ON
TRACK WITH RICK PEARSON No. 26
in a Continuing Series By Rick Pearson
Hello and welcome to the ninth of my columns for 2001. This week I'm going to look at the BTC in the light of the first round last weekend. Relaunched under the control of Richard West, ex-sponsorship guru for the Williams F1 team amongst others, and with a new set of lower cost regulations the series was likely to get off to a bit of a slow start. However, I think those who were there would agree that it was, all in all, a very promising debut.
I think the first thing to note was the decent number of people who were at Brands on Sunday, for the qualifying sessions, despite some generally cold Easter weather. I guess in previous years I have been ensconced in the truck, trying to prepare myself for Clio qualifying and may not have noticed, but the number of people wandering around surprised me.
I was also impressed by the BTC- Production teams. A good variety of cars and first qualifying showed the top four qualifiers, all driving different cars, covered by less than a tenth of a session. Clearly, Alfa have done some good work over the winter on their engines, plus Peugeot look like they might previously have been running a little light (to score some psychological points over the opposition?) as their testing domination failed to materialise into times around the tight Brands Hatch Indy circuit.
The all-Production class sprint race also provided good action, although some of the driving was not worthy of our top-flight saloon series. A couple of the drivers were a long way off the times that even their aged cars were capable of; plus the behaviour of the Alfa team after Blair failed to pass my old team mate, Jim Edwards Jnr, around the outside was deplorable. If you attempt to pass a driver around the outside, especially at Paddock Hill, you run a risk of ending up on your roof. Blair tried the manoeuvre and left Jim with nowhere to go. The two cars touched and both ended up in the gravel.
For one of the Alfa team to come and scream at Jim like a 5-year-old child after the race is something that should be left in the minor leagues and does nothing for the professional image of the Championship. Mr West take note please. In fact, the pace of his teammate, Pyper was showing up Blair and there was an element of desperation in his driving all weekend until it ended in the Paddock Hill gravel.
The Alfa Tourer of Dave Pinkney was also struggling a touch. After destroying part of its suspension in testing at an airfield on Saturday, they cannibalized the parts from the second car only for them to fail again within a few laps on Sunday. Word has it that Mr West then leant on the manufacturer and got them to make some new ones overnight Sunday so that the Alfa could be seen on the Monday. After blazing gloriously around the track for the warm-up period with the team dancing in the pit as if they'd won the lottery, the engine sadly failed after just a couple of laps of the sprint race. Big respect to the team though as instead of packing up and going home, they worked on even after the start of the Feature race to send the car back out in front of the afternoon crowds.
The race itself was a little predictable, with the heavily fancied Astras dominating. I was glad to see my old sparring partner Phil Bennett make it onto the podium. A lot had been said about him buying the drive, but I think he more that proved he has a right to be there. In particular, his refusal to be intimidated by Matt Neal in the sprint race was beautiful to see! (As was the gently spinning Peugeot afterwards.)
Since Lotus are rumoured to have a contract with TOCA to provide a grid of a minimum of sixteen cars, it was no surprise that sixteen cars took the start. The fact that the majority of the cars appeared to not have been painted since last year and were also looking a little bare of sponsorship suggests times are a little tough at Lotus. Once again, an astonishing number of the cars broke down. If you took sixteen road-going Elises direct from the factory and ran them for 20 minutes, I think you'd be pretty upset if 25% of them broke down. I don't understand what is different about the racing cars.
On the other hand, the Clio field was in rude health. I don't remember the last time a Clio broke down although once again a few of the field fell foul of over optimism on cold tyres. The usual pile-up at the bottom of Paddock Hill was capped with a spectacular "tank-slapper" for Proton Champion Doug Ross as he passed in front of the South Bank. Starting with a slide coming through Graham Hill bend, he narrowly missed the barriers on both sides of the track before finally gathering it altogether for Surtees.After a pace car period to recover cars from tyre walls, a very well controlled restart by Paul Rivett saw him away and uncatcheable to the flag. Engineered for the weekend by my team manager, Mark Fish, who was helping out the Stancombe Engineering Squad, it was as good as a home win!
This weekend could have seen me at Monza for the 1000kms race where I have been offered a drive in a Pilbeam-Nissan sportscar. With 450bhp and lots of downforce it would be an interesting ride. However, at this stage of the season, and with sponsorship money very tight, it looks like I will be forced to decline the offer in order to focus resources on the V6 campaign. In the meantime, have a good week one and all!