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News: Brands Hatch (Indy) Race Report
GAZ Shocks Production BMW Championship
Rounds 1&2 Brands Hatch 27-28/03/10
The opening rounds of the 2010 Production BMW Championship kicked off at Brands Hatch, with a bumper grid producing some, clean, hard but fair racing and a great spectacle for the fans.
A grid of 52 cars meant that qualifying was split into two sessions, Ben Winrow was fastest overall with a best lap of 58.362s, to beat Robin Welsh into second, while series debutant Matthew Swaffer finished third.
Swaffer won the driver of the day award for this impressive performance.
With so many cars entered for the opening rounds of the season, each driver was placed in to a group based on the combined qualifying result, pole in group A, 2nd in Group B, 3rd in group C, then repeated 4th in Group A, 5th in Group B etc – with all groups racing twice.
Race 1: Groups A & B.
For the opening race of the season, the drivers in groups A and B took to the track, with Winrow on pole alongside Welsh, and for the opening few laps Welsh stayed behind Winrow, until the two of them met some back markers and Welsh saw his chance to take the lead.
The whole race between the two of them never saw the gap get much above 4 tenths of a second, until lap 12 where the gap was over a second, as Welsh took advantage of Stephen Murphy to pass Winrow and lap Murphy: “I started 2nd in my first race, Put Winrow under as much pressure as possible, He didn’t see the green flag going in to Druids so I took him and a back marker."
Image by Snappyracers.com
Welsh almost lost the win on the final corner, as Winrow was past at Surtees and briefly took the lead before losing the rear, handing the lead back to Welsh.
Behind the squabbling front two, Nick Barke was holding his own in third, even with the rapid car of Liam Crilly chasing him down, and in the last few laps started to apply the pressure to Barke, who resisted and claimed his first podium finish of the season.
Further back, there was an incident between Stephen Murphy and Stuart Waite, as Murphy was lapped by Waite. Murphy was able to continue after being pushed out the gravel trap by the marshals.
Towards the end of the race, Kevin Welsh had developed a train of cars behind him, and fell back from the lead pack – and behind, a number of cars were stuck behind and unable to pass Welsh, who finished the race in 9th overall.
Race Results:
1. Robin Welsh – 16 laps in 15:54.721s
2. Ben Winrow @ 0.594s
3. Nick Barke @ 6.444s
The fastest lap of the race (and a new pbmwc lap record) went to Ben Winrow on lap 15, with a time of 58.269s.
Race 2: Groups B & C
The second race of the season saw the group B cars complete their Championship rounds for the weekend and Group C have their first race of the weekend.
Robin Welsh, who won the opening race of the Championship started from pole position with flying debutant Matthew Swaffer alongside him on the front row of the grid.
Off the line at the start, Swaffer made a bad start and dropped back down the field, and after a number of incidents around the track during the opening laps saw the Safety Car deployed to clear up all of the machinery which was stuck around the track.
The safety car came back in at the end of the 7th lap, which caught out a number of drivers, including Neil Adams, who was passed by Ian Berry at Druids. Adams retook the spot a lap later at Clearways.
Up front, race 1 winner Welsh got his head down and pulled away from the chasing pack, having seen Rob Smith in his mirrors – before the safety car, and Welsh fooled Smith by braking at Clearways to slow the field up before going flat out to take another win and the races fastest lap. Smith had charged up from sixth to second during the opening laps.
Behind the front two, Liam Crilly secured his first podium finish of the season with a third place finish, while debutant Swaffer secured seventh place.
Race results:
1. Robin Welsh – 14 laps in 15:27.699s
2. Rob Smith @ 4.866s
3. Liam Crilly @ 6.272s
The fastest lap of the race went to Robin Welsh on lap 8, with a time of 58.662s.
Race 3: Groups A & C
The final Championship race of the weekend saw Ben Winrow start on pole with Matthew Swaffer alongside him on the front row, and the first corner of the race, Paddock Hill bend, soon became a gravel trap full of BMW’s. A chain reaction began when contact between Alan Wileman and Matt Swaffer let to Swaffer sliding sideways down the Hill.
Alan Stuart was on the outside of Paddock when he was faced by the sideways car of Swaffer, and couldn’t avoid contact and then Stuart was collected by Ravi Ramyead as he also had nowhere to go.
This was the end of the race for the impressive Swaffer, Ravi Ramyead and Alan Stuart, while Neil Adams rejoined the race 4 laps down.
The safety car was out for three laps while the cars were recovered from the gravel trap, Nigel Olive-Jones and Alan Wileman are able to continue, a lap down on the rest of the field.
Up front, Winrow set about building a gap to secure his first win of the season, and took the races fastest lap in the process.
Following Winrow was Rob Smith, who backed up his Race 2 second place with another second place finish, taking advantage of the first corner melee to climb from 6th to second by the end of the race while third place finisher Nick Barke survived the first corner to back up his first race podium with another podium finish.
Smith admitted that his second place finishes weren’t easy as he was under pressure from Liam Crilly in race 2 and Nick Barke in race 3.
Race results:
1. Ben Winrow – 11 laps in 15:17.935s
2. Rob Smith @ 1.754s
3. Nick Barke @ 3.069s
Ben Winrow took the fastest lap of the race on lap 10, in a time of 58.939s.
Race Report by Matt Auger (matt_macau_bmw320si@hotmail.com)
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