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Qualifying session 2
Stewart gained third place on the grid, as he got held up badly when tyres were at their best.
Race 1
A very subdued affair as the team and drivers played safe, a fourth place finish being good enough to secure the title, Matt led at first but wisely let Nigel Moore through, handing the car over in second place. During Stewart’s stint in the car Rob Austin caught and overtook leaving the IMS car in a safe third place. Because of the teams strategy of keeping out of trouble, Stewart picked up a lot of rubber by driving off line to avoid any chance of contact, this led to him thinking the car was coming apart and he just used extreme care to bring the car home in third place and then the celebrations began!! The 2008 Avon Tyres Drivers Championship was now Matt and Stewart’s. A great job having been done by all concerned, especially the two drivers, Matt and Stewart, the team, Richmond Racing, Richard, Paul, Trevor, Mike, Lucy, Maninder, Martin, Martin, Phil, Darren, Guy, Russell and Jimmy. Of course the sponsors, IMS Consulting, Scott Wilson and IMS Motorsport for bringing all the elements together, led by Peter Smith.
Sunday
Morning practice
The team put Stewart out in the car to check that the rumbling from the tyre pick up was completely fixed, some small set up changes were tried and kept for the race.
Race 2
In the previous few races the team had adopted a safe strategy, now the team and drivers were free to do what they do best “race”...
With this is mind Stewart was told that it was imperative to be within 10 seconds of Nigel Moore (as Nigel would incur a 10 second penalty as a single driver). From the start (in third place) Stewart was super aggressive and almost got the lead on lap one! However the GT3 cars made life difficult and Stewart ended up in third after the first lap. The top three cars soon pulled clear of the rest of the GT4 pack with Nigel Moore edging away and Stewart stuck behind a fast and determined Joe Osbourne, Richard and Mike tried to work out a strategy that would put us in front, it was decided to pit Stewart as soon as the pit window opened, a slightly risky move, the team waited in the pit lane keyed up and ready to go, they were very surprised when the first Ginetta in was Nigel’s flying Orange car, Mike was by now calling “pit pit pit! this lap!!”, with no response from Stewart we were relieved to see him follow in six seconds later. After a perfect pit stop Matt joined the race in second place behind Joe Osbourne (whose car hadn’t yet stopped) and was four seconds in front of Nigel Moore, the team did not speak to Matt too much as he was now “in his office” doing what he does best.. Nigel Moore put in a major effort to catch Matt and the cars circulated on the ragged edge together, towards the end of the pit window Joe’s car pitted for the second driver to take over, the car joined the track with Evans at the wheel behind the now leading Matt and Nigel, just as we thought the race was going down to the wire Nigel Moore’s car entered into the pits with a blown engine, Matt cruised to the end and another win in front of all the IMS guests, a perfect end to a perfect weekend.
Both Stewart and Matt put in exceptional drives all weekend and all the team thank them for that.
A great weekend, with the GT4 Drivers Championship going to Matt and Stewart. The pairing have still won an amazing fifty percent of the races so far this season.
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