Brunswick Endurance Racing arrived at Oulton Park on the official Friday test day in order to prepare for their British GT Championship debut over the weekend. The team would field their Lotus Elise sportscar, driven by Peter who on this occasion would be acompanied by ex-F1 and world sportscar champion Vincenzo Sospiri.
"For me, having Vincenzo in the car is a big draw" Peter explained. "He has so much experience and is recognised as one of the quickest drivers of the last decade."
Oulton Park is a challenging track at the best of times, but on this occasion, the monster GTs would use the full 2.7 mile track configuration, including the fearsome high-speed Island Bend, the banked Shell Oils hairpin and also a new chicane at Knickerbrook which would feature heavily in Brunswick's weekend.
"We expect to struggle a little on the power sections of the circuit but should be able to make up a lot of time in the more technical sections, especially if we get through all the set-up work we have planned."
The Friday test started well, despite the unusually hot conditions. The drivers initially ran several laps on old tyres to settle in, this being the first time in the car for both Vincenzo and Peter. The team elected not to run a transponder (which relays lap times to the pits) at this time, to keep the performance of the car under wraps, but a handheld stopwatch showed they were right on pace!
Pleased with the basic shake down and general balance of the car, new championship specification Dunlop tyres were fitted for the afternoon session, along with a transponder. It was at this point that the other GT Cup class cars, particularly the other Elises, realised that the Brunswick threat was a very serious one indeed!
Vincenzo went out and ran a series of laps, culminating in a 1 minute 51.6 second effort, despite having to deal with a lurid slide after encountering oil at Knickerbrook. His feedback was that the car felt well balanced, other than an unwelcome instability under braking. This was attended to and Peter was able to go out and match Vincenzo's 1:51.6 after a single flying lap!
"The car was spot on!" was Peter's reaction. "With the braking issue cured, I didn't even have to try that hard! I had to be careful around Cascades, Shell and Knickerbrook where there was oil down, so I'm sure there's a good second or two left in the car for qualifying, especially on new tyres and low fuel." With the other Elises trailing the Brunswick car by around 2 seconds, the team were able to concentrate on making sure the car was ready for weekend without having to worry about finding more speed.
However, on Saturday morning, as the car was fired up for the free-practice session, distaster struck! A tiny crack in the fuel rail meant that the part would have to be replaced and the car could not run. Bearing in mind the pace of the car versus the competition, this was not a huge issue, but not something the team expected to have to deal with.
As the day wore on, temperatures rose into the high twenties, and qualifying would be a difficult session for all the drivers - a hot track provides much less grip compared to a cool one! Vincenzo would start the session, running similar settings to those Peter had used the previous day although with optimised suspension geometries.
With only 30 minutes in the qualifying session, Vincenzo was due to come in after 5 laps. The team were waiting for the car to come by the pitwall on its second hot lap, but were shocked to see Vincenzo already coming back into the pits, with the lightweight engine cover hanging off! He had entered the long high-speed left-hander called Cascades and the suspension had "bottomed out", instantly pitching the car into a huge slide. "I didn't want to hit the barrier on the inside so I spun the car" he said afterwards with typical Italian coolness!
With something clearly not right with the car, Vincenzo courageously went out and pushed to the limit, braking impossibly late into the first corner (Old Hall) and managing to equal the 1:51.6 laptime from Friday, a considerable feat given the hot conditions as well. With just 15 minutes to go, he came in to hand over to Peter in order that both driver's could fulfill the championship regulation which requires that both drivers must qualify.
Then came the second major blow to Brunswick's weekend: the qualifying session was red-flagged due to an accident involving a TVR and the Shell Oils barrier, and the announcement came that the session would not be re-started. With Peter not having qualified, the car would have to start at the back of the grid!
"Obviously it's a shame that Vincenzo's effort was for nothing but I think we showed our class," Peter rued. "Starting from the back will not be easy because we have a bit of a power disadvantage, so overtaking will be a challenge."
Overnight the team scrambled to locate the cause of the problem, which was traced to a combination of factors, including a de-pressurised shock absorber on the right rear wheel which would certainly explain the "bottoming out" experienced by Vincenzo. It was clear the driveshafts had struck the chassis in the left-hander, effectively "seizing up" the suspension and spinning the car.
A great late night / early morning effort from the team meant all the problems were located and solved and the team would be ready to race! Peter would start the race in the afternoon, and so drove the ten minute warm up to get used to the track conditions and check the car was ok.
After a few slow laps to bed in brakes and warm the tyres, he put in a quick lap to feel how race-pace might affect it with a full fuel load. Entering Cascades, the ominous knocking sound Vincenzo had described warned Peter just in time that the car was again bottoming out in the middle of the corner, so he quickly eased off to avoid a similar spin. At the same time, the oil pressure warning light came on, so the car headed back to the pits.
Once again the team stormed into action, quickly identifying the cause of the oil pressure troubles and making a few revisions to the set up to manage the full-fuel load the car would need to carry for the long 75 minute race. Apart from a last minute oil filter failure, the car made it to the grid without further problems. As the car progressed around the formation lap, smoke curled from the engine cover, but it was only the legacy of the oil filter failure leaving some oil residue on the hot exhaust, and the team breathed again as the cars set off for the green flag lap.
As it would be a rolling start, Peter concentrated on warming tyres and brakes, whilst checking the circuit, particularly because marshalls had warned the drivers of oil in certain areas from the previous race. "Actually it was pretty crazy," Peter said afterwards. "There was oil on the racing line through the Knickerbrook chicane, all the way up to Druids and then along and into Lodge. They put concrete dust on it but it was still lethal!"
Positioning his car next to the similar #43 Elise of Michelangelo Segatori and Walter Colacino as the cars approached the startline, Peter was able to outbrake the Italian and pass around the outside into Old Hall, quickly moving up on to the bumper of the 4.6 litre Marcos Mantis of Alun Edwards and Jeff Wyatt. The powerful Mantis defended resolutely over the first lap, but coming down to Knickerbrook for the second time, Peter forced the #44 car to take a tight defensive line which compromised the Marcos's exit up the hill, allowing Peter past into Druids.
He quickly closed the gap to the three-way scrap ahead, involving the Honda-powered #51 Elise, the ultra-powerful Golf turbo piloted by Stuart Scott, and the Ferrari 360 of Hector Lester. "It was pretty important to find a way past these guys because the Marcos was right there behind me, but the problem was our straightline speed. We couldn't match the cars ahead on the straights and yet they were holding us up badly in the corners."
The problem was compounded by the oil on the track effectively eliminating the classic overtaking zones into Knickerbrook, Druids and Lodge. After sizing up the weaknesses of the cars ahead, Peter began to force the #51 Elise to defend the corners, which in turn forced the Golf ahead to also take a tight line. The pressure eventually paid off when both Elise and Golf ran wide into Knickerbrook and in the left hand part of the chicane, Peter was able to cut inside both cars in a clean move. "Their tight line took them over the oil so the pass was pretty much a gift".
However, with Peter already thinking about the Ferrari ahead, suddenly there was a massive impact from behind which broke the rear right wheel rim of the Brunswick car, and spun the Elise around in a quick 360 degrees before sending it into the gravel trap! Peter kept his foot down and almost made it back out of the gravel but the car just sank in a few feet away from the track. With the marshalls unable to assist, Peter had no option but to climb out and retire.
The whole incident is best described by the driver himself: "I was really hacked off by the impact. It was so unnecessary. I left the Golf acres of room in the inside and I couldn't believe it when he hit me. My first reaction was to give him a piece of my mind whenever I got back to the pits; you can think up quite a few things to say when you're standing around watching a GT race for an hour! But the marshalls explained that the Charlton Elise (#51) had taken a wild lunge up the inside of the Golf and basically knocked Stuart into our car. Even on the last lap of the race that kind of move would be stupid, but on lap three? Well..."
With the Brunswick car eliminated, the Ferrari 360 was able to stroll to a podium finish without too much pressure, behind the winning Porsche GT3 of Pearce and Griffin, and the amazing sounding Morgan Aero 8 of Cunningham and Sharpe.
Although their weekend finished with disappointment, Brunswick came away from Oulton Park with a sense of achievement. Team principal Giles Groombridge commented "We've certainly rattled a few cages in the GT Cup class. We found a lot of time in the car over the last three days and and none of the other Elises even came close to the lap time Pete and Vincenzo set."
"It was a real shame for Vincenzo and for his fans that he didn't get to race the car, but there'll always be another day," was Peter's take on the event. "I was able to pick up a lot of tips from Vincenzo, especially since my background is essentially touring cars versus his impressive single seater career, and I just hope we'll get the chance to race together again pretty soon!"
Peter will return to the track at
the end of August when Brunswick will campaign the Lotus in the
1000km race at the mighty Spa Grand Prix track in Belgium, again supported by sponsor i-TRAK , whom we would again like to thank
for their backing this year.
