Silverstone: Johnny Mowlem race report

MOWLEM, GPC MATES FINISH SEVENTH AT SILVERSTONE

Johnny Mowlem and his GPC Motorsports teammates took a hard-earned seventh-place finish in the GT2 class of the 1,000 Kilometers of Silverstone Le Mans Series race here Sunday.

Driving a Ferrari 430 GT, Mowlem and his co-drivers completed 167 laps around the famous 5.141-kilometer/3.194-mile Silverstone circuit.

Mowlem started on the third row but quickly had the car running fourth in class. He was holding a constant 10 second gap to the second and third place Porsches when a caution car came out to bunch the field together. Unfortunately, Mowlem was the first car that was picked up by the pace car, dropping him a lap behind the first three GT leaders, whilst simultaneously reducing the hard earned gap that he had made to the fifth and sixth place Spykers. Never the less, Mowlem and his co-drivers Luca Drudi and Gabrio Rosa, managed to hold onto to a hard fought fourth place, until they lost time changing a headlight two hours from the end, which dropped them to an eventual seventh place.

"That early caution car hurt us," Mowlem said. "It negated all the early progress. Then we lost a lap on the wave by, that was a nightmare. Still, we managed a fifth and seventh place for the team, which is good for the team championship, it's just a shame because we were running strongly for the whole of the early part of the race, not just ahead of our sister car, but also ahead of both Spykers, who went on to finish third and fourth. Still, I really enjoyed racing in front of my home crowd, and I had a lot of fun in my stints!"

The Silverstone race was the first of two events on consecutive weekends in Mowlem's home country. Next week's International GT Open race will be contested on Mowlem's home track, Brands Hatch.

"I'm looking forward to racing at Brands Hatch," Mowlem said. "It's a rare and wonderful thing to race near home two weekends in a row."

One of Britain's most successful and personable sports car drivers, Mowlem started his career behind the wheel at age 19. He was named the 2005 UK Reading Sports Personality of the Year, an honor reserved for the top sports performers in his region. A married father of two, Mowlem was raised in Majorca, Spain. He has earned university degrees in economics and Spanish.

-credit: johnnymowlem.com