Race Report for Round Fourteen - Pit-Stop
Seale and Stanley snatch Silverstone pit-stop race victory
After an exciting afternoon’s racing, John Seale and Jamie Stanley came away with the pit-stop race win ahead of Wessex Motorsports’ Nigel Mustill and Craig Dolby.
Seale and Chamberlain were locked in an epic battle for most of the first half of the race. The pair swapped the lead in several exciting manoeuvres until a safety car period neutralised the race. Frank Mortensen in the #3 Top Cats Racing Marcos Mantis had an incident out on circuit on lap five, calling the BMW safety car out onto circuit.
A few laps later, having recovered the stricken Marcos, racing resumed and it was Chamberlain who retained the lead on the restart.
As soon as the window opened, the pit lane flew into life as drivers dived in to complete their mandatory stops, and in some cases hand their car over to co-drivers. The latter half of the race was truly a story of the pros. With six cars across different groups all fielding pro drivers, some impressive laptimes were thrown down quite quickly.
Jamie Stanley swiftly smashed the fastest lap of the race, setting a 2:00.660, a full second quicker than this morning’s pole time from qualifying. Stanley carried on getting faster, settling into a groove that would hand him the win.
Ross Wylie in the #83 Ferrari and Craig Dolby in the #23 made gains after pitting, climbing up the order into third and fourth overall. Disaster soon struck for Chamberlain with issues for the Porsche. Tumbling down the timing screens, Dolby inherited second, with Wylie behind.
When the chequered flag fell, it was Jamie Stanley from Craig Dolby and Adam Carroll in the #27 FF Corse Ferrari. Third in GTO went the way of Grahame Tilley in the Tecserve UK Nissan GT-R.
Ferrari beat Lamborghini in Group GTC, with Laki Christoforou and Adam Carroll taking the win for FF Corse. Ross Wylie in the #83 AF Corse Ferrari put in a late charge, but it wasn’t enough to topple Carroll. James Webb stopped it being an all-Ferrari podium, piloting his Lamborghini Huracan to third in the group.
Chris Murphy in the #72 Whitebridge Motorsport Aston Martin ran a great race, leading for a good portion of the race. But an incident with the #25 Balfe Motorsport McLaren cost him the lead. A charging Adam Hatfield profited from that, claiming the lead of the GTH group, and eventually the win in the #12 Aston Martin. Murphy finished in second, with Nick Moss behind in third.
In Group GTB newcomers Rob Young and Matt le Breton claimed victory in the WDC Racing McLaren. The beat David Frankland to the top step of the podium with James Simons’ Lotus Evora completing the top three.
It was a clean sweep for GTA Motorsport as Ivan Milutinovic took the GTA group win. Team Hard’s Callum Jenkins and Nick Scott-Dickeson finished second in the group.
