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Qualifying (Saturday): With four new tyres on the car, I went out in the first session and went 1.6 seconds quicker than I had managed the day before, but this was only good enough for seventh place. It is a measure of how tough this series has become that John Cleland in a Viper was in eighth! Paul then went a tenth of a second faster than me, but we did not improve our placing. In the cooler second session, Paul had two new tyres and found a gain of 9/10ths, improving to 1`.27.6". Unfortunately, all of the top eight cars improved and we still ended up 7th, albeit much closer to the lead pack. Race. 1 hour. (Sunday): This was a two-driver race obviously and Paul Evans was in to start. At the green lights, he made a forceful and committed push, quickly dispensing with the other Lister (starting 4th, with David Warnock in) and the NCK Marcos (drifting backwards from second, with Andy Purvis on board). He was then able to win a battle with Calum Lockie in the Marcos and wrest third place. The two leaders, David Clark (Viper) and Ian Mckellar (TVR) were being caught by Paul, who was matching his qualifying pace! Once the TVR pulled in for its pit stop Paul inherited second. Halfway through the race, both David Clark and Paul pitted together. Our pit stop was better and I got out of the pit lane ahead, having almost collided with Martin Shorts TVR GTO en route. Whilst we were in the pits, the TVR and the Lister (now driven by Bobby Verdon-Roe and Jamie Campbell-Walter respectively) zapped past to take first and second places, so I rejoined in third. The Marcos, driven by Cor Euser was on my tail and squeezed past me at Clearways after two laps. Soon after, an accident at Surtees brought out the safety car so we all had a five-minute `rest`. I was glad of the time to compose my thoughts actually. At the re-start, I nearly regained third place from Cor in traffic, but not quite. He was very fast after the safety car had gone in, setting fastest lap of the race and going on to finish second behind the Lister. I pushed as hard as possible from there to the end of the race, especially as I was closing in on the TVR. There were five flying laps between the end of the safety car period and the chequered flag. I beat my qualifying time on each of them, by as much as 7/10ths of a second, which just shows how the `driver rust` was a factor over this weekend. At least we finished in a solid fourth place, in good company and if we can race again soon then we will `hit the ground running`. Watch this space! |
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| SPORTS-RACING WORLD CUP - SR2.
25th - 26th March 2000  Race Report by William HewlandHaving had a long winter off racing, I agreed to race Mark Bailey Racing`s MBR 972 Rover, in the SR2 `Lights` class of the Sports Racing World Cup. My team mate would be the Swede, Nicke Blom. Clearly, the MBR chassis is now a little outdated in comparison to the latest high budget offerings from Lucchini, Tampolli and Pilbeam, but we were optimistic about our chances due to the Rover-Metro 6R4 engine, which was expected to perform very well. Testing and qualifying: Once testing began in Barcelona, we were shocked to find that, whilst the chassis seemed fairly good, the power at the rear wheels was extremely lacking. Sometimes, two SR2 cars at a time would pass us on the long straight! Around 15 mph was lacking from our top speed. Even now, after the event, it is still not clear whether or not the latest engines (in the other cars) have advanced greatly, or if it is that we had some sort of installation issue that caused our low power at the wheels. We tried two engines, the second being dogged by fuel pump and electrical woes, causing our particularly disastrous last place in qualifying. All this was very frustrating, when we were clearly quick through the tighter sections and braking zones at Barcelona. With the first engine back in the car, we had a promising performance in the wet morning warm up. Nicke Blom drove and we were second fastest! Wet conditions are always more representative to assess drivers and chassis than the dry is.  Race; 2 hours, 30
minutes:Nicke Blom started the race and battled round at a good pace (for
us), at least hanging on to the pack. We had a simple race strategy of using
harder compound tyres and therefore our three pit stops would involve just
brief refuelling. Nicke drove faultlessly and at maximum pace for our
under-powered car. With various problems (and slow team mates) beginning to
befall some of our 10 competitors, we edged in to fourth place by the time that
Nicke stopped to hand over to me. The team had brought him in early to avoid
losing time behind the Henderson Pilbeam, which just drove past us down the
straight if we overtook it in the corners. I rejoined the race
in fifth place. With other teams making fuel stops etc. I was soon making my
way up the order. I caught and passed a Debora and that moved me in to second!
After 40 minutes I stopped for fuel and would now have another 40 minutes to
run to the end of the race. With 30 minutes to go, I was amazed to see on my
pit board that we had the lead of the race! Comfortably! The next placed car-
the Pilbeam of Martin Henderson- still had a stop to make and was a minute
behind us. The car was running fine until about 20 minutes remained. The brake pedal was getting a bit long and there was a slight judder from the left side of the car, but nothing too bad. I was already rehearsing the phone call of good news to my Dad. Then it happened. As I completed the turn on to the start / finish straight, I felt a movement on the rear left wheel. I eased off the throttle and took it gently down the straight. I suspected that a rear toe link had snapped, which could be repaired if I nursed the car back to the pits. However, as I turned in to the first corner, the rear wheel parted company from the car and I slewed in to the gravel trap, ending our race. I was stunned from not knowing whether to be more amazed at our race leading good fortune, or our race ending bad fortune! Oh well, I have shaken off the winters cobwebs and will race again soon; in a Lister??? |
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PRIVILEGE INSURANCE GT - SILVERSTONE INTERNATIONAL (UK)
This was the last round of the British Championship. My team mate was the Danish driver Thorkild Thyrring. Practice on Friday proved that the car felt perfectly good, although the series organisers had awarded our car smaller air restrictors since we last drove it to hinder our speed. This looked a bit worrying as we were nearly a second off the pace in practise and were only fourth fastest in GT2. QUALIFYING: Thorkild won the toss and would have a full set of new tyres for the first session. His lap of 1`21.6" was good, but we were only fifth fastest, nearly two seconds behind the lead Marcos of Thomas Erdos. Next up was the Lotus of Ian Astley. These two had used qualifying tyres on the left side of their cars; we had not. Third and fourth were the Marcos of Cor Euser and the other Lister of Peter Hardman who was just 0.05" quicker than we were. I was not over the moon at being fifth fastest, but I was consoled by the knowledge that our tyres, although not super fast in qualifying, would endure the race very well. RACE: The plan was that I would start the race and stay out for a long time. I would only pit earlier if a safety car incident occurred, which did not prove to be the case. At the start I immediately got in to GT2 fourth position. At the Becketts esses, the two GT1's of Morrison and O'Rourke touched and spun, (exactly as they had done in front of me at the British Grand Prix event). I picked my way through this better than Mike Purvis in the Marcos and was in to third position behind the Dutch Marcos of Calum Lockie and the Lotus of Mike Youles. The three of us battled hard and it would have been very easy to cause an incident. I harried the Lotus for a few laps until he went wide at Copse, allowing me to slip past. Lockie and I pulled away from him and it was a two-way battle for the lead now. Obviously my tyres were good enough to sustain racing pace! Calum Lockie was driving firmly but fairly to defend his lead, blocking the inside line under braking. His car was very good at accelerating out of the corners so I was trying to out brake him at the end of the straights. After several laps we lapped a slower car; Lockie going in late to out-brake him at the Farm hairpin. I managed to squeeze myself alongside both of them in to the apex, perhaps just touching Lockie and taking the lead away. I was ahead, with about 11 minutes of the 50 minute race elapsed. I got my head down over the next 20 minutes, to try and pull away as much as possible. I missed setting the fastest GT2 lap of the race by 0.05"!
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| Bailey/Hewland/Wallace
Lister Storm: Second in FIA GT.
This event was to be the biggest of my racing career, certainly in terms of my team mates, Julian Bailey and Andy Wallace. Ex Grand Prix driver Julian has the benefit of being Listers full time driver and has done all the racing, testing and development with their cars in the last two years. Andy Wallace has a CV that is beyond description, including victory at Le Mans with Jaguar. The car was newly rebuilt for this meeting, so Julian had the lions share of the Friday practise and Saturday qualifying to ensure that all was well. In fact, Andy and I had no more than 15 or 20 laps each prior to the race itself. Qualifying: The first session was obviously going to be the one that would count, as it was a scorching hot weekend, making the later afternoon session too hot for quick lap times. Andy did a three lap shake down of the car and Julian took over for the rest of the session. Traffic spoiled his first proper run, but on the last lap of the session Julian netted a superb 1.31.72; taking pole position by 0.49 seconds. I drove for ten laps in the second session, on old tyres and old brakes, just to get more acclimatised to everything. Race, 3 hours: We would run three one hour stints, in the order of Julian, myself and Andy. Julian made a good start and lead the field, ahead of the Amorim / Seiler Chrysler Viper and the Beretta / Wendlinger Chrysler Viper in second and third. A five second lead was reduced later in the stint, as lapping of back-markers started. Otherwise Julian's stint was straightforward- until the pitstop….. Julian pitted, closely shadowed in to the pit lane by the No. 1 Viper of Beretta / Wendlinger, also in for it's first stop. A Porsche was in the pit right next to the Lister pit, making it a fiddly job to get the Lister stopped in position. Julian ran over a wheel gun from the Porsche team, pulling their overhead gantry round. This then knocked over their fuel rig, setting off panic all round. I was stood waiting to get in to the car, with Lister boss Lawrence Pearce telling me to get in and a marshal telling me to keep back because of the fuel rig danger. Finally I got in, the fuel rig was righted but the car was jammed- a wheel gun stuck under a wheel. Lawrence was screaming at me to dip the clutch because he thought it was in gear etc, etc, etc……This chaos seemed to last forever- my pulse rate was right up and my debut in the FIA championship was certainly starting `memorably`. Eventually I was leaving the pit lane, with a full tank of fuel, and new tyres. Even my drink bottle was connected properly. (It would not be possible to drive for an hour without it!) To create even more excitement, I got out on to the circuit with the effective leader, Karl Wendlinger, immediately behind me. I fought on the cold tyres not to go a lap down, and managed to fend him off. Once the tyres had `come in` I was able to pull away and be the fastest car in the second stint of the race. To my surprise I was only half a second slower than Julian Bailey, who had done his best time with no traffic to pass. I was in ninth place when I joined the track and clawed my way past Vipers and Porsches to get up to third position. When I caught up to Franz Konrad in the Porsche I accidentally nudged him under braking and went across the grass, but we both re-joined.
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RACE REPORT. PRIVILEGE INSURANCE GT. SILVERSTONE GP.
(Report by William Hewland)
 This
event was a support race at the British Grand Prix, so the atmosphere was at a
high, as was the grid size, with 38 cars taking the start.QUALIFYING: We used the first session to just acclimatise to the car at this circuit. We found a few changes that we wanted to instigate for the next session, which would begin with ten minutes of clear track for GT2 cars only. Rob Schirle in the other GT2 Lister set a superb time of 1. 51.14, which would stay as GT2 pole for the weekend. In the second session, Thorkild Thyrring went out for the `clear` ten minutes on 2 new tyres but was only able to set a 1.53.9. He was troubled by the braking set up which was still locking up at the rear on him. I got in to the car and my softer braking style seemed not to trouble the locking up situation. I set a 1.53.0. I then pitted and put on two harder tyres on the left side so as to just get some further running experience on the circuit, which actually produced a last lap time of 1.52.4. We had qualified in second place (GT2) and eighth overall. RACE: Our policy was for me to start the race and stay out as long as possible, effectively waiting for a safety car incident, (when pit stops are best timed) which we all felt was a likely occurrence, given the large grid size. At the start, I got away well, immediately passing David Warnock in the pole position Lister for the lead in GT2. The GT1 field was bunched up and frantic ahead of me. I overtook John Greasley in to Stowe corner and was in to sixth position overall. This lasted for half a lap, before Greasley drove past me on the start finish straight. He then collided with Steve O`Rourkes McLaren at Becketts, an incident which I narrowly avoided being part of! At the start of Lap 3, I was in fifth place overall and pulling out a good lead in GT2. In fact a safety car incident did not occur, so I remained out for over 30 minutes. All we had to do was make a good pit stop and press on for a comfortable win. At the pit stop, Thorkild dived in to the cockpit, trapping the seat belt underneath him. We had practised this driver change many times to perfection but the heat of the moment always produces some difficult element or other. By the time we had sorted the belts out, our pit stop had taken 26 seconds- disastrous, as we had practised it in under 15 seconds. Thorkild hit the track with our lead still intact but much reduced. A combination of Rob Schirles speed and the braking issues that Thorkild suffered meant that we were overtaken with just a few laps to go. The two Listers finished just a second apart at the end but we were second, not first. A good result but not what we had hoped and expected. Stop Press: It is now looking likely that William Hewland will partner Julian Bailey in the GT2 Lister at theFIA GT Championship at Donington Park, UK over the weekend 4th-5th September 1999. |
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RACE REPORT.
PRIVILEGE INSURANCE GT. BRANDS HATCH. 19/20.6.99 (Report by William Hewland)  The deal came together late
and fast, but myself and prolific Dane, Thorkild Thyrring are now team mates at
Lister for the rest of the season in one of their two excellent GT2 cars.
Things have come full circle, because it was I (at Donington in August 98) that
suggested Lister take their 1996 Storm model and make it into a GT2- Voila!
Friday practice was our only chance to gain experience of the car, which felt fantastic, until an engine problem meant that the car had to miss the afternoon sessions. Lister did a sterling job to have the car perfect again for Saturdays qualifying session. Our main opposition for the weekend would be the other Lister of Rob Schirle and David Warnock; already winners in a Lister at Snetterton. The Marcos of Thomas Erdos and Andy Purvis was the other potential worry. A dodge Viper has also appeared but is very new. Qualifying: I spent two laps gently bedding in our new Michelins and was a few hundred yards behind Rob Schirle in the other Lister. He set a fantastic time of 1.25.8. Unfortunately, I caught him on my flying lap and had to lift off; stuffing the lap. I went for another lap, but the session was red flagged, so I had to back off through Clearways, but netted a 1.27.8. When the session re-started, I improved to a 1.27.3, but the best had gone from the tyres due to their first heat cycle. In the second session, Thorkild drove and we fitted two new tyres on the rear for him. This enabled him to set an excellent 1.26.2 on an un-troubled run. We were second in GT2. Race: I would start the race. The AM racing McLaren was two cars ahead of me, with its very slow second driver starting the race. I knew that this would be a worry. At the start, there was chaos around the slow McLaren and I came off fairly badly. At the end of lap one, I had gained places, including passing the other GT2 Lister, but was several seconds behind the leading Marcos of Thomas Erdos. I caught him up very quickly, but was then confronted with the most zealous blocking tactics I have ever known. Erdos weaved down the straights, lifted off halfway through corners and did all he could to hold me up. Twice I was in a good position to overtake at Paddock bend, but yellow flags meant that I had to back off. He was costing me up to two second a lap. After 19 minutes the team called me in as it was a fruitless battle. Thorkild took over and was soon battling with Rob Schirle. The Marcos made a late pit stop, losing its lead to the Listers. Rob passed Thorkild, who did a good job of staying with him thereafter. Thorkild had had so few laps in the car at this point. As the tyres wore, the brake balance began to need moving forward, because the rear tyres started to lock up on our car. On lap 26, this caught out the very experienced Dane and he made a rare mistake, locking up and spinning at Druids bend. The car was stuck in the gravel and our race was over. Lister had a win in GT1 and GT2, but we were not included. The car was great, but other things seemed not to go our way this weekend- that's racing! Next round: Silverstone GP 11.7.99, the race after the British Grand Prix. |
Privilege
Insurance GT. 
