Lotus Sport UK (Photo Credit: Chris Gurton Photography)
The combination of Phil Glew and Chris Holmes gave Lotus Sport UK the perfect ending to the 2011 Avon Tyres British GT Championship, taking their Lotus Evora to a dominant win in the GT4 class at Silverstone.
Glew started the no.48 car he had put on pole earlier the same day, holding off the Scuderia Vittoria Ginetta G50 in the early running.
“We had a good battle with the Ginetta,” Glew told The Checkered Flag after the race. “We had predicted they were going to be close because out qualifying times were almost identical so I had a bit on them but any sort of change of direction, any chicanes we couldn't drop them, they just stayed with me the whole time. Eventually we'd just looked after our tyres and they hadn't so we pulled out a thirty second lead by the time we got to the pitstop.”
Glew's pace gave the team a 30 second lead as the pitstop window opened. That allowed Chris Holmes to take over the car and maintain the lead despite the penalty time added to their minimum stop time following the victory at Donington Park.
“Phil did a fantastic job to open up enough gap,” Holmes said. “We'd been given a 20 second penalty for the pairing so it was great that Phil had broken that so I could go back out in the lead. After that the car was really consistent it was a case of me getting some more time in the car because we had a bit of a broken up test session because of a few issues and things . So it was using enough kerb to be quick but not so much that it risked anything and just going around and the car was perfect, but thanks to Phil and the team. They did a great job and set it up for me really.”
For Holmes the race marked a successful GT4 return following earlier outings in the Secure Racing Aston Martin. He described the difference between the two cars; “the Aston's got traction control and ABS and things like that. It's a little quicker in a straight line but then it's not as good on the brakes and on turn in. You can carry quite a lot of speed in the Lotus but to be honest the team have developed this car over the last few races and it's a very nice GT car now. In the wet it's incredible, on one lap it's quick and over a race it's super-consistent so it's a great race car.”
Leyton Clarke and Freddie Nordstrom, who began the race with a chance of stealing the class championship endured a late problem. Running third in the closing laps of the race the no.49 car suffered an unknown technical problem taking them out of the race. They were not in position to take the title as the points' leaders finished second in class.
