Forthcoming UK Events
| Date | Event | Location |
| 06-08.07.2012 | Formula 1 British Grand Prix | Silverstone (Arena GP) |
| 01-03.06.2012 | British Drift Championship | Norfolk Arena |
| 23-24.06.2012 | MG Live 2012 | Silverstone |
| 25-26.08.2012 | FIA World Endurance Championship | Silverstone |
The 2012 Season Starts Here
The last week has seen a flurry of activity as championships big and small held their annual media days and opening tests, with some already even getting down to racing proper. The British Touring Car Championship heads strongly into a new all-turbo generation and this year boasts 10 models from nine different marques on its 24-car grid, including the technicolour liveried return of the MG name.
The BTCC season opener hits Brands Hatch on 1st April, followed a week later by the first rounds of the British GT Championship and the British F3 International Series at Oulton Park. While some single-seater formulae have struggled in recent times - Formula Renault postponing its UK series due to poor entries - British F3 continues to attract young talent. With recent champions including the Scuderia Toro Rosso pairing of Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne, its status as a stepping-stone to Formula 1 is hard to dispute.
Read more...McLaren and Porsche Head the British GT Qualifying Times at Spa
- Details
- Category: British GT
- Friday, 08 July 2011
The new McLaren MP4-12C GT3 car enjoyed a superbly competitive international motorsport debut in qualifying for the Avon Tyres British GT Championship today at Spa-Francorchamps, Chris Goodwin claiming pole position for the first of tomorrow’s Belgian races.
But Goodwin’s first-session time of 2m 23.479s was eclipsed in the second session by the Trackspeed Porsche of Richard Westbrook, which posted a phenomenal 2m 22.648s to bag the pole for race two. Westbrook was nearly a full second clear of his closest rival in the session and was the only driver all day to break the 2m 23s barrier.
Andrew Kirkaldy, CRS Racing team principal and Goodwin’s driving partner in the McLaren, was pleased with the McLaren’s performance: “Although we have covered around 4500km in testing this is the first time we have had any opportunity to go up against any other cars, so before today it was something of an unknown quantity. We are very pleased with the way things have gone: the McLaren is reasonably on the pace straight out of the box, it feels great to drive and technically everything has gone as planned.” The McLaren is competing in the Invitation class and will not score championship points.
Goodwin’s first-session time was a clear second better than that of his closest challenger for the pole, Michael Lyons in the Scuderia Vittoria Ferrari 458 Italia. Reigning champion David Ashburn was third fastest in his Trackspeed Porsche, ahead of 2009 champion David Jones in the Preci-Spark Mercedes.
There was a fine effort from Ron Johnson to post the best qualifying performance yet for the Speedworks Motorsport Corvette; Ron will line up ninth on the grid for race one tomorrow, two places behind the United Autosports Audi of current championship leader Mike Guasch.
Westbrook’s session two time was truly a jaw-dropper; the Porsche man posted it in the early stages of the session. Though it probably would have remained unbeaten, none of his rivals got the chance to try to better it in the closing stages after a crash brought out the red flags with five minutes left on the clock. The collision involved cars from other championships - British GT is sharing the Spa grid with European GT4 cars and the Aston Martin GT4 Challenge.
Great Dane Allan Simonsen was second fastest for the Rosso Verde Ferrari team, ahead of the CRS Ferrari of Glynn Geddie, and fourth-placed Matt Griffin, who was the free practice pacesetter earlier today, in the MTech Ferrari.
There was a clean sweep in the GT4 category for Scuderia Vittoria, with Dan Denis claiming the class pole in session one and his team-mate David McDonald repeating the feat in session two. Lotus men Ollie Jackson and Phil Glew will line up behind them for respective races tomorrow.
The British GT Championship is sponsored by UK tyre manufacturer Avon Tyres and is further supported by Sunoco Racing Fuels, Anglo American Oil Company and OAMPS.
