Great success for TF Sport in GT Open
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Having easily secured pole for Race 1 in somewhat trying but improving conditions after the storms of friday night Aston Martin Racing's Darren Turner and BRDC Rising Star Jody Fannin were obviously out for a bit of fun in the International GT Open with their TF Sport prepared V12 Vantage GT3.
As previously reported this pairing this entry was only confirmed late last week so the Friday free practice was to be their first working relation with each other, the team and the series.
Come Saturday afternoon the weather had improved letting the somewhat disappointing 15 car grid enjoy very warm and dry conditions at the Northamptonshire circuit. It was to be Darren Turner to start the race just ahead of the reigning Series Champion in his Ferrari.
Controlling the rolling start behind the Safety Car Turner was easily through Copse before the chasing pack and in only a matter of a few of laps had developed a lead of about 15 seconds. The chasing field were slowing each other down squabbling over the leftovers.
With Turner pitting for his statutory pit stop and driver change towards the end of the pit window period and despite an additional 15 seconds being added to their minimum pitstop time (penalty for single race entry) Fannin would rejoin the race with a lead of nearly 40 seconds by the time everybody had sorted themselves out.
Their only scare would be a late Safety Car to allow a car to be recovered which brought their margin the the pack down to a minimum but despite this Fannin would be able to re excert their dominance and cross the line with an 8 second margin over the others.
With qualifying for Race 2 again being held on Sunday morning under somewhat milder conditions from those experienced over the first part of the race weekend the duo could only qualify on fifth and over a second down on the pole sitters time. With Fannin starting the race 2 he would be fortunate to avoid an incident at Copse that would see the V8 Racing Corvette being spat out of the pack, into the barrier and instant retirement.
Come Saturday afternoon the weather had improved letting the somewhat disappointing 15 car grid enjoy very warm and dry conditions at the Northamptonshire circuit. It was to be Darren Turner to start the race just ahead of the reigning Series Champion in his Ferrari.
Controlling the rolling start behind the Safety Car Turner was easily through Copse before the chasing pack and in only a matter of a few of laps had developed a lead of about 15 seconds. The chasing field were slowing each other down squabbling over the leftovers.
With Turner pitting for his statutory pit stop and driver change towards the end of the pit window period and despite an additional 15 seconds being added to their minimum pitstop time (penalty for single race entry) Fannin would rejoin the race with a lead of nearly 40 seconds by the time everybody had sorted themselves out.
Their only scare would be a late Safety Car to allow a car to be recovered which brought their margin the the pack down to a minimum but despite this Fannin would be able to re excert their dominance and cross the line with an 8 second margin over the others.
With qualifying for Race 2 again being held on Sunday morning under somewhat milder conditions from those experienced over the first part of the race weekend the duo could only qualify on fifth and over a second down on the pole sitters time. With Fannin starting the race 2 he would be fortunate to avoid an incident at Copse that would see the V8 Racing Corvette being spat out of the pack, into the barrier and instant retirement.
With some racing moves that even more experienced racers would would be proud Fannin wasn't going to waste time with the again squabbling series regulars before he had positioned himself into the race lead just before the pit window opening.
With the car now coming under the series success balancing rules an additional 30 seconds would to be added to their 65 second minimum pit time and by the time Turner would rejoin the circuit the TF Sport car was down to sixth position. By lap 22 Turner had moved up to second but the leading SMP Ferrari was still another 18 seconds up the road with less than 10 minutes remaining so, as Turner would report after the event, he elected to back off and bring the car home in a strong second than jeopardise losing the car on a futile chase.
A great result for all those involved.
Photo - GT Open/Photospeedy/Jacob Ebrey
