Nathan Freke has taken his first overall race win in the 2014 Britcar Endurance Championship in the second race of the day at Snetterton. The Solution Team entered Ginetta G55 GT3 was utterly dominant in the final race of the day, leaving Calum Lockie’s FF Corse Ferrari almost a minute and a half in its wake. The victory comes as problems again struck the title protagonists from Neil Garner Motorsport who failed to classify.
Freke, who again ran solo throughout the 90 minute combined race for the Endurance field and the Britcar Sports and Touring Car Championship, got away fantastically from the front to take the lead into Riches on the first lap. With problems immediately hitting the pole sitting Molser MT900 GT3 of Manuel Cintrano and Javier Morcillo, the Ginetta and both of the FF Corse Ferraris were free to battle it out at the head of the field.
Lockie struggled though, as a result of having finally found the right tyres for the race and having a car set up for Pirelli rubber. He was more than able to keep the Darren Nelson and Nigel Greensall driven Ferrari 458 Italia GT3 behind him but couldn’t take the fight to Freke. In fact the only car which could have had a chance was the Rapier of Mike Millard but early offs put him down the order. Millard would recover to fourth place.
The Cintrano started and Morcillo retired Mosler suffered from a wheel nut issue which struck more than once, combined with an alternator issue which eventually forced the retirement of the car. The Spaniard also received a stop and go penalty during the race. Morcillo was gutted by the result saying that the duos title chances were over and praising the driving of Manuel Cintrano.
Come the end of the 90 minute race, punctuated only by yellow flags and no safety car, Nathan Freke was unbeatable. He said, “It was a pretty good race actually, pretty quiet which is the way I like it. The first one was obviously very tough and I was pushing all the time. This one, we made some changes to the car and got away in the lead and never really looked back. The car was great all the way through and we could pretty much ease off in the last half hour and stroke it home.
“The team did a great job all weekend and the car was perfect so it’s nice to reward them with a win.”
Second went to the race 1 winning Ferrari of Calum Lockie who also took the class 2 victory as the only entry to make it to the finish. The formerly BAMD now FF Corse run Nelson and Greensall duo took third overall and second in class 1 from the recovering Rapier of Millard, who held a lap over the first of the Sports and Touring Car Championship entries.
The BSTCC win went to Ian Anderson and Amanda Black for Lifetime Racing. The Ginetta G50 not only bettered the five other cars in the class 4 fight but seven of the ‘proper’ Endurance entered runners. They held a lap over the fastest class 3 machine, the bigger Ginetta G55 of Alistair Lindsay and Jensen Lunn, the latter celebrating his 40th birthday with class victory.
Anna Walewska and Kevin Clarke for Intersport took second in class 3 ahead of the #36 Century Motorsport Buckler Ginetta of Zoe Wenham and Stephen Fresle. The Jensen Motorsport victory is made all the more impressive by the fact that the team are only just getting to grips with the new car, which replaced the heavily damaged Chevron GT3 which crashed at Oulton Park.
In class 4 and the Sports and Touring Car Championship second place went to Mark and Peter Cunningham. The SG Motorsport SEAT Leon Supercopa fought a fantastic battle to stay on terms with the class 3 entered Century Ginetta but eventually fell 49 seconds behind. The result is still impressive though despite the final result putting the #53 machine some four positions and over a lap behind the class winning G50. Mike Moss and Tom Howard rounded out the top three in the class with the title leading BMW Z3 M-Coupe of Emin Sadig and Wil Arif struggling in twelfth overall, fifth in class and three laps down on the winner.
The butcher’s bill was extensive and included the MacG Ultima which retired on lap six with oil pressure problems. The alternator issues for the Mosler added Neil Garner Motorsport to this not so select club along with Guillaume Gruchet in the Newbridge Motorsport Porsche. There has been no confirmation as to what mechanical woe caused the 997 Cup to pull to a halt out on the circuit with just 25 laps completed. Nick Jarvis’ Track Torque Racing SEAT also hit problems while the BMW M3 of Paul Phipps and Robert Day succumbed to Braking issues.
The Radical RXC-V8 of James Abbott had left the circuit before even the formation lap after their problems in the earlier race.
The Britcar Endurance Championship and Britcar Sports and Touring Car Championships return to action on 20th September with a single day programme on the Grand Prix layout at Silverstone.