Britcar at Brands – HPR take double honors

Brands Hatch hosted the third round of this years Britcar Endurance Championship. This is the first of two visits to the Kent circuit this year, the second being the ‘Into the night race’ in November…

The day kicked off with the opening two sessions being wet with only classes 1 to 4 being represented this weekend. Pole went to the FF Corse run Ferrari 488 Challenege of David Mason and Ross Wylie for the first race of the day.

The race after lunch started in glorious sunshine with the pack lead into Paddock Hill by Wylie. Just four laps into the race the Mike Moss BMW 1M V10 left all it’s coolant on the entry to Paddock Hill Bend causing the Cunninghams Porsche to end up in the gravel followed by the EDF Motorsports Ginetta and the SGM Ginetta. When the recovery took place the rain started to fall again leading to a torrential downpour for 20 minutes causing chaos with the pit windows of the two driver teams. The safety car came in just 2 minutes before the end of the race leaving a dash for the final 3 laps in which the HPR Ferrari 488 Challenge of Paul Bailey and Andy Schultz ended up winning.

Race two was bone dry for the duration and with a slightly depleted grid after two cars were withdrawn from the race 1 incident. The leader into Paddock Hill this time would be Paul Rose in his JPR Saker after he got the jump on the HPR Ferrari. This wouldn’t last as the Saker ended up having throttle issues dropping him down the order. Several of the teams got penalties from pitstop time infringements including Piers Reid, Ben Dimmack, and even Andy Schultz fell victim. After 68 laps completed the HPR Ferrari came home victorious once again.