Round 3 - Snetterton - 26 June 2010
SNETTERTON RACE REPORT
Round 4 of the 2010 SPEED sports prototype series took place at Snetterton on Saturday and produced a fascinating race won eventually by the JOTA Sport Ligier of Simon Dolan and Sam Hancock with the RLR Msport Ligier of Barry Gates and Rob Garofall in second and the Woodcock Brothers’ Ligier third. Richard Fearns picked up the competitive Class C honours in his Radical SR3 with Gaius Ghinn and Julian Ide picking up the Class B trophy.
The result does not tell the full story though. On a sweltering day, the SPEED grid qualified with regular pace-setters Jody Firth and the returning Warren Hughes (Team WFR Ligier) setting the pace in qualifying, nearly a second quicker than the second placed RLR Msport #2 car driven by Belgian Christophe Burrick and Brit Tom Bradshaw. Dolan/Hancock were third but no one could keep up with the WFR car who looked odds on for their third win of the season.
But the beauty of endurance racing - SPEED runs 3 hour, 2 driver races – means that cars and drivers are put under significant pressure. A seemingly foregone conclusion is rarely that...
From the rolling start, Firth set about putting distance between himself and the rest of the field. Lapping steadily quicker than the second placed Dolan with the Woodcock Brothers car third. For the first half of the race, that would be the pattern in the CNA class runners. There was drama when Brazilian Adriano Medeiros, driving with Mohsin Rashid in the Accurate Racing Ligier, ground to a halt on the back straight with just three wheels on the car. The car was trucked back to the pits and the team repaired it but the time taken ruled them out of the running.
Class C, for bike-engined cars, has grown this season and is a hotly contested category, running for 90 minutes of the 3 hours in a ‘race-within-a-race’. With five cars running (Paul Steele’s late entry was running as a separate invitation car in the category), an early casualty was the unfortunate Rod Stead/Graham Hill Radical ProSport - winners at Brands Hatch in the previous round - who suffered a driveshaft failure after just 5 laps. Round 1 and 2 winners Gary Ramsdale and Shaun Mellors, in a 1500 Radical SR3 made steady running in the AEL Electronics Sourcing car but could not hold onto newcomer Nick Osborne in a similar car. They finished third in class behind Osborne who was in turn just one lap down on winner Richard Fearns in his Race Car Solutions Radical SR3.
The Class C runners’ race ended at around the time that the CN cars were thinking about making their driver changes. Burrick was first in, handing over to Bradshaw in the #2 RLR Msport car. Jota and the Woodcock cars came in on lap 75 to refuel and swap pilots, which left Barry Gates out in front in the other RLR Ligier. Hancock and Hughes took over the Jota and WFR cars respectively but the stops put Hughes some 50 seconds behind Hancock.
Due to a serious crash in an earlier Formula Palmer Audi race, the Snetterton curfew at 18.30hrs meant that the full 3 hours was not going to be possible. A glance at the clock and some quick arithmetic showed that with Hughes’ impressive pace – lapping regularly in the 1 minute 5 second lap times, the two leaders would be running together on track with just a few laps remaining. Would Hancock be able to hang on to the lead?
Back in the field, Bradshaw was another man on the move. Having taken over the car he was making steady progress. Clawing his way up to fifth he had his sights set on the Woodcock car which had been passed by Garofall, now in the #1 RLR Msport Ligier.
Teams and spectators alike watched the two chases with mounting excitement. Lap after lap Hughes closed on Hancock whilst Bradshaw hauled in Garry Woodcock. Hughes was closing at over a second per lap. On Lap 121 they were line astern at the front of the field. Two laps later there was just 0.29 seconds between the pair of Le Mans racers as they crossed the line. The Jota Sport team were nervous; the WFR car was fast and they had worries about fuel... by their calculations they were going to have to make a splash and dash to get to the finish. The win looked to be slipping away.
On lap 124, Hughes finally got alongside Hancock. There was the slightest contact but nothing to distract Hughes but, as he accelerated to get past, the car missed a beat and started to lose power. Hancock did not need a second look and drove away. On the pit wall, the WFR team looked on as the car came slowly through Corum. The immediate supposition was that fuel was low. They scrambled to get to the equipment as Hughes pulled into the pit and with the driver hurriedly out of the car the team put a splash on fuel in. As they sat there, the Jota car made its stop. This looked like it might work out for WFR. Hughes exited the pit ahead of Hancock – but never reappeared. A suspected electrical issue saw the car stop on track bringing out a safety car period and effectively gifting the win to the Jota car.
Hughes’ retirement lifted Garofall into a surprise second place after a steady drive from both pilots. In the sister car Bradshaw was meanwhile closing in on Woodcock, and both were going through the same worries as Jota. Should they come in for fuel? Neither did. Woodcock did not suffer. Bradshaw’s Ligier limped past the pits sounding gruff and losing time. The chase was over. They finished Bradshaw/Burrick fourth, Woodcock/Woodcock third.
Yet another SPEED race finished with drama in the closing laps following an enthralling race with battles throughout the field. It means honours are even between Jota and WFR with two race wins apiece. The next round is at Oulton Park on 24th July before the high profile season finale as a support event at the Silverstone LMS meeting on September 10/11.
