Martin Short's Mosler, GT Cup Donington Park (Photo Credit: Karl Bowdrey Photography)
The 2012 GT Cup season got under way at Donington Park with race one of the three race weekend taking place on Saturday in cold but dry conditions. Despite a few absentee's, including the McLaren MP4-12C of Jim Geddie due to a parts supply issue, the 16 cars on track provided great entertainment.
With Martin Short and his Mosler on pole and Bob Berridge's Aquila CR1 along side, it was actually the fourth placed Ferrari 458 of Derek Johnston who got off to the best start taking the lead around the outside of turn one to build up a lead of three tenths of a second at the start of lap two. However, this was to be short lived as the Ferrari began to drop back down the order. Berridge had mounted a charge and made his move at the Craner Curves on lap three to take the lead. The Mosler followed suit two laps later to move into second place, while the JMH Nissan GT-R of Freddie Hetherington took third away from Johnston on lap eight.
That wasn't to be the end of the third place fight though. As Berridge and the Aquila were out front building an unassailable lead over Short, eventually taking the chequered flag by a 7.622 second margin over the Mosler, Johnston wasn't going to let the Nissan claim the third step of the podium. A solid fightback saw the Ferrari reclaim the third place it lost earlier on lap 12 and with some good defending was enough to see it across the line ahead.
Peter Smallwood in the Parr Motorsport Porsche 997 GT3 took victory in group two after taking advantage of a melee at Redgate on lap won which saw the retirement of Harry Whale and Don Grice dropping several places. Grice hauled his BMW back up the order and had cut the gap to Smallwood to just one second before problems saw him drop back leaving Smallwood to take victory and seventh overall whilst David Witt and his Chevron GR8 took third to complete the group two podium.
In group three it was a debut victory for Lee Mowle and his Optimum Motorsport Ginetta G50. Colin Broster spent the race trying to get his Porsche 996 back on terms with second placed Chris Bentley's similar car after being caught up in the first lap incident at Redgate, but to no avail leaving him to settle for third.
