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MONDAY 3 AUGUST 2009
DRAMATIC DONINGTON DOWNPOUR DILUTES RACE RESULT
 Sometimes
you can become a victim of success. That certainly
appears to be the way with a lot of GT racing, all
around the globe. It's a never ending battle for the
championship sanctioning bodies to try to keep the
field as even as possible thus ensuring exciting battles
and races that draw a crowd.
As the Donington British GT round approached, The
Rosso Verde/UBC Ferrari Team were feeling the long
arm of parity apon them.
After winning the Snetterton round only to have the
car disqualified (Hector Lester was found to be in
contrivention of the rules regarding specific fire
proof clothing) it was easy to see that the championship
could slip away.
However common sense did prevail and after Hector
appealed the penalty. The MSA changed their mind,
in favour of Hector, fining him 600 pounds and taking
away 3 points. This was a far better outcome than
disqualifying the entire team.
Consequently, the sucess brought a weight penalty
- now up to 45kg. To that add 5kg of camera gear and
7kg to run a cool suit and you're up to 57kg. That
equates to between 0.5 an 1.0 second per lap! Not
sometime you want especially for the lowest powered
car in the field. On top of that, another team had
now sorted their 430 Scuderia out and it was flying.
For the first time this year, Allan Simonsen did
not top the time sheets in practice. The ballast was
taking its toll and since nothing could be done to
remove it, the pairing focused on a good race setup,
for the years first 2 hour event.
Allan qualified 3rd - also the first time away from
the front row - yet only 0.4 sec off his 2008 pole
time.
Typical English weather came to lash the Donington
circuit just moments before the start. An equaliser?
Hector had started and after 50 minutes came in to
hand the car to Allan. Five laps prior, a safety car
was deployed and that would have been the ideal moment
to pit, but it was very touch and go that the Ferrari
would manage 75 mins on the fuel.
As luch would have it, a second safety car period
was called, after Allan had reeled off a mere 4 laps.
That effectively cost the team a lap.
The monsoonal type weather had caused a rash of safety
cars following a series of dangerous aquaplaning moments.
What had appeared to be a good race setup quickly
evaporated in the wet conditions and it wasn't long
before Allan realised that it was impossible to reclaim
the lost lap in 35 mins.
Gambling once again, Simnsen pitted for dry tyres
and with the track now starting to dry out there was
a slim chance. Why not try it? If the track continued
to dry then others would need to swap. Another SC
could also play back into their hands...
It was, however, not to be. Everyone else stayed
on track and the drizzle never really eased up. Allan
finished 6th. One consolation was that he did set
fastest lap, which helped him on his way to winning
the Sunoca Driver Challenge.
Next race for Allan is LMS @ Algarve, Portugal and
then back into BGT for Silverstone.
Soon after its LMS at Nurburgring before heading
down to Australia for V8 Superc ar testing with Triple
8/Team Vodafone and his teammate, BTCC star James
Thompson.
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