Scuderia Ecosse Take Lights to Flag British
GT Victory
17 July 2006
Tim Mullen and Chris Niarchos celebrated a double win at Snetterton
today, taking a convincing victory over their Avon Tyres British GT
Championship rivals Tom Kimber-Smith and Luke Hines. Phil Keen, driving
solo in the Eclipse Mosler, took his second podium of the weekend, pushing
the Team LNT Panoz all the way to the finish line.
Damax also celebrated a double win in GT3 for Aaron Scott and Stuart
Turvey on the British GT debut for the Ascari KZ1R. Matt Allison and
Jonny Lang added a second win in GTC for their Trackspeed team, finishing
ahead of teammates Andrea Demetriou and Ryan Hooker.
Tim Mullen shot off away from the rest of the field as the lights
flashed to green, with the Panoz of Luke Hines coming under immediate
pressure from the Eclipse Mosler of Phil Keen. Keen put the Mosler alongside
the orange Panoz and the two cars were side-by-side down Revett Straight
an dthrough the Esses in a awesome display of race craft from both drivers.
The two Ascari's of Rob Barff and Aaron Scott were right behind the
two battling GT2 cars.
Lap 2 saw the first retirement as Alex Mortimer brought the Team RPM
Porsche into the pitlane with a broken driveshaft, ending a disappointing
weekend for the race winning pair. There was also another retirement
at the head of GTC when the championship leading Team Tiger Marcos came
in smoking badly with no power steering, Chris Beighton climbing out
of the car into retirement.
Meanwhile Tim Mullen was building up a huge gap as the two GT2 cars
behind continued to fight for 2nd place, Phil Keen trying every move
in the book to try and find a way past Hines in the very wide Panoz
Esperante, but to no avail. By lap 7 Mullen was 12 seconds ahead, with
the Panoz and Mosler separated by less than half a second.
Matt Allison was heading up GTC in his Trackspeed Porsche, with the
Team Parker Racing Porsche of Barry Horne tracking his every move in
only the teams second race in British GT this year.
Just before the pitstop window opened Aaron Scott took the lead in
GT3, moving ahead of the Ascari of Rob Barff. Keen, knowing that he
was going to have to take a pitstop that was 15 seconds longer that
Hines, had a last ditch move to get ahead of the Panoz at Russell's
but the experienced Hines wasn't having any of it and held the Mosler
in third place.
After the pitstops were completed Chris Niarchos continued the Scuderia
Ecosse cruise to victory. Tom Kimber-Smith, now at the wheel of Panoz,
started to pull away from Phil Keen, who was now 7 seconds down the
road following his longer pitstop. Kimber-Smith then started to eat
into the Ferrari's lead at a rate of 2 seconds a lap, but with only
20 minutes of the race remaining it was doubtful he could catch the
Ferrari unless Niarchos made a mistake.
The car on the move in the later stages of the race was the Rollcentre
Mosler with Ian Flux at the wheel. Kevin Riley handed the car over to
Flux at the pitstops, where he'd been down in 21st place. Fluxy was
a man on a mission and by lap 44 was up to 8th place but a lap later
the car was inthe pits and into retirement.
Chris Niarchos took the chequered flag to take a double win for the
Scuderia Ecosse team, with Team LNT in second after Tom Kimber-Smith
had halved the gap to the lead car. Phil Keen was a well deserved 3rd,
his second of the weekend which showed the pace of the Mosler. Another
win for the Damax Ascari of Aaron Scott and Stuart Turvey on the cars
British GT debut, ahead of the Barwell Aston Martin DBRS9 of Jonathan
Cocker and Paul Drayson. GTC was another 1-2 for Trackspeed, with Matt
Allison and Jonny Lang taking the honours, with the Team Aero Morgan
of Keith Ahlers and Oliver Bryant taking another podium finish. Hunter
Abbott brought the second RPM Porsche home in 4th place despite running
for the second half of the race without a clutch.
The next round is Rockingham on 12/13 August.
SRO/MotionWorks
See 2006 series calendar for British
GT Championship
Related Story 11.07.2006 - Scuderia
Ecosse on the British GT Fightback
