Chad Racing – Knockhill British GT Rounds 3 & 4

A month after a character-building British GT meeting at Oulton Park, Chad Racing’s trio of Ferraris and sextet of drivers found themselves in the hills above Dunfermline for the next two races in the championship around the short, but far from easy, Knockhill circuit. The team was buoyed by a very good performance from its Ferrari in the FIA GT3 races at Silverstone a week earlier and there was a real feeling that things were going to go a lot better in Scotland than they had in Cheshire.

Despite the 2010 BGT meetings being shortened to two days from three – for reasons of cost-saving, apparently – the teams were required to arrive at the circuit on the Thursday; which would at least allow them plenty of time to get set up ahead of the start of track action late on Saturday morning.

For the second year running, Dan Brown found his racing at Knockhill book-ended by University exams, but the 18 year-old still managed to hitch a lift up North with the team having decided against flying up due to Eyjafjallajökull’s continued indigestion in Iceland. Once in Fife, the BRDC Rising Star pitched in with the rest to set up the awning and lay the plastic floor. Dan was joined by his five colleagues on Saturday morning, ready for the first of the day’s two one-hour free-practice sessions.

As this was one of Knockhill’s two biggest meetings – the other being the visit of TOCA – the timetable was packed with racing; to the extent that free practice was all that was available to the BGT runners on the Saturday. Qualifying and the two races would all take place on Sunday.

The Scottish circuit packs a lot into its 1.3 miles – fast, but bumpy, straights; sharp elevation changes; a very tight hairpin bend and an evil chicane being just some of the challenges awaiting the drivers. And for one of the Chad drivers, ‘challenging’ would turn out to be the word of the day.

José Balbiani made his debut with Chad Racing at the corresponding meeting in 2009 and had, by his own admission, overdriven. Nevertheless, he liked the circuit and was looking forward to returning.

By contrast, Juan Garriz had never been here before and had only driven it on a games console; but it wasn’t long before he discovered that the real thing was very different – and in the course of the first 60 minutes, the Argentine youngster found the gravel traps twice and ripped the rear bodywork off the blue and yellow 430.

He wasn’t put off by this, however, and continued to explore the limits of the track; overstepping them again at the end of the second session and finishing the day with the car planted in the tyre wall at Butcher’s. “That was me a year ago,” was José’s sympathetic assessment of his protégé’s day.

Things were less dramatic for the two Scuderias in the Chad stable in the first session on the Saturday. Chris Hyman had the bulk of the running in the #21 STP-backed Ferrari, with Brown bedding some pads in during the opening minutes before handing the car over to the South African. Chris’s pace was impressive, and the car ran strongly; resulting in a fifth fastest 51.043s. When Dan took the car out for a longer time period during the second session, his best time was 50.939 – little more than a tenth quicker; “I think I’d better get my finger out tomorrow,” he smiled.

Paul Warren and Tom Ferrier split the seat time quite evenly in the first session, but they never found a happy set-up on the old rubber they were using; ending the session with an eighth-fastest 51.684. New rubber was in place for the second session in the mid-afternoon, but any chance of an improvement was ruled out when the #10 suffered a driveshaft failure as Tom exited the chicane after about 40 minutes. This left him stranded along Brabham’s and caused the session to be red-flagged. The recovery process was a lengthy one, but the damage was easily repairable; if not more than a little frustrating.

The repairs required to the #10 and #11 cars would mean a late night for the Chad mechanics, but both cars were ready to take part in qualifying at 8:50 the next morning.

Chris Hyman carried on where he’d left off the night before and was once again on great form. He completed 17 laps in the 15 minutes session – which began on a cold and slippery surface following light overnight rain – and set a time, 51.364, on his ninth lap which would have put him second on the grid had he stopped right there and then. He wanted, however, to go after David Jones’ 50.958, set on the same lap in the Preci-Spark Ascari, and lowered his time on three more occasions in the final minutes to end on 51.195 – just under four tenths off pole and a great effort.

Paul Warren and Juan Garriz also had encouraging sessions. Paul placed the #10 on the fourth row, having set a 51.997 in the repaired car; alongside Hector Lester whose own time in the #3 Rosso Verde Scuderia was a third of a second slower. Juan meanwhile was clearly beginning to conquer his Scottish demons and set a 51.804 – the car’s fastest time of the weekend so far – to claim an excellent fifth place on the grid.

The second session began soon after the first had ended, and this time the ‘pros’ were in the seats.

Dan Brown was into the top three early on with a 51.507, but soon discovered that all was not well with the car; a misfire causing him to pit midway through the session. The engine cover came off and the problem was quickly traced to the alternator. With so little of the session remaining, however, there was only time to cobble together a quick-fix and Dan returned to the track with a battery strapped into the car next to his driver’s seat. This would allow him two or three more god laps and he made the most of it by reducing his time to 50.599; sixth place being highly creditable in the circumstances.

José Balbiani did what he could in the Argentine Ferrari 430, but it was little surprise that his car was struggling to match the much-newer machinery that he was sharing the track with. Nevertheless, he lowered the car’s best time to 51.610 and he would line up ninth on Sunday afternoon.

Tom Ferrier, however, would be in the thick of the hunt for pole for race two and was locked in a three-way fight with the Predator CCTV Ferrari of Adam Wilcox and the Ascari of Godfrey Jones. With a minute to go he held a front-row spot alongside the black Ferrari, having lowered his time to 50.223, but the Ascari pipped him at the death by a tenth to push him back to third. The top eight were covered by just over a second and this was shaping up to be a good one.

The first race would begin a little more than two hours later on a dry track, but with a few spots of rain in the air. These never amounted to much, however, and slicks would be the order of the day for both classes.

At the start, Chris had serious look at the outside of SEAT, but very quickly decided against it and slotted into place just behind the Ascari into the first corner and through the twisty sequence of corners up to the chicane.

Behind him, Juan had held on the fifth but both Paul and Hector Lester had seen the big silver Viper of Craig Wilkins go past on the opening lap.

For several laps the top ten cars were virtually nose to tail, but this snake soon began to fragment into a series of battles. Chris and the Ascari started to pull away from the battle for third, while Paul became embroiled in a three-way fight for seventh, involving himself, the Viper and the Rosso Verde Viper. With the racing so close and the circuit so tight, any slip up or hesitation would prove costly and Paul found himself losing a place to the Irish car on lap while trying to find a way past Wilkins.

This fight proved to be beneficial to José, after the Viper switched its focus from going after sixth (the 430 having lost fifth to the MTECH Scuderia on the second lap) to defending seventh. This allowed the Argentine to begin to pull away; and by the time Lester had taken position from Wilkins on lap 17 the gap to sixth had grown to almost four seconds. By this stage, Juan was in his groove and he was able to maintain this advantage right up to the point at which the Irish driver made his pitstop on lap 27.

Paul’s fight with the Viper continued apace and with no let up, while Chris continued to drive an excellent race up ahead; albeit an increasingly lonely one, as he found himself unable to keep pace with the Ascari. But the important thing was that he was perfectly placed to hand the car over to Dan Brown in a very competitive position, having kept second place throughout; and Chris made for the pits at the earliest opportunity after the pit window opened, where he was soon joined by the #10 car.

Dan and Tom climbed aboard their cars and rejoined after two good stops. However, after just one lap, Dan was back in the pitlane having found the car to be immediately in difficulties. The Chad mechanics got to work but the car tumbled down the order. When the problem was traced to the gearbox, Dan reluctantly climbed out; and his one lap would prove to be the sum of his racing this weekend.

Tom seemed to be faring better. He had rejoined in sixth and by lap 38 was up to fourth. He was unlikely to rise any higher than this in the time remaining, but by the measure he should have no difficulty holding onto the place. However, on lap 41, he too was forced into the pitlane; and into retirement, also with gearbox trouble. That two brand-new gearboxes should fail in such a way was beyond frustrating and Piers Masarati braced himself for a lively conversation with Kessel Racing – the gearbox suppliers – in the days to come.

Juan had stayed out until lap 35 before pitting the #11 and José had found himself in fourth when he rejoined. He had soon lost that place to Tom, but recovered it when the #10 hit trouble. The remainder of the race was largely incident free and the Chad driver was able to easily maintain a sizeable gap to the Viper in fifth; the ‘old’ car coming home fourth to salvage the team’s race.

The repairs to the #10’s gearbox – its problem having been a manufacturing fault on the actuator barrel – were completed successfully before the second race, but the problem was more complicated with the #21 (internal bearings) and it would require a lengthy rebuild; and there just wasn’t enough time available to change the box. Dan and Chris had to accept that their racing was done for the day, but to come away with nothing on a day where even a win was a real possibility was particularly galling for the pair.

But Tom and José were ready for the battle ahead and took the start of race two when it finally got going at 4:36 that afternoon.

The #10 car was in the thick of the action from the off, with Tom’s first job being to recover the second place he lost to the Trackspeed Porsche of Glynn Geddie on lap two. This would not prove to be an easy task and would require patience, but the Chad Ferrari hung on to the Porsche’s exhaust pipes and didn’t allow it to pull away at any stage.

José was doomed to suffer a lonely race in the 430 as he found himself unable to keep touch with the cars ahead, but able to pull away rapidly from the lower classes behind him. Nevertheless, he found himself picking up places as other cars hit trouble; first the #3 Ferrari, which rolled to a halt on the third lap, and later the #2 Ferrari, which retired after a clash with the Ascari.

Tom had earlier seen the MTECH car go past after he had been forced wide at the hairpin during an overtaking attempt on the Porsche on lap 11.

However, with the #2’s demise a few laps later, he was back in fourth, but was now looking at the back of the Preci-Spark Ascari which had lost a place to the Porsche during the clash with the MTECH car.

The fight at the head of the field continued, with just a second covering the top four, and on lap 25 Tom made a move stick on the Ascari and he was up to third; and third became second two laps later when the two leaders clashed and the Porsche dropped back. Tom continued to push Adam Wilcox in the lead Ferrari right up to the pitstops and was just a couple of tenths behind when the leader pitted on lap 31.

The pitstops continued and at one stage we had a Chad one-two, just before José pitted on lap 34 to hand over to Juan, who rejoined in fifth. Tom stayed out until lap 38 and ended an excellent stint by giving the car to Paul with just enough of an advantage to keep the lead. However, Paul’s lead was just a few seconds when he exited the pitlane and the momentum lay with the Ascari which had stopped several laps earlier. The silver car caught up with the Chad car before Paul could settle and took the lead two-thirds of the way round the lap.

But even though Paul was unable to keep pace with the Ascari, he had a huge advantage – some 25 seconds – over the third placed car and he was easily able to maintain this. We still had almost 20 minutes remaining, but the top-two positions at least looked sorted.

Further back, however, Juan found himself catching up the Viper and becoming the third element in a three-way fight for third. On lap 44 he found a way round the silver car and two laps later did the same to Phil Burton’s Ferrari to put himself provisionally on the bottom step of the podium.

When the Viper also got past the Predator Ferrari, Juan found himself able to match its pace and maintain his advantage.

Eleven minutes from the end of the race, however, the safety car was scrambled in order to allow the recovery of a beached Ginetta from the gravel on the outside of SEAT. This allowed Paul to catch up to the Ascari, but – after a wave-by from the safety car with eight minutes remaining – his 30-second advantage over Juan began to rapidly disappear.

The race went back to green with less than three minutes remaining, but the restart lap would prove disastrous for Paul as he found his approach to the hairpin to be the wrong one and he spun. This allowed Juan and Phil Burton to go by and the #10 was down to fourth. This was appalling luck for the car’s drivers, but there was simply not enough time remaining to recover the position.

Juan held on to his second place, however, and crossed the line to be greeted by a huge cheer from the Chad mechanics lining the pitwall.

A great result for Juan and José, then – who now made their way to Germany, where they would both be driving in the Nürburgring 24 Hours before rejoining the British GT at Spa in June – but a frustrating weekend for the two Scuderias.

There was consolation for Paul, in the form of the Sunoco Fuels Drive of the Day Award, and consolation of a sort for Chris and Dan in the form of their excellent driving all weekend.

And with the first and third cars in race two being the subject of race protests, a promotion in the results for the Chad cars was still a possibility.

Perhaps the most important thing to take away from Scotland, though, was the fact that the cars were now bang on the pace and able to fight at the sharp end.

Next stop is Spa in June, where two and a half hours around the classic Belgian circuit awaits.