Barwell Motorsport was back on international racing duty last weekend, when we contested the latest round of the Belcar Championship at Zolder with the ‘Petronas-Barwell’ Aston Martin DBRS9 GT3. With a great set-up on the car and an excellent race strategy in place, we were very well positioned in the race to comfortably take third position and probably secure second, but then the race was stopped prematurely due to a serious incident in the pit lane where a person had been knocked over and injured by a Ferrari during its pit stop. The final results were then declared at this stage, which meant that we were classified in fourth position.

After a successful test day on the Thursday before the race, we knew that we had made good progress with the set-up of the Petronas/Aston Martin Brussels-backed DBRS9, and had better pace around Zolder than at our previous visit in April. We were thus confident of qualifying in the top two rows, and devised a strategy for the Saturday qualifying sessions that would minimise tyre wear on our Michelin rubber and give us tyres in great shape for Sunday’s 125 minute race. After the first 30 minute qualifying session we were satisfied with a strong lap from Jeffrey van Hooydonk that put us third on the grid at that stage, and thus kept to our strategy for the second session. During this Tim Verbergt only did the very minimum number of laps necessary for him to qualify, and circulated at a very sedate pace. For most of the session it looked like we would hang on to third spot, but then late on the Maassen/Longin Audi chipped our time by a mere 16/1000ths of a second!





After the opening lap of the race a Porsche had deposited a large amount of fluids out of its engine onto the race track, and this made for treacherous circuit conditions as it was extremely hard for the drivers (on slick tyres) to judge exactly how much grip they would have both when braking and during cornering. Jeffrey had several lurid moments when the slippery track surface sent the Aston sliding around in unexpected directions, but he managed to keep the big V12-engined machine on the track. Unfortunately the Vanthoor/Wauters Mercedes was not so lucky and suffered a big accident which brought out the Safety Car after only 10 minutes of racing. Jeffrey was running in fourth place at the time, but this was a ‘real’ third as the Maassen/Longin Audi was due to come in for a one-minute penalty due to a regulations infringement by the team on the grid. The Safety Car picked up the three leaders but the time lost behind it for us was minimised by quick thinking from Barwell chief, Mark Lemmer, who brought Jeffrey into the pits as soon as he came round to take one of our mandatory two pit stops.

With the leading Porsche and Mercedes not following this strategy and thus getting caught behind the Safety Car for another lap, we should have leap-frogged them in the running order but unfortunately delays surrounding the driver change (where Jeffrey had to get out and then back in again to continue his stint) cost us valuable time. This kept us behind the Porsche and Mercedes, but also behind the Audi of Verbist/Ide which had started from the pit lane and then had the extreme fortune of being able to come straight into the pits before it got caught behind the Safety Car, thus jumping it up from fifth place straight into the lead.




With the Maassen/Longin Audi having taken its penalty, Jeff thus re-emerged from the pits in fourth place right on the tail of the leading trio of Audi, Porsche and Mercedes. Unfortunately the Kumpen/Wauters Mercedes was now being driven by its amateur pilot, Koen Wauters, and he was clearly holding the Petronas-Barwell Aston up and losing ground to the front two. Koen is a quick amateur driver, however, and the combination of his pace and the strong power and braking ability of the Mercedes meant that Jeffrey just couldn’t find a way past. This was costing us in the region of one second a lap, which Jeffrey proved when the Merc pitted and he instantly lapped quicker with free air in front of him.

With just over 50 minutes to go Jeffrey pitted from third place for a full ‘service’ – re-fuel, four-wheel change and driver change to Tim. With the Kumpen/Wauters Mercedes having now suffered a problem and dropped out of contention, this meant that Tim should have re-joined in third and been able to start attacking the Verbist/Ide Audi for second. A broken right rear wheel nut on the DBRS9 caused a delay with the wheel change, however, and meant that Verbergt came out just under 10 seconds behind the Bouvy/Coens Ford GT in fourth.




A fired up Tim then set about hunting down the Ford, and was absolutely flying as our qualifying strategy was now paying dividends with Verbergt having a lovely fresh set of Michelins at his disposal. He set the second fastest overall race lap as he relentlessly closed down the Ford, which was now visibly on the ragged edge trying to keep our Aston at bay. With just under half an hour of the race to go, Tim had closed to within two seconds of his prey and it would only be a matter of a few laps before we reclaimed third place. By this time, however, the pit lane incident had occurred and once the serious nature of it had been established the event officials stopped the race and declared the result early.

Barwell Motorsport is extremely disappointed to have to announce that it has been left with no choice but to withdraw the Petronas-Barwell Aston Martin DBRS9 entry from this year’s Total 24 Hours of Spa, due to Michelin tyre supply issues. We originally informed Michelin in February of this year that we would be running this car at Spa and that we would require tyre supply, but were then shocked to be told for the first time on June 18th that there was a problem with supply and that there was a shortage of tyres. This meant that Michelin could now only supply their Blancpain Championship full season entrants, and not cars contesting the 24 Hours as a ‘one-off’. The withdrawal of this car is devastating news for all at Barwell Motorsport, as we have been working for 10 months to put the deal together to run this car with a top driver line-up and thus put ourselves in a good position to challenge for an outright podium result.

Since we were told this news by Michelin we have been trying every possible way of attempting to rescue this situation, but sadly to no avail. With time running out before the July 30/31 event, the key partners in the Petronas-Barwell entry, including backers Petronas, Aston Martin Brussels and drivers Jeffrey Van Hooydonk and Tim Verbergt, have made the decision to withdraw from the event and concentrate on their challenge for the Belcar Endurance Championship (BEC) title. Jeffrey and Tim are currently lying second in this championship, and the Petronas-Barwell team can now switch its attentions to running the Aston Martin DBRS9 in the Zolder 24 Hours on September 3/4, which is a double-points scoring event for the BEC.

“This comes as a massive disappointment to us as the Spa 24 Hours is Barwell’s blue chip event of the year,“ says Barwell Motorsport MD, Mark Lemmer. “It is absolutely of no consolation that there are currently approximately another 15 cars entered for the race that are in the same boat with the tyre supply situation.”

Barwell Motorsport will still be running the Ecurie Ecosse Aston Martin DBRS9 entry in the Spa 24 Hours event, which will be fielded in the Pro-Am Class for drivers Andrew Smith, Olly Bryant, Alasdair McCaig and Joe Twyman. This car will run on Avon tyres. “We know Avon well from the British GT Championship, and during the past two years they have been very pro-active in developing a suitable and highly competitive tyre for the DBRS9” comments Lemmer. “Avon are being extremely supportive of our Spa 24 Hour plans with the Ecurie Ecosse car, and we are confident of a strong challenge for the Pro-Am victory.”

And Barwell run Secure Racing makes a successful British GT debut at Brands Hatch.


Barwell Motorsport was in action in both Belgium and England last weekend, as we contested the latest events of the Belcar Endurance and British GT Championships. The Belcar series was making its first visit of the season to Spa, and the competition got even hotter with the addition to the entry of many top factory-supported teams from the cream of the major international GT3 racing series. The Petronas-Barwell Racing Aston DBRS9 suffered near disaster early on in the frenetic wet/dry 3-hour race, when a rival car ran over the team’s pit lane equipment during a pit stop. Although this caused a major delay for us, drivers Jeffrey Van Hooydonk and Tim Verbergt staged a great recovery to climb back up from 27th to finish 8th overall and third out of the regular Belcar runners. To prove the competitiveness of Belcar, the race was won by the championship-leading Porsche of Goossens/Soulet. With this result, Van Hooydonk and Verbergt have moved up to second place in the Belcar points behind the Goossens/Soulet combination.

Meanwhile at Brands Hatch we were embarking on our first British GT race of the year, with the GT4 Class Aston Martin Vantage being run under the Secure Racing with Barwell Motorsport banner. Having only completed a shakedown run at Silverstone prior to the weekend, this was very much a learning event for both the team and drivers Peter Erceg and Chris Holmes. The car ran like clockwork all weekend, and we got faster and faster the more miles that we racked up. This year’s GT4 class is hugely competitive, and thus we were delighted to claim a solid fifth place on both the car and drivers’ debut in British GT. We also had our regular involvement with the GT3 class at Brands, with Barwell boss Mark Lemmer performing chief engineering and car set-up duties on the Beechdean Aston Martin DBRS9. This set a superb fourth fastest qualifying time of 1m 27.1s – the fastest ever DBRS9 Avon-tyred time around Brands by a fair margin. Unfortunately Andrew Howard had a spin on the opening lap of the race which put the car down the order, and it then suffered a puncture later on in the race. Jonny Adam was absolutely flying during his race stint, however, and set the second fastest GT3 race lap.

The Belcar entry for Spa was a match for any other international GT race this year, with the winners of the last rounds of both of Europe’s two premier GT series, the FIA GT3 European Championship (Faster Racing BMW Z4 GT3) and the Blancpain Endurance Series (Vita4one Ferrari 458 Italia) joining the fray, as well as other top squads from Mercedes and Lamborghini. This meant that most of the major GT manufacturers were represented at Spa by factory supported teams! In terms of numbers, the interlopers helped the grid to swell to an impressive 29 cars across the three classes.

The condensed two day schedule also meant that there was very little time to work on the set up of the car, and we weren’t satisfied that we had got a really good handling balance on the Aston Martin Brussels-backed DBRS9 by the end of the one hour practice session. With dry weather forecast for the official qualifying session, we sent Jeffrey out to get a reasonable time in the bag during the early stages on the first set of new tyres. Tim then took over but struggled
to get a clear lap in during his run. Our plan was then for Jeffrey to have another crack of the whip at a qualifying lap with new slicks, but the rain came and scuppered our chances. We were thus left with no chance to improve on Jeff’s first ‘banker’ time and 11th position, and were frustrated as we felt that a lap time in the low 2m 21s bracket (which would have put us seventh) was achievable. With the extremely high quality of the field the top six cars were all in the 2m20s bracket, an absolutely stunning overall pace. Even though they are using the harder compound Michelin tyre, these top six Belcar GT3 cars would have all qualified ahead of the GT2 Professional class pole position Ferrari in the recent Spa round of the Le Mans Series!

Race day morning brought with it that traditional Spa feature of black clouds and more rain. The rain had eased up an hour before the race start, but still the majority of the cars started on wet weather tyres, and the forecast was for more rain. One significant bucker of this trend was the Prospeed Porsche of Goossens, however, who made what turned out to be an inspired (and brave) decision to start on slicks. Only four laps into the 3-hour encounter it was already clear that slicks was the way to go, and thus the pit lane was full of cars (including ours) coming in to change to dry tyres.

The race-leading Mercedes of Anthony Kumpen was in the pit box immediately before ours, and as he left his spot he misjudged how close he was to our fuel rig boom and the attached air line for the wheel change gun that was about to be used on our car. Kumpen ran straight over the gun and scooped it up onto the front of the Merc, which then pulled the whole fuel rig over to 45 degrees as he drove off down the pit road! Fortunately the gun snapped off the end of the line before the fuel rig toppled over and created what would have been an extremely dangerous and damaging situation. As it was the loose air line whipped back and smashed a hole clean through the front left side fender of the Aston. The shocked Barwell pit crew quickly regrouped, fitted a replacement air line and gun, then repositioned the car and fuel rig, assessed the damage and completed the tyre change. Unfortunately because of all this we had lost over a complete lap to the main pack, and Jeffrey rejoined way back in 27th place.

Hence we began what was to be an absolutely stunning recovery job and damage limitation exercise. Jeffrey got his head down and got stuck into his stint, which remained dry until very shortly before he was due to stop on the hour mark. Just prior to this there was more drama in the vicinity of our pit lane area, as a Lamborghini was coming down the pit lane on fire and then parked up only 10 metres away from our pit box, having left a trail of burning fuel all the way back to its fuel rig! Fortunately the marshals did a great job and got the fire out and the car cleared quickly before Jeffrey came back in, having moved the car up to 15th place by this point. At the second stop we fuelled the car for an hour and, with the rain settling in, sent Tim back out on a set of wet tyres for his stint.

Tim did a great job during his hour stint in the wet, although he reported that the car was struggling a little bit with high rear tyre pressures. Just as the race went into its final hour, Tim had got us into 12th place before he returned to the pits for our final stop. We fitted a fresh set of rear wets, which now had their pressures optimised after Tim’s feedback. Jeff was then absolutely flying as he continued to move the Petronas-Barwell Aston up the order. He reeled in and passed the rival GPR Aston Martin DBRS9 before claiming 10th place from the Corvette of Bouvy/Coens as the race entered its last 30 minutes. He then had a 50-second deficit to the
Vanthoor/Wauters Mercedes, but was able to make huge gains every lap as he was consistently one of the fastest cars on the track at this stage. Incredibly he hunted down and passed the Merc for ninth place, which then became eighth position as the sister Mercedes of Kumpen/Wauters ran out of fuel in the closing stages (justice served for it spoiling our race!).

At Brands Hatch the weekend was certainly a lot calmer and less action-packed in the British GT encounter, but the pace in GT4 has also significantly moved forward from where it was last year. The regular British GT runners have already done two race events and plenty of testing, so we were certainly starting on the back foot with our new Dtex-backed Aston Martin. Both Peter and Chris are new to British GT racing and moreover Chris was having his first race in a GT car of any kind, having come from a background of racing single-seater formula cars. Without the benefit of any proper testing, we were also learning about the new spec Avon tyres, and during official qualifying we didn’t get the most out of the new slicks as they require much longer runs than before to get to their optimum temperature.


Peter thus started from sixth place but had the absolute nightmare of circuit conditions to contend with at the start of the two-hour encounter – a track with a dry racing line but damp off the line. With the line dry the only tyre choice was to use slicks, but if you strayed off the racing line onto the damp surface then you instantly had absolutely zero grip...! Many cars found this out to their detriment during the opening laps, as they slid off the line and straight off the track! Peter kept the Aston ‘on the island’ however, although the Lotus Evora of Nordstrom/Clarke slipped through on the opening lap to demote him to seventh spot. The Kiwi then settled himself into the race and started to learn how to get the best out of the Vantage’s traction control system. This became especially useful towards the end of his hour stint, when a quick rain shower sprinkled the track with water but didn’t come down heavy enough to warrant a change to wet tyres. Under these highly treacherous conditions Peter was absolutely flying and matching the times of the GT4 class leaders. Shortly after the halfway mark he brought the car into the pits in sixth place to hand over to Chris, having gained a place back when the Ladas/Mallock KTM XBow hit problems.




The Barwell crew topped up the car with fuel, changed all four tyres for a fresh set of slicks and sent Chris on his way. He rejoined the race with the track surface still extremely greasy, and wisely didn’t push too hard until he had got sufficient heat into the fresh tyres. Once the Avons were up to temperature he really started to get into his stride, and as the circuit dried out Chris just got quicker and quicker. Soon he was matching, and then comfortably exceeding, his qualifying pace, and the Barwell Vantage was not only reeling in the factory Lotus of Glew/Jackson in fifth place but also setting faster lap times than the class leading Ginetta of McDonald/Denis! In the closing stages of the race the pressure that Chris was putting the Glew/Jackson car under clearly had an affect on the Lotus, leading to it crashing out of the race with less than 10 minutes to go. Chris and Peter thus claimed an excellent fifth place finish in the first event for Secure Racing with Barwell Motorsport.

Barwell Motorsport

Images British GT & Belcar

Elsewhere the Barwell-engineered Beechdean Aston scores a podium in round 1 of British GT (27 April 2011)

The Barwell Motorsport Belgian GT squad was back in action last weekend, for round two of the Belcar Endurance Championship – a race of 125 minutes around Zolder. We kicked off the season in fine style first time out at Zolder with a third place podium result for the Petronas-Barwell Racing entry, but the Aston Martin DBRS9 is not well suited to Zolder’s tight chicanes and we knew it was going to be tough to repeat that result. With the front-running pace in Belcar getting hotter and hotter and none of our rivals suffering any mechanical problems, we were thus happy to come away with fifth place and keep drivers Tim Verbergt and Jeffrey Van Hooydonk up in third spot in the championship standings. This puts them well placed as we head off to Spa for the next round in June, a track which is a happy hunting ground for the Aston Martin DBRS9.

We also had an interest in two other cars running in two other different locations over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend, with the Barwell-engineered Beechdean Aston DBRS9 GT3 contesting the British GT opener at Oulton Park, and the Gulf AMR Middle East Aston Martin Vantage GT2 (which is co-prepared by Barwell technicians) attending the official Le Mans 24 Hour test day. Barwell MD, Mark Lemmer, had provided the engineering and set-up plan to Beechdean in advance of Oulton, but then had to miss the qualifying day there as he was on Belcar duty at Zolder. However, with Zolder’s race finished by Sunday evening he was then able to hot-foot it back to Blighty, and get up to Cheshire for first thing on Monday to join the Beechdean squad for the Bank Holiday race day at Oulton! Mark then enjoyed running the car to a great third place for Beechdean’s Andrew Howard and Jonny Adam in the British GT season-opener. Barwell’s Engineering Director, Chris Weeden, meanwhile was at Le Mans looking after the Vantage GT2 for Sunday’s official test day. The Gulf AMR Middle East team’s Aston ran well during the test and recorded the fourth fastest time in the GTE Amateur class, ahead of the Team Jota Aston.

During last Friday’s free practice sessions at Zolder the Barwell engineers and drivers worked on further fine-tuning of the set up and performance of the Petronas/Aston Martin Brussels-backed DBRS9. This hard work paid off during Saturday’s official qualifying sessions, when Jeffrey Van Hooydonk hooked up a great lap to post a 1m31.1s time – a full 0.4s quicker than last time out on new Michelin tyres. This looked good enough to give us third position on the grid until a last-ditch effort by Anthony Kumpen in the Mercedes shaded our time by a mere 4/100ths of a second! Fourth was still a mighty effort at Zolder, however, and put us ahead of both of the WRT Racing Audis. As a measure of the high level of competitiveness of Belcar this year, two weeks ago our time would have put us on the front row of the grid, but the fastest two cars were now recording 1m30.3s laps – only a second slower than the FIA World GT1 Championship pack!

The outside of the grid is not an easy place to start at Zolder, and Jeffrey had to fight hard with the Verbist/Ide Audi as they ran side-by-side through the first two corners of the 125-minute race. The Audi just had the momentum to squeeze past, however, and demoted our Aston to fifth spot. Van Hooydonk was then the meat in an Audi sandwich as he also had the Longin/Maassen car breathing down his neck, but he comfortably had the pace to hold his ground whilst also keeping the pressure on Verbist in front. After 10 laps the Verbist/Ide Audi blinked first and made a mistake which allowed Jeffrey back up to fourth, and he was then able to start to eke out a small margin over the WRT team-mates. This set the pattern for our race, as we would continue to battle with the two Audis both on the track and in the pit lane over the course of the next two hours.

Jeffrey drove an absolutely stunning stint in the blistering heat, with his only issue being that he had to turn the car’s traction control system off as it was causing a slight misfire when switched on. Despite this he strung together lap after lap in the mid 1m33s bracket to stay ahead of the Audis before our first scheduled pit stop after 55 minutes. During the first round of pit visits (every car has to make a mandatory two stops) the leading Ford GT3 dropped back after it was taken over by a slower ‘gentleman’ driver – the only one in the top seven cars – but we got jumped by both Audis which had taken on less fuel. The net result of this was that we were now lying in fifth place with Tim Verbergt at the wheel, at the half way stage of the race.

The Barwell pit stop had included a full four-wheel change, which was completed with our usual speed and efficiency, although this time with a subtle ‘difference’ – Unfortunately on race day morning the No.1 mechanic and regular wheel changer on the car, Mike Brown, had been taken ill with a stomach bug and was unable to join the crew. To prove the strength in depth of our squad, he was replaced as a wheel changer by none other than team principal, Mark Lemmer, who had to leave his post on the pit wall (where he calls the race strategy), run across the pit lane and grab a wheel gun to change the right side wheels! However Mark was well drilled in this procedure, as he often takes part in the crew’s wheel change practice competitions back at the Barwell base.

Although the faster Audi pairing of Longin/Maassen in third place was able to move out of our reach during the middle phase of the race, Tim was able to keep the Verbist/Ide machine in his sights. Without any retirements amongst the leaders, the focus of our race was now this fight over fourth place, as we also had no threat from behind with the GPR Racing Aston DBRS9 dropping back over a minute away from us. When Tim came in to the pits to hand back the reins to Jeffrey there was a little over half an hour remaining, and we had a 15-second deficit to the fourth-placed Audi. To try and help Jeffrey take the fight to the Verbist/Ide car we fitted a new pair of front tyres on (as planned), as we were concerned that the existing fronts could lose significant performance in the heat over a long stint. The penalty for this was an extra eight seconds in the pits, which we would comfortably get back in track time. The Audi, however, is easier on its tyres and they didn’t change any at their final stop, but Verbist could still match Jeffrey’s pace during the closing stages of the race and thus keep hold of the Audi’s fourth place.

NEXT RACES:

BELCAR
SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS JUNE 17/18

BRITISH GT
SNETTERTON MAY 14/15

LE MANS SERIES
SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS MAY 7/8

Barwell Motorsport kicked off the 2011 race season in fine style at the weekend, with a fighting 3rd place podium finish in the opening round of the Belgian Belcar Endurance Championship at Zolder. The team’s Aston Martin DBRS9, run under the banner of Petronas-Barwell Racing and driven by Tim Verbergt and Jeffrey Van Hooydonk, was in the hunt for a top three finish throughout the race despite a clutch problem. The Barwell-run Aston then claimed the final podium slot in the final 20 minutes of the three hour encounter, much to the delight of new team partners, Petronas Lubricants Belgium and Aston Martin Brussels. It also marked the fifth podium finish in a row for Barwell Motorsport, continuing the run started in September last year in British GT, Britcar GT and Spanish GT events.

This result was just desserts for the hard-working Barwell engineers and crew, who had only received the new 2011 Aston Martin Racing aero bodywork upgrades just days before the start of the race meeting. We thus only had the one hour free practice session on Friday to work on the set-up of the new-look DBRS9 and try to optimise its performance, before Saturday’s qualifying sessions. By qualifying we were reasonably satisfied with the work we had done, and the stopwatch proved that the upgrades have been a step forward for the DBRS9, which is one of the very original GT3 designs and now entering its sixth season of competition!

Even with the upgrades we know that we are facing a tough battle against the ‘new age’ GT3 machines from Audi, Ford, Porsche and Mercedes in the highly competitive Belcar GT3 field, and to heighten the challenge further Zolder is not a track that plays to the ‘high-downforce’ strengths of the big V12 6-litre Aston. Jeffrey Van Hooydonk then caught everyone by surprise (including us!), however, when he hauled the 600bhp beast around in 1m31.5s to take provisional pole position after the first qualifying session! This was 1.5 seconds quicker than we had ever been at Zolder, and all the more impressive given that this year’s Michelin Belcar tyre is a harder compound than we had used in previous years. With the second 30-minute session still to come, though, we were expecting a big challenge to this from the German marques. With a very good time in the bag we chose to focus on the race set up during second qualifying, rather than chase a slight improvement on our single lap qualifying time. Unfortunately we did get bumped by the Audi of Maassen/Longin, the Merc of Kumpen/K.Wauters and the Porsche of Soulet/Goossens, but still ended up 4th and only half a second shy of the pole time, which is as close as we have been at Zolder.

Tim Verbergt took the start of Sunday’s 3-hour race (with three mandatory pit stops to be carried out), but as is quite common around the tight confines of the Zolder track there was a lot of nudging and jostling for position going on as the field blasted down the start/finish straight. Tim got a couple of knocks from the cars around him during the first lap, one being a pretty hard whack in the driver’s side door and he also received another in the left rear. This caused him quite a big ‘moment’ and as he lost momentum both the Audi of Verbist/Ide and the Ford GT of Palttala/Kuismanen slipped past. Verbergt was soon back up to fifth spot when the Ford hit problems early on and pitted, and he then became embroiled in a close tussle with the rival Aston Martin DBRS9 of Moser/Schmetz. This lasted for many laps, with the Moser-driven machine seeming to have an advantage under braking which raised our suspicions that it was running the ‘sprint’ spec front brake pads (as opposed to the ‘endurance’ ones on our car), and thus we would be expecting it to run into braking difficulties later in the race. Tim thus didn’t lose time fighting Moser and settled back into sixth spot, concentrating on getting into a good rhythm to complete his stint after the first lap argy-bargy and worrying knock in the side.

Our first pit stop at 45 minutes went absolutely like clockwork, with a re-fuel, change of all four tyres and Jeff replacing Tim at the wheel. Soon sixth place became fifth as the Verbist/Ide Audi hit trouble, and Jeff set about chasing the other Aston which now had Schmetz at the controls. With Schmetz being slightly slower than Moser, Jeff was able to close on him a little bit lap by lap, and the inter-Aston Martin battle started to intensify! As he closed to within pouncing distance from his prey, however, Jeff radioed in to say that he had lost the operation of the clutch and was having to shift down through the gears without using it. This was not only hampering his lap times a little bit, but also presented us with a problem at the pit stops in terms of the car departing from its stationary position. Despite all of this, Jeff drove an excellent stint (posting a best lap time only 3/10ths of a second slower than the race winner) and brought the car in for our second scheduled stop just after the 90 minute mark.

The solution for the pit stop was for the driver to select neutral, fire the engine up and then the rules allowed us to push him away from the pit stop position for a few yards until the car was rolling and he could bang it into first gear. Without the clutch it is quite hard for a fully strapped in driver to select neutral on the sequential gear lever, however, and thus after re-fuelling and changing tyres (once again carried out with ruthless efficiency by the Barwell crew) one of our guys had to open the door of the car and help Tim physically get the lever into the neutral position. This all cost us quite a few precious seconds, but with the Moser/Schmetz machine suffering its own time delays in their stop, we still came out ahead and moved up to fourth place as the race entered its second half.

Again our attentions were immediately focused on the tussle over who would come out as top Aston Martin, as we were beginning to lose sight of the top three runners who had been setting a very hot pace in the first hour and then pulled further ahead by not having to take on board so

much fuel at the stops (due to enjoying better fuel consumption). However our pace was still
good enough that a small problem for the Porsche, Audi or Merc ahead could put us in a
position to threaten the German top three lock-out. Back in the battle of the British 6-litre V12s, Moser was again able to close on Tim and soon there was virtually an eight-wheel 12-litre V24 DBRS9 running on the track, as our rival was all but glued to the bumper of the Petronas-Barwell car for three laps! We stuck to our belief that they would soon encounter some brake issues, and again Tim didn’t resist the pass from Moser but concentrated on his own stint where he also had to get used to not being able to use the clutch. He soon got to grips with the problem and set some very good lap times during his second stint, during which he was able to keep the Moser-driven Aston in his sights and thus set Jeff up very well to take fourth spot back during his final race run.

With 40 minutes remaining Tim came in for the final scheduled stop, where we would fuel the car to finish the race and just change the front tyres. Jeff hopped in and this time we had the re-start routine finely tuned, as the car was returned to the fray with minimum fuss. After our stop we looked up the pit lane and saw the Moser/Schmetz Aston (which had pitted before us) still sitting outside its garage and receiving some serious attention from its mechanics. It remained there for a few more laps, apparently having suffered from brake problems....

With the Aston Martin ‘Challenge’ now over, Jeff was able to concentrate on keeping up a good pace in fourth spot and looking after the car for the final 40 minutes, as the fifth-placed Ford GT was two laps back and not a threat and the Mercedes of Kumpen/K.Wauters in third was too far ahead for him to catch purely on pace. With just over 20 minutes to go, however, the Merc was in the pits for an unscheduled visit and all eyes from the Petronas-Barwell camp were trained on their pit area. It didn’t stay in long enough for Jeff to pass it on the track, though, but there was still a chance that they had a problem that could allow us to close. We didn’t have to wait long for the answer to this, as half way round its next lap the TV screens showed the Mercedes SLS parked by the side of the track with only three wheels still attached. Jeff thus assumed third position, and with it the Barwell podium run was kept alive!

The launch of Barwell Motorsport's 2011 Belcar Championship programme took place at the fantastic new Aston Martin Brussels Service Centre on March 31st. The 'Petronas-Barwell Racing' Aston Martin DBRS9 was sporting its new livery for the season, and in attendance were drivers Tim Verbergt and Jeffrey Van Hooydonk.

From the launch the team then moved on to Zolder to take part in the Belcar official test ahead of the season opener.

Barwell Motorsport will be contesting the new SRO-promoted Blancpain Endurance Series in 2011. The exciting new European-based championship for GT3 and GT4 cars will be centred around GT racing’s showcase event, the Spa 24 Hours, plus four three-hour race events at Monza, the new Spanish Navarra track, Magny Cours and Silverstone.

The former British GT Championship-winning squad is planning to run one car in each class of the Series, fielding a heavily-updated 2011-spec Aston Martin DBRS9 in the main GT3 category and either a Ginetta G50 or Aston Martin Vantage in the GT4 section. Barwell currently has two very quick and experienced drivers in place for the GT3 entry, and is seeking interested parties for the third seat to form a very strong challenge for outright race wins and the championship title. Meanwhile there is one spot filled for the GT4 entry, with the possibility in this class of running either two or three drivers per car. All interested parties in any of these available seats should contact either Chris Needell or Mark Lemmer on 01372 457788, or email chris@barwellmotorsport.co.uk.

Barwell Motorsport has been a stalwart of the European GT3 scene since its inception in 2006, taking 12 race wins and 30 podiums in British GT and European GT3 series, as well as winning two British Championship titles. During this period we claimed the first outright GT3 national series victories for both Aston Martin and Ginetta, and also posted a historic British GT 1-2-3 podium lock-out result. In addition to this we have previously contested the Spa-Francorchamps 24 Hours, finishing 4th in GT3 and 11th overall in 2009 (with GT1, GT2 & GT3 classes).