Britcar Ltd today confirmed the return of the 24 Hours event at Silverstone for 2015. Rebranded the Dunlop 24 Hour at Silverstone, the twice round the clock race is set to make a comeback in April with teams already confirmed to have entries to the event. The name change brings the UK race, the only official 24 hour event for GT cars in the Britain, in line with other Dunlop supported twice-round-the-clock races such as Dubai.
The Britcar 24 Hours race suffered from the financial crisis and was reduced to a 1000 ks/6 hour event for 2013 after struggling with falling grid sizes. After a strong year when BBC’s TopGear raced a diesel BMW 3-Series in the event grids dropped. A resurgence 2012 saw over sixty cars take the start but less than forty cars gridded up a year later. 2014 saw the Britcar Endurance Championship calendar published with no “proper” endurance race planned at all but series boss James Tucker continued to promise a return to long distance racing in the near future.
Agreements between the race’s new title sponsors Dunlop, Britcar Ltd and the circuit and local authorities have now been finalised and the date for the return of 24 hour racing to the UK has been set for 23rd-26th April 2015. Additionally SUNOCO Fuels have continued their partnership with the event as official fuel supplier.
The date of the 24hrs race’s return represents a small scheduling faux-pas . Part of the rationale for the move from a September race to an April event was to avoid the now almost inevitable clash with Creventic and their 24hrs Series at Catalunya. Instead the circuit and series have arranged a date which clashes directly with the 12 Hours of Zandvoort, run by the same organisation. Several Britcar regulars also race in the 24hrs Series which may impact on the grid sizes for the UK weekend.
Already confirmed as attending the event is the MJC Ferrari of Whit Gamski. After damaging his 430 GT2 during a Britcar race at Brands Hatch in 2013, Gamski will call on his Ferrari 360 to contest the race meeting. The Ferrari 458 Cup of FF Corse may also be there as David Mason received a free entry to the Dunlop 24 Hour at Silverstone as part of his 2014 Championship prize package. Neither the team nor drivers have so far confirmed that they are planning to race in the 24 Hours.
