Silverstone Sunday 14th May 2017

55 GT3 cars....a decent weather forecast.....£30 in the wallet...plus a large flask of Yorkshire Tea...! Yes it was time for The Spectator to go to one of the highlights of the racing year. The Blancpain GT Series has established itself as THE place to race your very expensive GT3 car. The week before at Brands Hatch had seen  the Sprint version of the series while at Silverstone it was the turn of the 3-Hour Endurance Cup.

Silverstone was bathed in late Spring sunshine when I arrived at 8.45am but following overnight rain the circuit was wet but drying rapidly. Kicking off proceedings was qualifying for the weekend's second Formula Renault 2.0 Eurocup race. A large entry of 30 cars for a class that bucks the trend in modern single-seater racing. With the FIA intent on homogenising the single-seater ladder from F4 to F3 to F2 to F1, Formula Renault fits in as an excellent training series with a calendar that races on mostly F1 circuits. With Renault increasing its backing for the category, the 30 car entry is evidence that they are definitely doing something right. The field was split into 2, 15 car sessions for qualifying which led to drivers in the much drier second session heading the combined timesheets which was a little unfair on those in the first session. The last driver on track on the drying circuit tends to set the p[ole position time and in this case it was the Russian driver Robert Schwartzman ahead of  Brits Daniel Tictum & Will Palmer. A rather bizarre occurrence in the first session when after a brief red flag, the session was restarted with not enough time on the clock for anybody to do a timed lap.....but the cars were released anyway and greeted the chequered flag 1 lap later!

As to the race itself later in the afternoon, Ticktum led the field into Club corner on lap 1 where I was watching but was then aggressively passed by Schwartzman which saw Schwartzman put all 4 wheels off the circuit and Ticktum on the damp run-off. Schwartzman led a safety car marred race until the end and I found it surprising that he wasn't investigated for his manoeuvre post race. A typical tough to pass single-seater race, but Brit Max Fewtrell battled his way into 4th postion at the end from 9th on the grid behind Ticktum in 3rd and Palmer in 2nd. Overall it was good to see such a healthy series and hope that the next two weekends when they race in Pau then Monte Carlo pass without too much incident!

There were 32 cars contesting the Lamborghini Super Trofeo race and they produced the best Lamborghini race I've ever seen. A series this that has had a reputation for wealthy amateurs throwing their very expensive into the scenery at venues across Europe so it was good to see a very good race that had the briefest safety car period early on following a coming together on the exit of Club. I won't mention that the No.69 car crashed into the barriers on Wellington Straight on the out lap from the pits prior to the race whilst weaving to warm up it's tyres!

The end of the 50 minute race saw a 4 car battle for the lead and at Stowe on the penultimate lap Vito Postiglione (wasn't he in the Godfather??) swept around the outside of Raphael Abbate to claim first position and took the flag one lap later. Interesting to see British GT racer Seb Morris racing and he would have been in the mix at the end if it wasn't for a stop-go penalty his car received following speeding in the pit lane during the pit-stops.

So to the main event....The morning's qualifying for the Blancpain GT's saw it split into 3 different sessions where each individual driver set a lap time for the car and then the quickest time set the grid. With 55 cars on track, qualifying was surprisingly clean and there was just a brief red-flag in Q2. Getting a clear lap with so many cars on circuit at once was the key to setting a good lap time and emerging from the hordes to take pole position was the No.88 Akka ASP Mercedes-AMG of ex-DTM driver Daniel Juncadella.

The race didn't start on the intended green flag lap with cars out of position apparently and took an extra lap to get going eventually. The first hour was disjointed by the use of two separate virtual safety car periods. The second caution was for a big shunt for the Strakka Racing McLaren of Jonny Kane when he was hit by the Mercedes of Kriton Lendoudis at Becketts and speared off into the barriers. I was staggered to see how much barrier damage had been done when I arrived at the scene a few minutes later. A couple of security workers had to guard the scene to prevent spectators from watching behind what was now a very bent barrier with a few tyres to protect the front of it....hmmm Health and Safety?! 

Lendoudis had already earned the ire of the stewards for driving too slowly under the first caution period...As always in sportscar racing, wealthy amateurs mix with fast professionals and sometimes the mix isn't a good one. Later in the race would see several cases of back-markers not abiding the blue flag and it was interesting to read post-race that the organisers of Blancpain are to introduce stiffer penalties for bad driving in a series that sees enormous grids which the organisers want to maintain of course.
The race started to come alive in the second hour following a superb stint by Michael Meadows in the Akka ASP Mercedes to lead from the GRT Grasser Lamborghini Huracan of Andrea Caldarelli. The final hour saw all leaders pit together for the final round of driver changes and the final laps saw an epic battle for the win between Christian Engelhart now in the GRT Grasser Huracan and chased by Maxi Buhk in the HTP Motorsport Mercedes. At the flag, after 3 hours of breathless racing ,there was just 0.344 of a second separating the pair. Indeed there were 24 cars on the lead lap which shows how competitive the series is. The chequered flag was very briefly shown a lap early...shades of the 1985 British GP when the flag was prematurely waved! On this occasion though it was very quickly withdrawn. The Grasser Huracan had won twice at Brands the previous week aswell as at Monza for the first Endurance race so it does have a slight advantage over the rest of incredibly competitive field it would seem.
I really enjoyed the day at Silverstone, International meetings can sometimes be a little boring but this was a very entertaining days racing. It was a little too entertaining upon arrival at Silverstone as there was a foreign registered car driving the wrong way up the dual-carriageway just outside the gates! Interesting to note that construction work was taking place inside the Stowe circuit in readiness for the arrival of World Rallycross in 2018..A few grandstands in that area wouldn't go amiss for sure...!
Admission was a little pricey on the gate at £26 and I didn't buy a programme...