Graham and Allard made an ideal start in their quest for Championship glory this year when they won the GT2 Trophy at Silverstone on Sunday with the Dutch Racing Promotions Lotus Esprit. Their new driving partnership combined their unquestioned driving talents with superb race team tactics to ensure a comfortable victory over many more fancied rivals.
With the weekend dominated by sudden heavy showers, the support from the AVON race tyre division proved critical in ensuring that the car was always on the right tyres for the conditions. After two red flags had interrupted the final session, Graham agreed that Allard should stay in the car throughout, rather than to change drivers. It proved to be the right decision and with a terrific last minute effort Allard had set a time of 1min. 25.399 sec. which lifted them into 6th place on the grid and fastest in the GT2 class by just 0.005 seconds.
"We were beaten by quality" was the gracious comment from one rival driver afterwards.
Conditions for the race were never going to be easy to predict, and there were clearly various thought patterns as to the best tactics. Before the race started, Allard's experience was put to good effect as it was his decision to start on slicks despite the wet track. Despite this he raced past the line in fifth place at the end of the first lap. Although those on wet tyres were initially faster, the track was starting to dry and soon afterwards he overtook our main GT2 rival (the No. 51 Viper) and began quickly moving away. "I wanted as large a lead as possible before the (compulsory) pitstop in case it started raining again and we would have had to change tyres," was Allard's motive. His worries over the weather proved unfounded and the stop was made entirely to plan at the end of Lap 19. As Graham roared back into the race at just over half distance he set about driving quickly and carefully to ensure they maintained their hard earned lead. With all of the pitstops finished the Lotus was now in fourth place overall, (still first in class), which Graham improved upon further when he outbraked the more powerful GT1 Lister near the end to ensure a podium finish in third place overall. It was also very satisfying to see that both drivers had set almost identical fastest laps during their stints, Allard recording 1.27.133 on lap 18 whilst Graham set a 1.27.257 four laps before the end. Graham had then cut back on the revs to save fuel as he detected a slight cutting out in the closing stages.
As he crossed the line the on-board television camera captured a delighted Morris with one finger aloft saying, "That's race number one, win number one." Team principal, Will Gollop meanwhile confirmed, "Our objective for this season is to win both the GT2 and overall Championship titles and on this performance I am sure we can do it!" Morris backed this up with his explanation afterwards, "This is totally a team effort - throughout the weekend we made the right decisions at the right time which was the key to getting this result." For me, Allard's was the drive of the day - watching him after he stepped out of the car at the pitstop you could tell that he knew he had done a brilliant job - and he had!
Finally, a huge thank you to all at Dutch Racing Promotions, G-Tech Motorsport and as always to Jill (great lasagne). Now for Oulton Park on 4th May!
For the usual excellent, comprehensive overall race report and the very best news of Sports Car and GT racing world wide please visit http://www.sportscarworld.com and read Malcolm Cracknell's pages.