BGTC: Silverstone race one notes

Kinch and Kirkaldy take race one at Silverstone

The Ferrari of Nathan Kinch and Andrew Kirkaldy took victory in the first of two races in the British GT Championship at Silverstone this afternoon. The DRM Ferrari of Adam Wilcox and Ni Amorim finally broke onto the top step of the podium in the dailysportscar.com Cup Class.

Kinch got a good start and led Mike Jordan into Copse on the opening lap as Neil Cunningham slotted into third in the Embassy Corvette. The JW Racing Porsche was to become an early casualty with an electrical problem. Jordan was forced into the pits on lap six and had to cut the engine to try and reset the fault, putting him and Mark Sumpter out of contention for the podium.

Cunningham tried to keep pace with Kinch in the first half of the race but was unable to stay with him. The Corvette held a comfortable lead over the TVR T400R of Steve Hyde and inherited the lead as Kinch dived in to hand over to Kirkaldy.

Cunningham held the lead for a couple of laps before handing over to Paula Cook. Godfrey Jones stayed out even longer in the second JW Racing NGT Porsche and took the lead. Unfortunately, the Porsche only lasted another lap before a tyre problem forced David Jones to pull up out on the circuit.

As the Porsche pulled off, it gave the lead back to Kirkaldy, who had been working his way through the field during the driver change-overs. Tim Sugden tried to close the gap to the Ferrari but he was unable to get close enough to mount a proper challenge for the lead.

"I was trying to take it easy," said Kirklady. "With both races today we didn't want to make any mistakes and cause us to miss out on points. So, it was a nice steady run in this race. But, we should be in good shape for the next one," he added.

"We just weren't quick enough to catch Andrew up," said Sugden. "I said to him after the race that he should have slowed down and let me catch up! The Ferrari is very quick everywhere and it was always going to be hard work for us today."

The second Scuderia Ecosse Ferrari of Chris Niarchos and Tim Mullen came under intense pressure in the first half of the race before claiming third. Niarchos had managed to hold off the TVR of Lawrence Tomlinson and then the Corvette of Ricky Cole. Mullen managed to pass Paula Cook at the beginning of his stint and then took advantage of Nigel Greensall spinning out of third at Stowe, claiming the last podium position.

Greensall recovered to take fourth place ahead of Cook. Patrick Pearce managed to overcome a drive through penalty -- after the team failed to switch the engine off during the driver change -- to take sixth place.

Gavan Kershaw took the lead early in the dailysportscar.com Cup Class. However, the success ballasted Lotus could not hold off the Ferraris of Marco Attard and Adam Wilcox. An engine problem finally halted the Lotus' efforts.

Ni Amorim took the lead of the class from Nick Adams, clinching the team's first victory of the season in the process. Adam Sharpe managed to demote Adams to third in the closing stages in the Tech 9 Porsche. However, he was too far back to lose the gap on the leading Ferrari.

"It's been a long while coming but we're finally here," said a delighted Wilcox. "We lost the front splitter early in the race but we were able to get around that and the car actually felt good. Hopefully we can get another good result in the second race too, but it will be harder.

British GT Championship -- Round 11
Silverstone -- Result:

NGT
1 Kinch/Kirkaldy Ferrari 360 Modena 1h00m14.670s
2 Sugden/Cocker Porsche GT3-RSR 1h00m43.295s
3 Niarchos/Mullen Ferrari 360 Modena 1h00m59.084s
4 Tomlinson/Greensall TVR T400R 1h01m04.622s
5 Cook/Cunningham Corvette C5R 1h01m28.647s
6 Stanton/Pearce Mosler 1h01m33.481s

Dailysportscar.com Cup
1 Wilcox/Amorim Ferrari 360 1h01m04.390s
2 Lesniewski/Sharpe Porsche GT3 1h01m11.870s
3 Attard/Adams Ferrari 360 Modena 1h01m34.146s
4 Broster/Brown Porsche GT3 Cup 1h00m43.682s
5Ahlers/Scott Morgan Aero 8 1h02m04.082s
6 Wood/Scott Porsche GT3 Cup 1h02m15.851s

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