Round 3 - Snet 200 (6 hrs)

Friday 1st June

Exclusive testing: 11.20 - 12.20

Exclusive testing: 15.45 - 16.45

Saturday 2nd June

Sign On: 07.30

Scrutineering: 07.30 - 08.30

Driver's Briefing in the Circuit Hospitality Suite: 08.15

Exclusive Testing: 09.00 - 10.00

Qualifying: 10.10 - 11.00

Race: 12.00 - 18.00

TDI Classification

Snetterton 200 circuit was the venue for round three of the Fun Cup Championship on the 2nd June.

After Friday practice, car 209 Eco/Solutions Racing, knew they had strong pace. Tom Mills re-joined Paul Abraham and Jason Simon and the trio was confident.

Paul Abraham said “Mike and Emma put together a radical and aggressive strategy and as usual, Solutions provided us a near perfect car. So, it was down to us to do the business!”

Mills started the race and had a fantastic first stint, moving from 16th to 1st in seven laps. Next out was Simon, who had his mirrors full of a red car; it was the number 1 of Team Honeywell. But, for his entire stint, he drove faultlessly to both defend the position and preserve the car.

There was little in it all day and as expected, it all came down to the last stint. Eco’s strategy of looking after the car certainly paid dividends, as they had to both catch and pass Honeywell’s Geoff Fawcett in the last stint. It was incredibly tense on the pit wall, as Abraham pulled out of Fawcett’s slip stream and blasted past him on the start finish straight of the second to last lap, to take the victory, forcing Neil Plimmer and Fawcett to settle for 2nd.

Paul Abraham, said: “We would like to say a massive thank you to Solutions Racing for a faultless performance and to Dave for keeping us in the right place! A final thank you goes to Team Honewell, who gave us the hardest, but cleanest race, I canmremember. After six hours, we took the victory by half a second, which speaks volumes for the conpetitiveness of the championship”.

Henry Dawes and James Swift completed the TDI podium, finishing 4th overall and 3rd in class.

Petrol Class

Scarab Indigo Racing, car 263, knew from the test session that they had a strong car for this race. The Trackcars4Hire team, led by Phil de Groot-King, had yet again prepared the car to the optimum.

Bram de Groot and Stephen Johansen were setting consistent fast lap times during all of their stints and this helped Scarab/Indigo Racing to build a significant lead over the race. Johansen had a small scare when the bonnet started flapping after contact passing a lapped car, which then made part of it break off on the back straight. During his pitstop, this was quickly fixed by Jason from Team O’Brien.

Steve Johansen, explained: “On the circuit, great rivalry exists between us and Team O’Brien, but both teams work together during the race, with both sets of mechanics sharing the work during pitstops. Phil had looked at the left rear tyre duing the last stop and noticed it was low on rubber, due to a damaged wheel bearing, so he decided to call de Groot back in for a quick wheel change, as he was on his last stint of the race and was nearly two laps clear.”

It was an emotional feeling for de Groot, Johansen and the rest of the team, to cross the line in p1 for first time!

He added: “A huge thank you to everyone who helped make this a special win for Scarab/Indigo Racing.”

Meanwhile for car 101, Racelogic, it was a race of highs and lows. After numerous starts from the back of the grid, they were finally drawn a front row slot, in p2.

Their line-up consisted of the trio Nigel Greensall, Julian Thomas and Joachim Ritter. They decided it would be best to double stint their drivers, but save Greensall’s stints until the end of the race, which they consider the most crucial period and where he would be triple stinting!

Thomas started the race from the front row and just as the pack was about to cross the start line, the car on pole, 262, unexpectedly braked, forcing Thomas to do the same, so as not to pass them before the start line. This not only caused an accident behind, but also allowed the cars behind to mob the leaders, as they headed into turn one.

By the end of the back straight they were down in 4th place, being held up by the pole sitters, as they defended aggressively, allowing the leading bunch to pull away. Thomas managed to get past 262 on lap two, but was now five seconds behind the leaders, and so set about catching them.

The Diesels of Eco Racing and Honeywell soon caught and passed them, but then an uncharacteristic mistake from Honeywell allowed Thomas to regain this place, after which he then got on with the job of catching the two other petrol cars in front.

The rest of the thirty minute stint saw Thomas swap the class lead with Porsche Byfleet nine times in a hard fought, but extremely clean battle. After Thomas’s second stint, they were leading by around thirty seconds as he handed over to Ritter. He then put in two very quick stints and handed over to Greensall, still in the lead of the petrol class and 3rd overall. Greensall managed to eek out a small lead over a flying Scarab Racing then handed back to Thomas.

Ritter had reported a fuel surge problem and at this point, the car started to cut out around the fast corners and at the end of the straights. By the time Thomas came in for a refuel for his 4th stint, the car was losing two seconds a lap, but their mechanic Scott quickly (and correctly) diagnosed a blocked fuel filter, which he changed in double quick time, but it still put them two laps down and p8 in class.

Thomas really got the hammer down in his last stint, now the car was pulling really strongly and they began to make up some time and places lost in the pits.

Ritter’s second double stint also went well and he made up some more places, but repeated small infringements of the pit lane speed limit by both Ritter and Thomas, meant that when Ritter handed back over to Greensall for his remaining triple stint, they were given a drive through penalty.

Greensall then set about closing the gap, targeting 2nd place in class as achievable, given that car 88 was only thirty five seconds ahead!

Greensall then flew round, setting fastest laps in the process and managed to close down team 88, JPR/Ecurie Escargot, in the dying moments of the race, to cross the line p2 in class, and p5 overall.

Unfortunately, when the car was weighed on the scrutineers’ scales, it was found to be 6kg under weight, even though it showed excess weight of 1.5kg on the JPR scales. They were then excluded from the race and didn’t take home any points at all from a hard day’s work!

Julian Thomas, said: “It’s a hard lesson, but we have now learned to weigh our car the day before on the scrutineer’s scales, just in case! Still a hugely enjoyable race, intense and action packed right up until the end, with the overall lead swapping and changing continuously throughout the entire six hours.”

With the demise of the 101 car, this promoted Will Pembroke and James Somerton in JPR/Ecurie Escargot, car 88 to 2nd place.

CCS Media, car 248, started well, with Ciro Carannante making up a few places, in what was an extremely competitive stint and was followed by solid, incident free drives from Stuart Ziemelis and Alan Honarmand. Halfway through the race saw 248 hovering just outside the top ten. However, some searing drives from Carannante, matching the lead car of Eco for lap after lap and Ziemelis making up several places with controlled and precise driving, followed by breathtakingly audacious overtaking from Honarmand, catapulted the CCS car into a brilliant and well deserved 4th place. They were later elevated to 3rd after the unfortunate disqualification of car 101.

NEW DEVELOPMENTS - CAR 101

Car 101 was found to be underweight according to the Snetterton scales. However, new evidence has come to light, to suggest that these scales are out of calibration, or faulty. An appeal has been made to the MSA to have the car reinstated. We will keep you informed of any updates.