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The Grid.co.uk the national & club motor racing website - est1998 |
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The Grid.co.uk the national & club motor racing website - est1998 |
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mail your news to editorthegrid@yahoo.co.uk Great finale finish for Sarah in the GT Cup Championship finals at Silverstone
Saturday's late qualifying proved to be extremely tricky, the circuit looked perfectly dry but was slightly damp and with the low temperature there was no chance of getting heat into the slick tyres and grip was non-existent. Sarah amongst others did a 360 degree spin on the out lap. After banking 3 laps Sarah gave up trying to get heat into the tyres and came in for wets. Once back out she got just one flying lap before the wets started overheating and the times went up, but it was enough to put her on pole 1st in class by almost 2 seconds and put her 15th on the grid out of 26 starters. By the end of the session the circuit was ready for slicks but everyone ran out of time to swap back. With the whole grid all mixed up, Sarah found herself starting Sundays 1st race on row 8 surrounded by Class 1 cars, a daunting prospect! The excitement started even before the rolling start got underway as two cars spun at Luffield as the pack were thundering through for their rolling start. Sarah got through the gap and managed to avoid the next series of events as the front running cars had a coming together just before Copse causing oil or coolant to be dropped onto the corner. This had the knock on effect for the following pack making going through Copse pretty hairy. Inevitably more accidents then happened as cars spun on the coolant and got collected by pursing competitors more coolant/ oil dropped and so on until finally out came the safety car to sort it all out. Sarah managed to keep out of trouble through the slippery section and avoid all the spinning cars coming out in 9th position overall at one point. Once the safety car went back in Sarah had a trouble free run following the faster class 1 front runners, pulling 15 seconds over her fellow class competitors and bagged fastest lap in class of 1.02.1 finishing 10th overall from 26 starters, picking up an amazing 5 places on faster class cars. For the 2nd race Sarah started on row 11, based on her 2nd fastest qualifying lap, just behind class leader Tom Andrew in the KTM XBow, as the race started it was soon clear there had been another Copse corner incident with cars going off in all directions and for the first few laps Sarah and Tom were swapping places each lap, no sooner had the race started it was red flagged due to a major coming together between the Porsche of Alex Martin and Ferrari of David Back leaving the circuit completely blocked. The grid was reformed as per the race order on the previous lap and after the restart the rest of the race was a fury of yet more spins, and accident avoidance. Tom Andrew managed to pop ahead of Sarah in the opening laps of the restart and Sarah was held back by the Porsche 996 of Robert Koenig and ended settling for 3rd in class. "Its been a great finale for the 2010 season, to get two podium finishes, the car has been fantastic and we really shone this weekend, maybe the 24hrs of running in the wet helped! Thankfully we avoided all the accidents today and Butler Motorsport have done a great job all year, special thanks to for Adrian Flux for sponsoring me through the season." Sarah
Fine finish for Nicholas Mee Racing in the Silverstone Britcar 24hr
The team qualified 27th out of 60 starters, 15th in class and over the first few hours the team quickly rose into the teens at 4hrs they were 18th overall. With the race start at 4.30pm on the Saturday and darkness falling at 7.30pm the conditions soon got tricky as day fell to night and dry turned to drizzle. The drizzle soon turned to rain and by late evening the rain was torrential, but still the team continued to climb the leader board and by midnight they were up into 14th position. The night driving bought lots of safety car periods due to accidents and thick fog brought visibility down to virtually zero. Despite being hit by a passing Mosler and a long fog bound safety car stint, by dawn the team were up into 11th position. Sunday morning everything was looking good, whilst the team were having breakfast they were looking at P10 overall, 6th in class and thinking 'fingers crossed this is going quite well', but then the problems started. A broken seat bolt cost the team 5 laps when it was replaced dropping them to 12th, then an excursion into the wall at 11.30am followed by a lengthy recovery and requirement to mend the damaged wing and a radiator change dropped the team down to 20th position.
"We knew a podium finish was going to be big ask, since there were works teams and lots of pro drivers in Class 3, but we still did get a little over excited about our top 10 debut for a few hours. I took the car from dusk into the night on Sat night and into the wet weather on slicks which was a bit of de ja vu moment after last year. My most enjoyable stint was the safety car restarts at dawn, I did nearly a 3hr stint of wet / fog dark to daylight running which was ace! Towards the end the track conditions were almost impossible, I've never known a track so slippery after 15hrs of rain, oil spillage and rubber being laid down. Despite everything I think we all had a fantastic time, I'd like to thank NMR for giving us a mega car and looking after us all so well and Adrian Flux for sponsoring me in this amazing race." Sarah Pics Dennis Goodwin Class win for Sarah Bennett-Baggs at Brands Hatch in the GT Cup
It was looking good on Saturday with Sarah fastest in her class in free practice before she found another half a second in qualifying to do a 1.37.5. However, it wasn't quite enough as her class competitors Tom Andrew in the X-Bow pulled out all the stops to qualify on a 135.9 while the Lotus Elise of Dan Norris-Jones put in a 1.36.9 leaving Sarah 3rd in class. In Race 1, after getting off to a good start, Sarah was hot on the tail of the Dan Norris-Jones but after just a few laps she started to experience problems with the Power Steering. These began intermittently before the system failed completely. Sarah’s team had already fluid dropping from the car and called her intoits to investigate. With the Power steering now completely failed and coolant fluid pouring out onto the tyres and brakes it was decided to call it a day and retire from the race. A disappointing start to the day but Butler Motorsport set to work to fix a new cooling radiator, and get the car sorted for the second race. Race 2 followed the Spanish GT Open races which had left the track littered with marbles and various oil slicks. This became very apparent on the first lap of the as various front runners spun off, leaving the rest of the field to pick their way through the ensuing mayhem! Sarah then seized her chance and began to make up the places as did fellow class competitor David Botterill who shot into class lead in his Porsche 944 Turbo. After a brief safety car period which closed up what was left of the pack Sarah got to work on finding a way past David whilst fending off attacks from the Class 2 X-Box of Peter Belshaw and others all tried to get alongside her BMW E46 for the best part of a lap. Sarah however kept her cool, and determined to get clear of ‘rabble’ she managed to overtake David going into Westfield and once clear began to pull away. With just 5 minutes to go she put in some very quick laps to open the gap to the following X-Bow of Tom Andrew to claim her first class win, finishing 14th overall from 26 starters. "It was an action packed race, the track was slippery round druids, I could see everyone spinning but you couldn't see what or where it was, it obviously wasn't my turn to fall off this week! Once I saw David ahead of me I was determined to get that Class win, the hassling class 2 cars weren't making it any easier at one point I think two of them got in-between me and the Porsche 944 so I had to deal with them before tackling David. It was a proper battle and one I shall am very pleased to have come out of unscathed and in P1, thanks again to Butler Motorsport for giving me such a great car to drive."
First podium of the season for Sarah in the GT Cup Championship
Saturday's qualifying at 9am presented a glistening wet track in glorious sunshine. With half the grid choosing slicks and half wets it was going to be a tough job to get heat in the tyres and set a good time. Sarah opted for slicks and inevitably within 3 laps the safety car was out which enabled the wet shod cars to pit and swap, Sarah used the time to build more heat in the tyres, and put in two fliers at the end to qualify 2nd in class and 20th out of 26 runners. In Race 1 Sarah got off to a good start narrowly avoiding the spinning car of Craig Wilkins just after Old Hall. Where she took to the grass avoiding the scattering cars without losing position. On the first long lap the field started to spread out and Sarah kept up with the lead pack. But on lap 2, cresting the blind rise before Cascades Sarah spotted two Porsches spinning off into the gravel at the bottom of the hill. It was too late to react, the large patch of gear oil in the braking zone for Cascades left Sarah just a passenger as the BMW M3 swapped ends leaving the circuit backwards finally coming to a halt after bouncing across the gravel alongside the two Porsches ending her race. The safety car was then deployed to dress the oil but all a bit late as five cars were now already sidelined at this corner to just watch the race. For Race 2 Butler Motorsport worked hard to clear the gravel from the car and get it back in one piece on the grid in time. Sarah started in the same position on the grid and got another good start finding a gap to get over to the outside for the first few corners. It was an incident free start and Sarah set about chasing down the class leading X-Bow of Tom Andrew who had qualified some 6 cars ahead of her on the grid for Race 2. By mid race Sarah narrowed the gap to just 3.5sec and with just the class 2 996 Porsche of Chis Bentley between her and the X-Bow but an overtake opportunity never came close. Sarah finished 2nd in class her 1st podium on the season, 17th out of 25 starters.
A challenging weekend for Sarah in her Adrian Flux sponsored BMW in the GT CUP
The team didn't test as there was really no point. Saturday’s 1st practice was wet and it was only in the 2nd practice when the team found the power steering wasn't working. Butler Motorsport fixed the problem and Sarah went into qualifying looking to gain at least 10 secs if she was to get to the front of her new class. Sarah found 8 of them, but it still wasn't enough qualifying 32nd out of 35 runners 12th in class out of 14. Race 1 was marred by a fraught start line incident and then a 4 or 5 car pile -up going into Surtees which brought out the safety car for at least 10 minutes. Sarah managed to make up a number of places picking her way through the wreckage but then lost 3 places once the faster cars caught up later in the race, eventually finishing 26th out of 34 starters. Race 2 was better, Sarah started 30th out of 35 runners due to a better 2nd qualifying lap. She made up 3 spaces at the start and she kept the pace going –earlier races had left the track pretty slippy in places and a number of cars fell foul to oil on the track. She had a good battle with the 996 of Chris Bentley for a number of laps, going into Hawthorn door handle to door handle, although the 996 had the edge over the BMW on the straights. A problem with the gear shift downchanger caused a big problem near the end of the race. As sarah came up on the slowing Marcos Mantis of Winston Graham going into Surtees, the down shifter failed to react and three cars hot on her tail suddenly nipped by while Sarah was frantically trying to gather up the pace again. Sarah finally came home 24th out of 32 starters,10th in class. "A difficult weekend, and disappointing result all round really, we need to sort the gremlins on the car and get back into class 3, we were racing with class 3 runners all weekend and would have got 2 class 3 podiums had we been in the class. We will continue to talk to the Cup organisers about our 'production' spec otherwise the rest of the year will just be an up hill struggle. " said Sarah.
Sarah Bennett-Baggs returns to the GT Cup Championship in a brand new BMW E46
Sarah sat in the plain white car for the first time on Wednesday, "I did a few laps of the RMA Silverstone day not really able to see over the steering wheel and was thinking yes, this is do-able" but there was still lots of work to be done. Thursday - Ambient Graphics came and did their stuff to make it look gorgeous. Friday, Sarah towed it up to Snetterton to get Butler Motorsport to do the race prep. Needless to say the weekend continued on this frantic note. The car hasn't run before let alone raced, so getting it through Scrutineering was a Eureka moment. The Team hadn't had a chance to power test it, or even write up the technical spec required by the Championship police for that matter, as the car was still being finished off. There was a fair bit of negotiating about weight issues and power, plus the usual 'new car' build issues like the Geartronics not performing 100% and and over heating, fumes etc. This BMW M3 E46 had been a 12 month build project from a standard BMW M3 Coupe road car to incorporate a newly built engine, Drenth Sequential gearbox, Drexla Diff, Motec engine management and Geartronics paddle shit. Anyway, after Saturday's practice the team were told to put an extra 50 kilo's of lead in and did as instructed. They then went out to qualify 2nd in Class 3, 23rd out of 31 runners, after which they were weighed again and told no further weight was required. One hr before Race 1 on the Sunday, The team were told to put a further 60 kilos in the car, or run as 'Invitation' class. Putting lead in a brand new car isn't a five minute job, it has to be drilled, bolted down to be secure and the car needs corner weighting, not to mention how the car would handle differently, which you would only find out in the heat of battle! So given the lack of notice, it was decided to run as Invitation Class, meaning not scoring any points. Having qualified 23rd out of 31 runners, Sarah had a good battle with the other class 3 runners to finish 16th overall in Race 1 (would have been 1st in Class 3) and 13th overall in Race 2 (would have been 1st in Class 3, or 6th in Class 2) Sarah said: "I feel a bit deflated really. After a stressful few weeks, against all the odds we found a car, got it out there, got it looking pretty, I drove my socks off in searing heat, kept out of trouble, finished both races putting in some decent times delivered the car home in one piece but all for what? Well, not a lot. What could have been 2 class wins, instead was nothing" I'd just like to say a huge thanks to Paul White for running around for me over the last few days. Butler Motorsport for building a fab car and sorting it all out all weekend and to Adrian Flux Insurance Services who sponsor me. Thanks also for the picture from Tim Piper at Juice Photography
High and Lows for Sarah's first outing in the Adrian Flux BMW Z4 M Coupe
In Practice on Saturday morning Sarah got off to a flying start running quickest in her class by a clear 2 seconds a lap. Needless to say, by the time the equalisation police had been out, Sarah was carrying another 60 kilos of lead, and various cars had swapped classes. The final run of the day was qualifying where Sarah qualified 3rd in class in the 42 car strong grid, with 9 cars in Class 3. Both races were on Sunday afternoon. In race 1, Sarah started extremely well, chasing down her class leaders David Botterill and David Hathaway. The opportunity to overtake David B vanished when Sarah was passed by two Class 2 996 Cup cars which subsequently held her up through the complex, increasing the gap. Sarah had an exciting moment when the Marcos of Graham Winston narrowly missed her, spinning across her bonnet in the braking zone for Copse; Unruffled, Sarah continued chasing the pack to finish 4th in Class behind the BMW M3 E36 of Adrian Watt. 29th out of 42. In race 2 starting grid positions are determined by the 2nd fastest qualifying lap. Sarah started 2nd in class next to David Botterill ahead of Race 1 class winner David Hathaway. She made a brilliant start chasing the lead pack, moved ahead of David Botterill and led Class 3 for the first half of the race, until a lockup into Abbey resulted in a 360 degree spin, dropping her to 6th in class. Although rejoining and making up a number of places, Sarah was to spin a 2nd time at Luffield on some oil leaving her at the back of the grid. Never giving up Sarah put in her fastest lap of the race chasing the back of the pack but only managed to pick off one back marker to finish 8th in class and not quite last! "Not the result I was hoping for, but the good news is the car is fabulous, and this weekend has been a success in terms of getting to grips with the new car and how reliable it's been. Butler Motorsport have done an amazing job getting it all sorted in time, and I must also say thanks to Ambient Graphics in Ely for their last minute car wrap, which transformed the look of the car on Thursday before the race."
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Silverstone
hosted the final rounds of the GT Cup Championship last weekend, where
Sarah Bennett-Baggs was campaigning her Adrian Flux sponsored M3
E46 BMW in Group 3. It all turned out rather well for Sarah as she not
only claimed pole position in qualifying but two podium finishes, a
class win, top 10 finish and fastest lap in race 1. 
Sarah
Bennett-Baggs lined up with 2009 Aston Martin GT4 Challenge winner
Karsten Le Blanc, experienced GT racer Ben de Zille Butler and his
cousin Formula Ford rising star Dan de Zille for the Britcar 24hr race
at Silverstone last weekend in the Nicholas Mee prepared Aston Martin
GT4.
The
car was back out in record time looking slightly worse for wear, the
next 3 hours were greasy, wet conditions difficult for everyone. The
team finally crossed the finish line 22nd overall 13th in class having
completed exactly 500 laps. 
Oulton
Park was the venue for round 6 of the GT Cup Championship. With a new
engine and the Championship officials happy with the
specification Sarah's Adrian Flux sponsored M3 BMW was confirmed as the
correct power to weight for a move to Group 3. 
Sarah
Bennett-Baggs was back out in the Adrian Flux sponsored BMW in the GT
Cup at Brands Hatch GP circuit last weekend. It was never going to be a
podium weekend, that much she knew since the race at Snetterton a few
weeks ago when Sarah ran in the invitation clas. The team had been
haggling with the GT Cup and wanted to conform to Class 3 spec
since they have no chance against Ferrari 360's and the like in Class 2,
but never the less the battle was lost and Class 2 it is. 
Having
missed Thruxton Sarah agreed on hiring a 'Brand New' BMW M3 E46 built,
once again by BMW Specialists Butler Motorsport. 
Silverstone
was the host circuit for the opening two rounds of the GT Cup last
weekend, where Sarah Bennett-Baggs campaigned her Adrian Flux BMW Z4 M
Coupe in Class 3.