Adam Wilcox - VRS Motor Finance Ferrari F430 GT3 race report for Rockingham.
Added: (Wed Oct 03 2007)
Pressbox (Press Release) -
Adam Wilcox - VRS Motor Finance race report for Rockingham.
Practice :
The race format was a little different to normal at Rockingham, with two 50 Minute sessions on Friday followed by the official 1 hour 15 minutes session that normally takes place on Saturday mornings.
The weather was very wet on Friday, and all the teams spent a long day setting the car up for wet conditions, the VRS Motor Finance Ferrari was always at the top of the time sheets with Adam enjoying his first run in the car in the wet " Believe it or not but I have gone through the entire British GT Season without driving the car on wet tyres, Phil ran the last part of race 2 at Oulton Park but other than that it never rained all year !" Commented Adam.
Qualifying :
For the qualifying sessions Phil Burton would take to the track in session 1, and completed only one flying lap before disaster struck and the VRS Ferrari hobbled back into the pit lane, clearly in trouble, it was a broken drive shaft that had caused the problem and Phil would have to start Race 1 from 24th place on the grid.
With only 10 minutes between qualifying sessions it was looking unlikely that the VRS team would be able to change a drive shaft and get the car back on the circuit so Adam could start his qualifying session for the Race 2 grid position, however the team worked a ' miracle ' and Adam came charging out the pit lane with 4 minutes left of the qualifying session, as it had been raining all day Friday with no dry set-up he managed only to complete 2 laps, and with still cold tyres managed a time good enough for 6th place on the grid.
" Were very please with the result, I took the checkered flag first by only 2 seconds, if I had those 2 seconds I could have got another lap in and got higher up the order as the tyres were pretty much stone cold when I came back to the pits ".
Race 1 :
Phil Burton would start Race 1 in 24th Position, as the lights went green some of the cars at the back of the circuit decided to lag so far behind the middle of the pack that Phil had no choice but to follow them through the single file chicane and would come across the line still in 24th place, after several lap Phil had made good progress and was picking off the opposition one by one and came into hand over to Adam after about 30 minutes in 12th place, a good pit-stop ensued Adam would rejoin the circuit still in 12th and was able to fight his way further up the order to come home 7th and the flag.
" From 24th on the grid 7th was a reasonable finish, we were only 20 seconds behind the leader at the flag, so I am sure it would have been a different story had we not have had the problem in Qualifying " Said Adam.
Warm up :
Sunday Morning warm up was at 10:00 am and Adam was able to show what the VRS Motor Finance Ferrari could really manage in terms of lap times, as due to the qualifying drama had not previously had the opportunity, straight from the off he headed the timing screens and would end the session almost a second faster than his rivals.
Race 2 :
Adam was supposed to start 6th for Sundays race but the Lamborghini Gallardo of Adam Jones and thrown a diff in the Morning Warm up so the VRS Finance Ferrari would line up in 5th place for the race start.
As the lights went green Adam managed to take the inside line and overtake the Ascari KZR1 of Thomas Erdos, as the front few cars all entered the first corner, on the exit of the first bend he had made significant ground on the 3 cars in front and was able to out brake the championship contenders of Johnny Cocker in the Aston Martin DBRs9 and Bradley Ellis in the RPM Viper and drive around the outside of both of them in the second corner, as he completed the first lap was up to 2nd place and on the gearbox of the CIM Ferrari of Allan Simonsen, the positions would settle and Adam was in a comfortable 2nd place heading towards middle race distance, the CIM Ferrari came into pit and Adam was into the lead for a couple of extra laps before the VRS team called him into pit and hand over to Phil Burton.
Phil rejoined the circuit in 2nd place, and was running strong at the front of the field for several laps, having good battles with the Championship leading Aston Martin DBRs9 of Paul Drayson changing positions many times before the Aston would eventually retire with problems, but the tyres on the VRS Ferrari were past their best and Phil slipped behind the RPM Viper and then the Tech9 Porsche in the closing stages of the race to bring the car home in 5th place.
For more information please visit www.adamwilcox.com