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Livesley and Harison win but Walenska and Gilham are the stars of the show

Alex Livesley and James Harison won Production S1 race driving a Ginetta G20 in the Britcar meeting at Silverstone. The pair won comfortably from Garrie Whittaker's BMW E30 M3 which had led earlier in the race.

The pair had battled closely throughout the first14 laps but by the time Whittaker had his pit-stop the Ginetta  had already taken over at the front and started to open out a gap to the second placed car. By the flag this had grown substabtially, Livesley and Harison winning by 13 seconds.

Whittaker led the field from the start, opening out a gap to the second placed Ginetta G20 of Livesley and Harrison while in third was Mike Thomas in a CSEAT  Leon with Alan Blencowe's Civic fourth.  Thomas then 'dropped ' it on lap three falling down to tenth handing third place to Blencowe. He then appeared to have some sort of problem as he began falling down through the field slipping back to sixth in as many laps. He would eventually finish the race back  in thirteenth!

All this allowed Gary Furst to move up to third, a position he then held for the remainder of the race, apart, that is, for his mandatory pitistop. This he took on lap18 which briefly dropped him to to fifth, behind Gary Whitehead and the Cunningham and Cunningham Cupra. Both were still to sp however so Furst soon moved back into third  where he finished 31 secs behind the winner.

The star of the show was the BMW M3of Anna Walenska and former VW Cup driver Tony Gilham. Starting back in 12th on the grid after an engine failure in practice, the pair drove and inspired race to finish fourth, running with a basic M3 engine 'borrowed' for the race , an engine down 40 bhp on their usual unit!

Anna Walenska (below with Donaghy) took the first stint getting the car up to 11th on lap 2, 9th on lap 4, where she got stuck behind the Jones/Stanley SEAT Leon for 5 laps. But on lap 10 Anna found a way through and was up tom eighth. All this despite the car's lack of straight-line speed due to the aforementioned engine change..

On lap15 Anna handed over to Gilham who moved the car up to fourth by lap 21. He was then passed by Phil Donaghy and John Clonis Alfa Romeo 156, which after five laps of trying he re-passed to claim fourth at the flag.  Behind the Alfa in sixth came Gary Whitehead's BMW M3 M36.

words and pics S Higgs and R Pascal - 11/56 Motorsport

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