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Silverstone 2002
3rd June 2002

Took 2 Esprit's again to Silverstone for the British GT Championship which features Johnson Motorsport's Esprit V8 driven by Matt Johnson and Robert Ross. Leaving at 7.30am down the M1 to Silverstone, the roads where quite and the speeds a little high. Nothing interesting on the run down, just lots of traffic as you come into Silverstone Village.

 

Parking up in a field (AGAIN!), there was a bit of a worry about front spoilers being lost. A overpriced £20 to get in and it was time to head straight for the paddock to check out the cars at close quarters before the racing started. Personally I was only really interested in the GT's as I find most of the other races a little boring. The World Sports Cars are worth watching, but the British Touring Cars, F3, Clio UK Cup and Porsche Cup aren't my cup of tea. Watching Lotus doing battle with Ferrari, Porsche and TVR just seems to get me going, although I'm not sure if the racing is any better. Better off asking somebody less bias.

 

 

After paying 80p for a can of coke and £3.50 for a cheese burger (bring a packed lunch). We hit the paddock — Ferrari seemed to have all the money (but can they win a race), an EB110 with full carbon fibre body panels was found hiding in the Ferrari Tent. One of the Team Owners cars, now you don't find many of those. They're rare enough, but a carbon fibre version, my monies on it being the only one in the world.

Seems the Ferrari drivers needs a little help around the track! In the middle of the steering wheel is a small hand written map of the circuit. Not sure if it proves of any use as you're doing 150 mph into a corner!

  

The Esprit boys are busy preparing the Esprit for battle. They're doing pretty well in the Championship with only one DNF and are steadily racking up the points. I'm sure they'll end up ahead of some of the bigger budget teams. I will be interviewing the team (via email) to get the low down on how they get on running an Esprit in the Championship.


  

With the weather a little off, both dry & wets might be needed.

  

The Esprit lines up behind the private Ferrari (£500,000 worth of car) ready for the formation lap. The GT's wait in a slip road to enter the track while one of the other races comes to an end.

  

Things get a little tight at the start — with a rolling start everybody's up everybody else arse. The Esprit gets a sniff of the Dancing Donkey's behind, before getting sandwiched between to Porsches.

  

The Esprit seems to be doing a lot of Donkey arse sniffing as it checks the rear of the white Ferrari 360.

  

After having suspension and turbo problems the Esprit finishes (again) picking up a few more valuable points. Then it hangs out with some very exotic cars at scrutineering.

 

Next stop is Castle Combe, another finish could push the Esprit further ahead of teams like Shane Lynch (ex-Boyzone) TVR Tuscan R which are bigger budget teams.

For more details of the British GT Championship check out PistonHeads.com

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