Camathias had another positive round
Courtesy of the Le Mans Series/DPPI
Rob Bell
Joel Camathias
Johnny Mowlem
Allen Timpany
Harold Primat
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Rob Bell
A dominant performance by British driver, Rob Bell, aided by team mate Gianmaria Bruni, clinched the GT2 class Le Mans Series Championship for the Virgo Motorsport team at Silverstone today. Bell also takes the GT2 honours in the Drivers championship, a well-deserved reward for his outstanding efforts in this challenging endurance sportscar series.
Bell set out to wrap up the title at the Silverstone round of the Le Mans Series, but it was by no means a foregone conclusion. With only three points separating Virgo Motorsport from a chasing Team Felbrmayer, it was all to play for at the British circuit. A fitting climax for Bell, racing on home soil was always set to be full of drama and excitement. Newcastle-born Bell, although now living close to Silverstone confessed that he hadn’t driven the track before this weekend.
"I’ve driven at this venue many times, but not the Grand Prix configuration, so there’s a few corners that I don’t know. Hopefully, it won’t affect us too much," said Bell before the weekend. Bell proved his prowess by topping the time sheets in practice and then putting in a masterclass performance for qualifying, taking pole by over a second.
With regular team mate, Allen Simonsen, unavailable for today’s six-hour race, Bruni stepped in to partner with the Brit this weekend. The confidence that the pair showed with their Ferrari 430 GT set the tone for the race, with both drivers driving masterfully and never looking in any doubt of a win.
The six hour endurance race produced much drama, but luckily the Virgo Motorsport team had a smooth, clean race. Both drivers were able to build up healthy leads during their stints, although safety car periods negated much of the dominance at two intervals. The threat of the Team Felbrmayer Porsche was always on Bell’s mind, but with mechanical failure forcing it to retire, the Virgo entry only needed to finish on the podium to clinch the title. The reliability of the Ferrari ensured that not only did the finish on the podium, it was also the top step.
Bell says, "It was a superb weekend. The car ran like clockwork, the Dunlop tyres worked really well, the team showed their strength and depth with faultless pitstops and Gimmy and I were able to take advantage of other’s misfortunes to build an unassailable lead by the end of the six hours. I thought we had a strong chance of winning today, but I didn’t expect to take the title here, I thought it would go to the wire in Brazil. I saw that our title rivals were out of the race after running for over five hours and I was quite excited, but then I had to remind myself that we needed to finish the race, so I kept a lid on my thoughts until the chequered flag!"
The Le Mans Series finale takes place at the Interlagos circuit in Sao Paulo, Brazil on 9 – 11 November this year.
Joel Camathias
Joel Camathias had another positive race at the fifth round of the Le Mans Series.
Swiss GT driver Joel Camathias (26), alongside his Briton team-mates Paul Daniels and Dave Cox driving James Watt Automotive # 95 Porsche 997 GT3 RSR complete with Pirelli tyres, finished eleventh in the GT2 Class at the end of the Le Mans Series 1000 km race of Silverstone. During the race they had a puncture and a spin which caused them the lost of several positions.
"It`s a pity we had some problems in the race, but our pace was good, and a top eight finish was a possible achievement. As always a big thanks to JWA squad for the hard work of this weekend as well as to my team-mates Paul [Daniels] and Dave [Cox] and to Pirelli for supplying us with such as competitive tyres. Thank you guys!"
We will see Joel back in action with Autorlando-Sport squad on September 22th and 23th, at the fifth weekend of the International GT Open at Brands Hatch (UK).
Johnny Mowlem
MOWLEM, GPC MATES FINISH SEVENTH AT SILVERSTONE
Johnny Mowlem and his GPC Motorsports teammates took a hard-earned seventh-place finish in the GT2 class of the 1,000 Kilometers of Silverstone Le Mans Series race here Sunday.
Driving a Ferrari 430 GT, Mowlem and his co-drivers completed 167 laps around the famous 5.141-kilometer/3.194-mile Silverstone circuit.
Mowlem started on the third row but quickly had the car running fourth in class. He was holding a constant 10 second gap to the second and third place Porsches when a caution car came out to bunch the field together. Unfortunately, Mowlem was the first car that was picked up by the pace car, dropping him a lap behind the first three GT leaders, whilst simultaneously reducing the hard earned gap that he had made to the fifth and sixth place Spykers. Never the less, Mowlem and his co-drivers Luca Drudi and Gabrio Rosa, managed to hold onto to a hard fought fourth place, until they lost time changing a headlight two hours from the end, which dropped them to an eventual seventh place.
"That early caution car hurt us," Mowlem said. "It negated all the early progress. Then we lost a lap on the wave by, that was a nightmare. Still, we managed a fifth and seventh place for the team, which is good for the team championship, it's just a shame because we were running strongly for the whole of the early part of the race, not just ahead of our sister car, but also ahead of both Spykers, who went on to finish third and fourth. Still, I really enjoyed racing in front of my home crowd, and I had a lot of fun in my stints!"
The Silverstone race was the first of two events on consecutive weekends in Mowlem's home country. Next week's International GT Open race will be contested on Mowlem's home track, Brands Hatch.
"I'm looking forward to racing at Brands Hatch," Mowlem said. "It's a rare and wonderful thing to race near home two weekends in a row."
One of Britain's most successful and personable sports car drivers, Mowlem started his career behind the wheel at age 19. He was named the 2005 UK Reading Sports Personality of the Year, an honor reserved for the top sports performers in his region. A married father of two, Mowlem was raised in Majorca, Spain. He has earned university degrees in economics and Spanish.
Allen Timpany
Allen Timpany and co-drivers Chris Buncombe and Bill Binnie brought their Binnie Motorsports Lola B05/40 AER home in fifth place in the Le Mans Series LMP2 class in an incident-packed Silverstone 1000kms.
Having qualified 12th overall and fourth-in-class, Buncombe took the start but was unfortunate to lose time early in the race due to an unscheduled pit stop. The young Brit was already experiencing technical problems when an electrical failure forced him to take a short cut off track to the pits where he suffered bodywork damage.
Timpany took over the car eighth in class and 17th overall and battled his way up the order. Despite suffering from a compromised aerodynamic package caused by the car’s earlier off, Allen produced consistent lap times during his double-stint, making solid progress through the field. When he pitted to hand the car over to Bill Binnie for the final stage of the race he had moved it up to fifth in class.
Binnie took over the car for the final two hours of the race and maintained a strong pace to finish fifth at the chequered flag representing a good finish for the team after the troubles they’d experienced early on.
The result leaves Timpany joint sixth in the LMP2 drivers’ championship out of the 37 drivers who have contested the category in the 2007 Le Mans Series.
Allen Timpany said: "We were pretty pleased with our pace, although in the final 15 laps of all our stints the rear tyres were starting to go off. The track was very dirty offline and that made it tough in traffic and didn’t help the tyre situation as we were constantly picking up bits of gravel. It was also an incredibly physical race, perhaps the toughest I’ve done this season. I can’t exactly pinpoint why that was, but I guess it could be down to the high level of G-forces drivers experience at Silvertsone in these cars. Overall I think this was a pretty reasonable showing and a very enjoyable weekend."
Binnie Motorsports Sporting Director Gilbert Casse added: "The car was difficult to drive due to the bodywork damage we suffered when Chris had his unfortunate problem early in the race. Despite those circumstances, Allen still did a good job and his times were constantly improving during his second stint."
Harold Primat
Starter motor problem ends Primat's strong start to Silverstone 1000kms
A failed starter motor on their Pescarolo-Judd 01 ended Harold Primat and co-driver Christophe Tinseau's participation in the Silverstone 1000kms just over two and half hours into the six-hour race.
The result marked a sad end to the European stage of the 2007 Le Mans Series season for Primat, especially after having secured his first podium of the year in the previous round at Spa.
Having started from 13thoverall, Primat made strong progress away from the grid, passing four cars to end the first lap in ninth. He continued to move through the field, his assent including a ballsy move on the Arena Zytek of Tom Chilton, climbing to seventh overall. Running quicker than Jonathan Cochet's Courage ahead, Harold dived inside him into Abbey, but lost traction on the dirty line, running wide on the exit and across the grass, losing four places.
He battled his way back through the field to eighth, but was forced to lose some places by a gaggle of GT cars that blocked him whilst being lapped.
Tinseau took over the car after the first hour of racing and the Frenchman fought back up the pack. However, at the team's second scheduled stop he couldn't restart the car, the problem being diagnosed as a starter motor failure. Whilst the team attempted to fix the problem, it proved to be to no avail and the no.17 car was retired from the race.
Harold Primat: "To retire is obviously bad news for our championship position, but we did have good race-pace, which was pleasing. We made a great start, going from P13 to P7 in just a few laps, and the car was running fine. It's a shame we couldn't fix it but unfortunately there are certain things you can't control."
Christophe Tinseau: "I had no problems during my first stint and the car ran really well. Unfortunately, at our second stop it just wouldn't restart. The team investigated the problem and the only solution would have been to change the whole gearbox. That would have taken too long so we decided to retire."
Henri Pescarolo: "Car 17 has suffered with very bad luck because we have never experienced that problem before. The car is identical to the 16 car which finished third overall, prepared in the same way, with the same new parts and so I just feel really sorry for Harold and Christophe."