Phil Quaife had a frustrating weekend
SRT
Rob Bell
Phil Quaife
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SRT
OSCHERSLEBEN. Notwithstanding a seventh place at Oschersleben, the SRT duo Xavier Maassen - Christophe Bouchut retain a second place in the intermediary FIA championship. On Saturday the duo qualified in third place on the grid, and after a difficult race still managed a seventh spot, giving them two points in the rankings. The team will now be travelling to Spa, for the FIA test day in preparation for the 24 Hours of Spa.
The two free practice sessions of 80 minutes each on Saturday gave ample opportunity to fine tune and perfectly set-up the Corvette C6.R. And during the first morning session SRT were quick to prove why they are running up front in the FIA GT-championship. Christophe Bouchut set a very tight lap time that no of the other competitors was able to improve on.
The SRT Corvette outshone in the first session "and following on from that we tried to clock up as many kilometres as possible", Patrick Selleslagh continues. "We didn't carry out any further top lap times after that, but tried to retain constant lap times on used tyres. In FIA you don't have unlimited tyres available, and so you try to strive for continuity, which is a major advantage in a race. Xavier Maassen also enjoyed an extended spell at the wheel of the C6.R in order to prepare himself for the race."
In comparison with the lengthy free practice sessions, the qualifying session is far shorter. The drivers have a mere twenty minutes in which to set a fastest lap time and this exercise appears to be perfectly to the liking of French former GT world champion Christophe Bouchut. Bouchut clocked up a strong third place, only 0.130 seconds from the pole position. But even so Bouchut was dissatisfied.
Christophe Bouchut: "During both of my fast laps I was severely hindered by a competitor who was not on a fast lap. I find that this goes entirely against fair-play which is the foundation of any sport, and I would therefore ask, in fact insist that every competitor takes this into serious consideration during the coming races."
The race ran perfectly for SRT during the opening laps of this two-hour race. Right from the start the Frenchman Christophe Bouchut was one of the few to stay in close contact with the top-2, and it looked as though SRT was in for another excellent result.
"Unfortunately Christophe experienced some unexpected tyre wear and as result temporarily went off track in the first left. We're going to analyse whether there's a problem somewhere, because it is important to learn from these problems and make sure that such a phenomenon doesn't rear its head again in the future", Patrick Selleslagh commented.
Maassen worked off his stint perfectly and handed over to Bouchut with the car in fifth place. For a moment it appeared as though a fourth place was feasible, but it was not to be. Just before the finish Christophe Bouchut received a drive-through for excessive speed in the pitlane. "A mistake that resulted in serious consequences; because we dropped from fourth to seventh place and actually lost a virtual leaders position in the championship. But anyone can make a mistake and this year Christophe has already come up with so many great things, we're not going to make an issue about it. But in addition, second with only two points behind the leaders is still pretty good", Xavier Maassen finalises the weekend.
SRT are now leaving Oschersleben for Spa to participate in the test day for the 24 Hours of Spa.
Rob Bell
British driver Rob Bell scored another podium finish in the FIA GT Championship this weekend, at the Oschersleben track in Germany. Bell, who was once again driving for the CR Scuderia team alongside Andrew Kirkaldy in the Ferrari GT2 F430, finished third after a challenging weekend for the team.
As the team took to the track for the for the first practice session of the weekend, Bell and Kirkaldy found good pace in the car and ended the session fourth in class.
During the second practice session, Bell and Kirkaldy were working on longer runs in the car focusing on the tyre wear and race set up. The car was running well on old rubber until an incident with Kirkaldy behind the wheel put a premature end to their session. This incident heavily damaged the right rear of the car putting them out of the session and losing valuable track time. The team worked long into the night to ready the car for qualifying, placing them on the back foot ahead of the weekend.
After the very busy evening for the team, a new day began at Oschersleben with warm but overcast skies and the two fifteen minute qualifying sessions for the FIA GT’s was soon underway. The track time during the session was practically halved after a fluid spillage made it too slippery to carry on, however Kirkaldy managed to post a fifth fastest time before the end of the session, giving the CR Scuderia a good position on the grid for the race the following day.
Sunday’s race began with Bell behind the wheel of the CR Scuderia Ferrari. He made a strong start, maintaining his fifth place and as the race settled in to a rhythm, he began to chase down Richard Westbrook’s Porsche. Bell duly passed the Porsche and moved up into fourth position and was showing very quick pace in the Ferrari. As Bell came in to the pits and handed over to Kirkaldy they were running in third. Bell’s team mate kept up the pace, with a clean stint to maintain position. With 30 minutes of the race still to run, the safety car was deployed and Kirkaldy used the opportunity to pit and hand over the Ferrari to Bell.
After the safety car period, the field of cars were tightly bunched up, and with Bell’s apparent pace in the car, it looked promising that they could finish higher than the third place they were running in. However a lapped AF Course Ferrari was sandwiched between Bell and its sister AF Course Ferrari, who Bell was fighting for second place. A lack of blue flags denied Bell the opportunity to pass the lapped car and fight for second place, so Bell consolidated his third place sand bought home a strong podium finish for the team.
Bell commented after the race, "It was quite a fraught weekend for us. We were playing catch-up after the incident on Friday, because we had less track time than we would have liked. It is testament to the team that we could finish on the podium this weekend, because without their long hours of hard work we couldn’t have got this result.
"The race was hard but good, the car was handling well and we have to be pleased that we got another podium. We are a new team in the championship and we have a lack of data for the circuits, which is why the practice sessions are really important to us. We are positive for the next round though and the Spa 24 hours should be a great challenge for us as a team."
The next race for Rob Bell will be at the Spa track in Belgium for the Spa 24 hours and ahead of this he will test with the team at the track. He will once again be racing in the FIA GT’s with the CR Scuderia Team in the Ferrari F340.
Phil Quaife
Phil Quaife’s first-ever visit to German circuit Oschersleben didn’t bring him much fortune as the Kent-born racing driver and Apex Motorsport suffered a luckless weekend in the FIA GT3 European Championship.
The BRDC Rising Star, who missed the last round of the series at Monza due to a clashing Porsche Carrera Cup GB commitment, returned to the Apex line up to race one of their Jaguar XKRs alongside Stuart Hall. Unfortunately technical problems early in the weekend limited the pairs’ running in practice and left the duo playing catch up, with just a 24th place race 2-finish to show for their troubles.
Having lost the entire first practice session with a driveshaft problem and much of the second with a fuel-feed issue, Quaife did a sterling job in qualifying to line up 16th on the 41-car grid. A fine start propelled him to 10th in the opening stages where he found himself embroiled in a four-car scrap for seventh. Unfortunately, disaster struck on lap 11 when the Tonbridge-based racer hit some oil at the fast Triple left hander and spun into the gravel and retirement.
“We lost so much time in practice that I was still learning the track during qualifying,” Phil said. “Nevertheless 16th wasn’t bad and I made a good start to fight in the top ten. Unfortunately there were a few incidents ahead which resulted in some liquid being spilled on the track, but there were no red and yellow flags waving, so I didn’t slow down. When I hit the oil I was just a passenger.”
Team mate Hall qualified 26th for race 2, just a few tenths of Quaife’s earlier qualifying time. A good start moved the Jaguar through the field and the pair looked set to challenge for a top-ten finish when the Safety Car was called just as Hall pitted to hand to Quaife.
Sadly, as Phil emerged from the pits, the red light came on at the end of the pit lane as the Safety Car appeared at the top of the start/finish straight, meaning his Jaguar was trapped and lost a lap as the pack cruised by.
It was a stroke of bitter luck for the team and although Quaife posted a string of quick consistent lap times during the remainder of the race, he could only recover to finish 24th.
“It was a tough break on what was a tough weekend for us,” reflected Quaife. “Stuart and I didn’t know the circuit and, despite all the team’s hard work, we were always playing catch up due to the amount of time we lost in practice.
“But Oschersleben was never going to be easy for us as the Jaguar XKR is better suited to fast flowing circuits. But now we’ll have a test before the next race and hopefully have much more success at Brno in September.”