place but on lap seven he lost fifth gear and then had to spend the rest of the race trying to fight off the Renault Clio of Rob Collard (which still had a full complement of gears). These two enjoyed a hectic battle, but in the end James was powerless to stop Collard getting past and slipped back to fifth.
Having changed Simon's engine between races at Mondello Park last time, we knew that we could do it (just!) in about an hour and a half. However, the Donington circuit recovery wagon driver was less helpful than he could have been, and didn't seem to appreciate the urgency in getting our stricken Accord back to the pits so that the mechanics could set to work.Ê The clock started ticking with one and a quarter hours to go, and amazingly the Barwell crew broke their own unofficial Ôworld' record and got the car onto the grid!
The 27-lap Feature race followed a similar pattern to the Sprint, as Graves hunted down the Peugeots of, in this case, leader Moen and Harrison. Our Simon picked the first 306GTi off on lap five with a decisive move at Coppice corner, and then five laps later the lead was his as Moen succumbed to another well executed pass. By the time the safety car came out on lap 13, Graves had opened up a two second lead despite reporting that the engine was not pulling correctly through the rev range. When the pack was released again four laps later, our Honda Accord comfortably re-established the lead over Moen and increased it out to five seconds as the race entered its closing stages.
Just four laps from home, however, the crew heard heartbreaking news on the radio as Simon reported that a full misfire had now developed, and a lap later he could do nothing but watch as Moen and eventual winner, Mat Jackson (Ford Focus), blasted past on the straight. He brought the hobbled car home in third place to score his first BTCC podium, but it was much, much less than he and the team deserved. To rub salt into the wound, if there had been no 4-lap safety car period, Simon would have completed the original 27-lap race distance still in the lead.
Kaye endured a worse fate as his brakes suffered mightily, trying to cope with a heavy car in very hot and humid conditions. James reported a bad vibration and noise from the front of the car soon after the start, which then worsened lap by lap. On lap seven he came crawling into the pits, with his front brakes not functioning at all. The team discovered that a brake caliper mounting had broken, and had no choice but to retire the car. Our saving grace was that Harrison's Peugeot was again in big trouble, and later also retired from the race. This meant that James has actually extended his Driver's Championship lead by four points!
DRIVERS' CHAMPIONSHIP TOP 10(after 12 of 26 races)
1. James Kaye (Honda Accord) 114
2.Simon Harrison (Peugeot 306) 109
3.Roger Moen(Peugeot 306) 106
4.Mat Jackson (Ford Focus) 85
5.Gavin Pyper (Alfa Romeo 156) 61
6.Gareth Howell (Ford Focus) 56
7.Jim Edwards (Honda Accord) 35
8.Paul O'Neill (Peugeot 306) 33
9.Dave Allan (Honda Accord) 31
10.Peter Cate (Honda Accord) 27
1.GR Motorsport Ford 96 -
2.Barwell Motorsport Honda 87 -
3.HTML Peugeot 71 -
4.Tech-Speed M/sport Peugeot 34 -
5.GA Janspeed Alfa Romeo 32 -
6.Total Control Racing Honda 19 -
7.Synchro M/sport Honda 18 -
8.Tom Boardman Racing Peugeot 16 -
9.Team B-and-Q Honda 11 -
10.Cranfield Automotive Mitsubishi 3 -
11.Bintcliffe Sport Racing Nissan 2 -
12.Collard Racing Renault 0
