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2008 Rounds 1 & 2 : Oulton Park International

Friday

The team were looking forward to the first opportunity to pit themselves directly against the other cars in the GT4 class of the 2008 Avon Tyres British GT Championship. There were three sessions on Friday, two in quick succession, before lunch and one later on in the afternoon.

With parts for the car literally arriving throughout the day, the team were very busy! The weather conditions would also keep all the teams guessing throughout the day and weekend.

Session 1
Stewart Linn was in the car, having missed the previous test day at Oulton Park, he needed time in chassis number 26. The team ended up the fastest GT4 car in that session, which had been a dry one.

Session 2
This session followed on closely after the first one and the team were still fitting parts to the car!! In particular the steering wheel, which wasn't the correct one, didn't have the correct connections to allow the pit to car radio to function. Both drivers, Stewart and Matt, took part in this session. The team were attempting to overcome the changing conditions, which were slippery, not full wet.. This did give the team a chance to see how the car would go in these sorts of conditions. The IMS Motorsport car ended up 3rd quickest with a second covering the top 3 GT4 cars.

Session 3
The session was wet and there was a bit of hailstone during it! There were some incidents on track for other cars, but the Richmond Racing car ended up 4th quickest with the team looking to improve the setup of the car in the prevailing conditions.

The day ended well for the team, with them setting impressive times in dry conditions. They were still looking for setup changes to improve our times in wet conditions.

The team ended the blustery day looking forward to a busy day on Saturday, with a morning test session, both qualification sessions and race 1 to look forward to.

Lastly the team ran through driver changes.
#88 on the grid
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Saturday

Morning test, 1hr 15minutes. Time for the teams to make the final adjustments to the setup. The team headed the GT4 times for the vast majority of the session. Just at the end Rob Austin car, #55, pulled out a strong effort and just managed to shade the IMS Motorsport time.

Qualifying session 1
With Matt Nicoll-Jones in the car the team set a blisteringly quick time which shot them straight to the top of the times for GT4. The team were able to bring the car in during the 15 minute session and rested the car and tyres. With Matt being sent out just before the end of the session to make a final run. The team gave IMS Motorsport and Ginetta their first GT4 pole position ever.

Qualifying session 2
The session was preceded by a brief hailstone shower! With teams left to guess the conditions the car set sent out on slicks, as the conditions improved. The team would end up 5th for the second race. Still some work to do on the setup for those conditions.

Round 1
With one GT3 car (Trimite Viper) and a GT4 car (Rob Austin's G50) starting from the pit lane the race started on time. Matt started in the car, with the GTs lumbering round on the warm up lap, behind the safety car, for the rolling start. It seemed that the IMS car was passed by one of the other GT4 contenders but by the end of the first lap the IMS car was back in an imposing lead. The Safety Car was deployed for a big incident involving one of the Lamborghini Gallardos. Following the Safety Car period which lasted for 3 to 4 laps Matt quickly pulled out a number of consistently quick laps to lead GT4 by some margin. After 16 minutes the race was red flagged after a major incident between Rob Austin's G50 and one of the Aston Martins.. The G50 was thrown through the air and ended up the other side of the safety barriers and in flames. Thankfully the driver emerged unscathed and walked from the car. Following a 15 minute delay and some confusion the race was restarted. It would last for 30 minutes and after 10 minutes the mandatory driver changes would have 10 minutes to occur. As expected the team watched other cars come in as soon as the pit window opened to change drivers. Number 88 continued round and at one point was in 2nd place overall! Finally the team brought the car in.. Matt was out of the car and Stewart got in and most of the belt connections were home, apart from one which proved troublesome. The belts were finally in but the team had lost some 20 seconds and with it the impressive lead that they'd worked hard to build up. They were still in second, but too far behind the first placed GT4 car to regain the lead by the end of the race. The team succeeded in getting 2nd place and so would be on the podium for their first race with the G50.

There is, of course, still a long way to go for the 2008 Avon Tyres British GT Championship.. The team are relishing the challenge that the Monday race will present them with and looking to improve.

The photos of the crash from Oulton Park even made the Sunday Telegraph newspaper and can be found on www.pistonheads.com and www.dailysportscar.com.

See here for the Round 2 report from Easter Monday.

For further information see:

IMS Consulting

For more photos from the 2008 season see:

2008 Avon Tyres BGT photos