Race Report – Brands GP 18th August 2018
Monoposto descended on Brands Hatch for a one day meeting on the GP circuit on Saturday 18th August. This meeting was the penultimate meeting of this year’s championship and six of our eight class championships were decided over the course of the day. The grids had also been swapped around whereby we had the Moto 1000, 1800 and 1600 classes on one grid and the F3, Moto 1400, 2000, FR2000 and Classic classes on the other grid. This was mostly down to the success of the Moto 1000 class this year and the need to even out the numbers on each of our grids.
Qualifying for the Moto 1000, 1800 and 1600 grid saw four retirements on the first couple of laps with varying issues, all of which were solved in time for the drivers in question to qualify out of session and join the back of the grid for the races. Tom Rawlings took pole for this grid with Richard Gittings and Mark Reade not far behind him. Chris Lord qualified tenth overall and first for the 1800 class and Geoff Fern qualified first for the 1600 class and thirteenth overall on the twenty nine car grid. Eddie Guest qualified nineteenth after nearly not making it out in qualifying. He couldn’t get his car started in the assembly area and a quick diagnosis from Ewen Sergison who was stood nearby was that he had no spark, a quick reattachment of a loose distributor wire saw him join the track after a couple of minutes.
Tom Rawlings got a good start in the first race of the day and managed to fend off Richard Gittings for five laps and build up a 2.5 second lead over him, but on lap six Richard managed to reduce this gap considerably before passing Tom on lap eight. Tom stuck with him but was unable to get back past. Mark Reade briefly held second in the race during the first couple of laps, but after Richard Gittings got back past him on lap two of the race, he stayed in third for the rest of the race and had a fairly lonely time with a consistently increasing gap ahead of him and behind him. He finished the race eighteen seconds behind the leaders and eighteen seconds ahead of Craig Hurran in fourth.
Dave Wheal had an eventful race, after having to start from the back due to failing to qualify, he climbed up from twenty ninth place to finish eleventh overall and ninth in class. It was a similar story for Morgan McCourt who went from twenty eighth place to finish fifteenth overall and tenth in class. Dominic Shepherd was the only retirement from this race as he pulled off on lap three. This was the only retirement that the championship leader has had all year, but luckily he was able to get back out for the second race.
In the 1800 class, Phil Davis managed to get past Chris Lord on the first lap of the race in between the first and second corners and he fought the whole race to keep him behind, eventually taking the class win by 0.9 seconds. Chris didn’t give Phil any breathing space at all for the entire race and Phil worked hard to take his second class win of the year. Julian Hoskins took third in the class and Adrian Heath came fourth. Geoff Fern won the 1600 class, finishing thirteenth overall on the grid, and further down in twenty-first and twenty-second overall were Chris Williams and Simon Davey who were second and third in class respectively.
Race 2 for this grid saw five cars fail to make it to the assembly area in time and they then had to start from the pit lane. This included Mark Reade, who had qualified third for the race. Mark had a far more interesting race than the first of the day, as he had to pass twenty five cars on his way through the pack. He eventually finished fourth overall. Richard Gittings started the race from pole position, having set the fastest lap time in the first race of the day. He drove a solid race start to finish to take his second win of the day. Craig Hurran managed to get ahead of Tom Rawlings at the start of the race but lost the position on lap two. Tom then retired from the race with transmission problems on lap four, which put Craig back up to second. He maintained second place for most of the race until Dean Warren managed to get ahead of him on the last lap of the race.
It was a role reversal for Chris Lord and Phil Davis in the 1800 class for the second race. Phil had qualified ahead of Chris but Chris got past him for the class lead at the start of the race and then he kept the lead for the entire race. Phil stayed close behind but didn’t manage to get past him. Julian Hoskins took another third place in the class and Adrian Heath took fourth again after a close fight with Lochlan Bearman, which saw them swap places a couple of times.
Geoff Fern took the 1600 class win again in the second race and Eddie Guest came in second in class and nineteenth overall after qualifying fourth in class and twenty sixth overall. Simon Davey also beat Chris Williams to third place in this race, having overtaken him on the second lap and kept him behind for the rest of the race.
Qualifying for the F3, 2000, FR2000 and Classic grid saw a safety car deployed during the fourth lap that lasted until the end of the session. Robin Dawe had a spin coming out of Sheene Curve and although he managed to recover it, Jared Wood was left with nowhere to go and was collected in the incident. This put them both out of the session and whilst Robin was able to get back out for the races, unfortunately Jared Wood had to call it a day as he didn’t have the spares he needed to fix the damage. Jeremy Timms qualified on pole overall for the Moto 1400 class with Ben Cater second on the grid and first in class for the F3 class. Alex Fores qualified second in the F3 class, with Neil Harrison third. Robin Dawe qualified first in the 2000 class and seventh overall, despite only completing three laps of qualifying. Terry Clark was second in class and Bryn Tootell third.
Jeremy Timms had a good start to the first race and quickly built a cushion of about four seconds ahead of Ben Cater who was second on track, but first in the F3 class. Jeremy led the race from start to finish, although he almost lost it on the last lap as he hadn’t realised how much Ben Cater had gained on him. Jeremy slowed down before crossing the line to graciously refrain from lapping the cars in front so that they could have their last lap and in that moment, Ben almost got past and Jeremy just managed to retain the lead, crossing the line 0.19 seconds ahead of Ben.
Whilst Jeremy’s slowing on his final lap gave Russ Giles an extra lap of the race, it cost Mat Jordan third place in the 2000 class as his engine let go during that final lap and he didn’t finish the race. Mat wasn’t the only unlucky one in the 2000 class as Robin Dawe also failed to finish. After a good start to the race, Robin was overtaken by Bryn Tootell on the second lap and whilst he stuck close behind him for five laps, he then retired on the eighth lap of the race. Bryn took the victory with a two car buffer to Terry Clark in second place and Robert Smith took third place in the end after Mat Jordan broke down on the final lap.
In the F3 class, Ben Cater took the win with Alex Fores having a lonely run to second and Neil Harrison coming in third. Dan Fox stayed fairly close with Neil during the race, finishing off in fourth place which was a good show considering this was his first race with Monoposto and his car was the older spec Dallara F397 which is clearly still competitive in the class. Jason Timms came second in the Moto 1400 class and eighth overall in the race, with Geoff Fern finishing third in class and twelfth overall. Whilst the Moto 1400 class were spread out from each other on the grid, they each enjoyed their own battles on track with cars from different classes.
Jeremy Timms was on pole again for the second race of the day for this grid but he had a lot of wheelspin on the start which cost him the lead as both Ben Cater and Neil Harrison got past him, Neil going from fourth place to take second off the start. Jeremy got back past Neil for second place on the second lap of the race and Alex Fores also got through, pushing Neil back down to fourth. They held those positions for the next few laps before Alex got past Jeremy to take second overall on lap seven and he then made a few seconds gap over Jeremy to hold the position until the end of the race.
Robin Dawe was back out for this race and started sixth overall but first in class, having set a faster lap than Bryn Tootell in the first race. Bryn started just behind Robin and managed to get past for the class lead on the first lap, before Robin got back in front on the second lap. Robin managed to keep Bryn behind him for the rest of the race, but he was never far behind and eventually finished one second behind him. Robert Smith had another good drive to take third in the 2000 class for this race as well.
Jeremy Timms won the Moto 1400 class with a third place overall, Geoff Fern had qualified ahead of Jason Timms for this race and maintained that position to finish in second place, ahead of Jason. In the Classic class, Will McAteer had qualified just ahead of Peter Whitmore, but a problem with his starter motor meant that he started from the pits and had to make the places back up, he was back up with Peter by the end of lap three and got past on lap four for the lead of the Classic class and he managed to fend Peter off for the rest of the race to take his second win of the day.
At the end of the day’s racing we were able to announce a number of the class championship winners, so congratulations to the following drivers who have taken the win in their class for this year:
Geoff Fern – 1600 Champion 2018
Chris Lord – 1800 Champion
Bryn Tootell – 2000 Champion
Ben Cater – F3 Champion
James Densley – FR2000 Champion
Geoff Fern – Moto 1400 Champion
The Moto 1000 and Classic championships are still yet to be decided and these will come down to the final two races at Silverstone on 13th and 14th October.
