The last round of this year’s British GT Championship was a top quality event, with 30 fabulous GT racing cars contesting a two-hour race around the classic sweeps of the Silverstone Grand Prix circuit. Barwell Motorsport was being represented by three Aston Martins across three different classes in the race – the Barwell-engineered Beechdean DBRS9 going for overall GT3 honours, joined by Paul Whight’s DBRS9 in GT3B and the Secure Racing with Barwell Motorsport Vantage GT4 entry. It was the Beechdean car – the oldest GT3 chassis on the grid – that brought home the bacon, however, with a resounding overall victory by 22 seconds after great drives from both Andrew Howard and Jonny Adam.

Barwell’s Mark Lemmer was confident that he had found a great set-up on Beechdean’s 2011-spec DBRS9, and the high-downforce machine is well-suited to the fast curves of the Silverstone GP track. Jonny Adam then duly delivered a stunning qualifying lap which planted the car on overall pole position, an incredible achievement for a chassis built in 2005 against much more recent cutting-edge opposition from Porsche, Audi, Mercedes, Ford, and no less than six new Ferrari 458s! It was also double-pole success for Barwell in qualifying, as the Paul Whight/Andy Ruhan DBRS9 machine also took the honours in GT3B (for older-spec GT3 machinery). This was a superb performance from Paul, who was having his first race of the season without the benefit of any testing, and blew off the cobwebs in style!

Meanwhile in GT4, by the time of Saturday morning’s qualifying session we were just thankful that we had an Aston Martin Vantage chassis to wheel out for the day! Unfortunately during Friday’s slippery first free practice session Peter Erceg suffered a big ‘off’ which badly damaged the front end of the regular Dtex-backed Vantage GT4 machine. There was insufficient time to rebuild the car in time for Saturday, and thus we immediately contacted our friends at Aston Martin Racing to see if we could hire in their GT4 ‘test car’ as a replacement for the race day! Thankfully they were able to help us out, but the car was on track day duty during Friday and we couldn’t get our hands on it until 8pm that evening. The Barwell mechanics then carried out an intense night of work preparing the car, and making some alterations to the fuel system to convert it for re-fuelling from our fuel rig during the two-hour race. Saturday morning’s half hour qualifying was thus little more than a ‘shakedown’ test for Peter and ‘celebrity guest’ driver, Tiff Needell, who was making his Vantage GT4 race debut.


There was hectic action throughout the field in the opening laps of the 2-hour race, as the packed 30-car grid put on some great racing. With the Aston Martin DBRS9 running on slightly harder compound Avon rubber, it is vulnerable in the early stages of the race as it takes longer to get heat into the tyres than its rivals on the softer compound. Both Andrew and Paul suffered from this and lost places as they were forced to tread carefully until their Avons were up to proper working temperature. Paul’s time loss was compounded when he was nudged off the track by a rival car, dropping him down to third in GT3B. Peter was suffering from a different reason for losing time – the replacement Vantage GT4 is a lower specification car and a good three seconds a lap slower than his 2011-spec machine! Unfortunately this left him and Tiff powerless to make any progress in the GT4 rankings, and thus all they could do was stay out of trouble and bring it home.

Andrew had done a good job of coping with the difficult first few laps, and when his tyres were hot he started to come back with a vengeance from fifth place and attack some of the cars that had passed him early on. He successfully reeled in and passed the Porches of Fisken/Bridgman and Ashburn/Westbrook, to claim third spot, and was then keeping pace with the second place Ferrari of Bateman/Lyons. The leading Audi of Osborne/Brown was, unlike the rest of the front-running pack, being driven by its ‘Pro’, Joe Osborne (a former British GT race-winner in Barwell’s Ginetta-Zytek!), and was thus a fair way in front. Andrew then suffered a quick spin and slipped back behind the Jones twins’ Mercedes, to lie in fourth position as the pit stop/driver change ‘window’ was about to open.

Another man on a charge was Paul Whight, who was absolutely flying on his 2011 race debut once his tyres had joined the party. After receiving the nudge he was carving his way back up the order, and after 40 minutes was back in the lead of the GT3B Class having overtaken the Lamborghini Gallardo of Atkinson/Pickford. His task now was trying to build a gap for Andy Ruhan (freshly crowned as GT Cup Champion) to defend against the Pros in the rival cars. Paul was clearly pushing hard and setting excellent lap times, but as he approached the pit stop period he started to feel unwell. This affected his concentration and unfortunately just one lap away from being in the ‘fuel’ window where he could come in and hand over to Andy, he spun and hit the barriers at Stowe corner. Sadly the damage was sufficient to put the Aston Martin DBRS9 out of the race on the spot, and denied poor Andy a shot at giving Barwell Motorsport a class victory in GT3B.



The Safety Car thus came out whilst they removed Paul’s car from the scene of the crime, and there was a flurry of activity in the pit lane as the field came in to re-fuel, change tyres and swap drivers for the final hour. Jonny Adam thus rejoined the fray in fourth spot, still under the Safety Car conditions, but had a string of backmarkers between him and the third place Mercedes. When the race was restarted he made short work of getting onto the tail of the big German machine, but he now had Westbrook in the Porsche breathing down his neck and had to tackle the notoriously hard-to-pass Jones’ Mercedes quickly. Jonny wasted absolutely no time in out-foxing Jones through the hairpins, however, and proved that you can squeeze two extremely big GT cars alongside each other on one of the tightest parts of the track! The Scotsman then pulled off a beautiful manoeuvre to pass the Bateman/Lyons Ferrari as they blasted into the high-speed Becketts section, before reeling in and overtaking the leading Audi. With just over half an hour to go he had earned himself a four-second gap over the Westbrook/Ashburn Porsche in second, but he never gave the Porsche a sniff of the exhaust of the big Aston as he stretched out his lead to over 20 seconds. So good were the combination of Barwell car set-up and driver that Jonny was able to set fastest overall race sector times during his final few laps!

In the Secure Racing with Barwell Motorsport GT4 entry, Peter Erceg had shaken off any nerves after his accident the day before, and put in a faultless stint to guide the Aston Martin Vantage through the first half of the race. Tiff took over and also settled into a consistent race pace, but like Peter was also unable to force the replacement machine to get anywhere near the pace of its front-running rivals. The former F1 driver was clearly enjoying his stint behind the wheel, however, and brought the car home for a sixth place points finish.

Secure Racing, the motorsport team for the IT security industry, supported by Barwell Motorsport, today unveiled Tiff Needell as one of its drivers for the final round of the AVON TYRES British GT Championship at Silverstone next Saturday – 8th October.

As one of the best known faces in British motorsport Tiff brings a wealth of driving experience to the team for this, the final and most exciting stage of the British GT Championship. He will join principal driver Peter Erceg in the Secure Racing Aston Martin V8 Vantage GT4 2011 as the team attempts to secure a second podium finish of the season.

“Tiff has raced just about everything with wheels,” says Peter. “Formula Ford, Formula One, Le Mans, GT1, Rallycross. You name it, he’s competed. That type of experience is going to be amazing for us at Silverstone. We are thrilled to have him on board for the day.”

The last round of the AVON TYRES British GT Championship represents a glittering end to a fantastic first year into British GT motorsport for Secure Racing. Finishing 5th at Brands Hatch – cheered on by more than 50 team supporters – and 3rd for a podium finish at Spa, the team couldn’t quite keep up the progress as gearbox troubles hampered performance at Donington last weekend. Secure Racing is keen to go out on a high, with a trophy in hand.

“We’ve reached the pinnacle of the season and everything seems to be working together for the last race,” said Mohan Koo from sponsor Dtex Systems. “The car is at its absolute best following some amazing work by the guys at Barwell Motorsport, all our sponsors are going to be with us on the day to cheer us on, and our driver line up couldn’t be better. It’s the ultimate position, in the ultimate race, using the ultimate team of drivers, on the ultimate UK track. We can’t wait.”

- Barwell’s Aston Martin Vantage claims GT4 podium in race two
- Barwell-engineered Beechdean DBRS9 scores 3rd place overall


The latest round of the Avon Tyres British GT Championship took place at the Spa-Francorchamps F1 track in Belgium last weekend, with two one-hour races on the Saturday. The Barwell Motorsport-run Aston Martin Vantage GT4 was having its second outing in the series, with drivers Peter Erceg and Chris Holmes tasting the podium champagne for the first time after a great run to third place in GT4 in race two. We also shared in the overall GT3 podium success in this race, with Barwell’s Mark Lemmer engineering the Beechdean Aston Martin DBRS9 to another third place finish for drivers Andrew Howard and Jonny Adam.

The Vantage GT4, entered under the Secure Racing with Barwell Motorsport banner, was one of the front-runners in the GT4 class from the very start of the Friday practice sessions. With the team using their first race at Brands Hatch in June really as a learning event, we were able to hit the ground running at Spa. Despite Chris never having been to the daunting seven-kilometre Spa circuit before, he quickly got to grips with its flowing high-speed turns, and was setting some very rapid lap times in the Aston Martin. This was no mean feat last weekend, as the British GT regulars were joined by both the Aston Martin GT4 Challenge and European GT4 Championship series competitors, swelling the number of cars on the track to 55! Peter was also bringing his times down well during the practice sessions, as he got to grips with the 450bhp Aston Martin Vantage GT4. The Kiwi driver carried this through to the first official qualifying session, qualifying sixth in GT4 for race one, whilst Chris was confident of fighting for pole position in his session. After a ‘banker’ lap warming up his tyres, he then attacked and set his best first sector time of the weekend but the lap was scuppered by the red flags coming out and stopping the session. His banker time was good enough for fourth, but if he had been able to complete his fastest lap then pole or second position was certainly on.


For the Beechdean GT3 entry, we were also supplying senior Barwell technician Mike Brown to boost their crew looking after the mechanical well-being of the car. He and Mark were working hard during the free practice sessions, when they made quite a few significant set-up changes to the DBRS9, which was then able to pump in consistently fast times over long runs. Unfortunately official qualifying didn’t go according to plan, with neither driver able to realise their true potential. In the amateur session Andrew hit traffic on all of his laps and was disappointed to line up 10th, whilst just as Jonny got his hard compound Avons (for the DBRS9) up to temperature he got badly blocked on one lap and then the red flags came out and restricted him to ninth on the grid for race two.

For this event there were two one-hour points scoring races for British GT, with each driver starting one race – the amateurs would start race one and the pros race two. Peter started race one and settled into a good rhythm, but as he was passing a slower Ginetta in the European GT4 series contact was made and he was worried that the car had been damaged. He carried on for a few more laps without any further dramas, until he came in to hand over to Chris midway through the race. Unfortunately the Safety Car came out and Peter got baulked behind it for half a lap before he got to the pits, and then during the stop the Barwell crew spotted that a wheel had been damaged during his earlier clash and it had to be changed. We thus lost a chunk of time to the pack ahead, but Chris did a good job in closing down the GT4 championship-leading KTM of Belshaw/Clutton and finished sixth just eight seconds behind at the end.

At the start of the race Andrew began to get stuck into chasing down the top 10 GT3 pack, and had picked off two of them by the time he came in for the mandatory driver change pit stop just before the half way stage. At this point the Safety Car was out to control the field, and thus we took advantage of this and also during the stop Mark’s attention to detail over the mandatory pit lane time paid off and we managed to jump one place up the order. Jonny thus came out in seventh place and set a scorching pace as he closed in on the leaders and moved up to fifth position. He closed down the fourth placed Tate/Mortimer Ferrari to just 0.8 seconds by the finish, and with one more lap would surely have taken this place.


Chris made a strong start to the second one-hour encounter, and was immediately right on the tail of the front three British GT4 contenders and hounding the two factory Lotus Evoras in front. The pace of these four was incredibly hot, and they left the rest of the GT4 field trailing in their wake. Chris was driving the wheels off the Barwell Aston Martin, and moved up the order as the cars ahead progressively came into the pits for their driver changes before us. Chris got his head down and tried to press home the advantage of having a clear track before coming in to hand over to Peter. This worked really well and with the pit lane timings worked out to perfection, Peter was able to blast out of the pits in the lead of the GT4 class – in only his second ever event at international level!

However, with the four cars behind him all sporting a ‘double-pro’ driver line-up, he was going to have his work cut out to try and defend the position. We lost one of the opposition when the Nordstrom/Clarke Lotus fell by the wayside, but Peter lost out in the heat of battle to the Denis/McDonald Ginetta and the sister Lotus of Glew/Jackson. As the race entered its closing stages he was holding onto third place well, and setting good lap times, but a small mistake let the KTM sneak past and with the tyres and brakes now past their best it looked like he would have to settle for fourth. The leading Ginetta struck trouble two laps from home, however, and the Barwell Aston’s great reliability thus enabled Peter to benefit and take a very well-deserved third place and first-ever British GT podium for Erceg, Holmes and the Secure Racing with Barwell Motorsport Aston Martin Vantage GT4. “It was a fantastic result for the team,” said Peter afterwards, “To be on the podium, in an Aston Martin, at Spa and in only our 2nd round of the British GT Championship, it doesn't get much better than that!”

Jonny had done a great job in getting heat into his Avon tyres on the Beechdean Aston Martin DBRS9 during the warm-up lap for the start of race two, and was then able to really attack his rivals as soon as the lights went to green. Such was his pace and confidence on the opening lap that he moved up from ninth to sixth and was right on the leading bunch of cars! Belying the fact that this was his first ever visit to Spa, he then proceeded to get stuck into a three-way scrap for fourth place, which he soon came out on top of. He subsequently fell foul of some oil dropped on the track at Les Combes corner and slide wide, slipping back down to sixth again, before making one place back prior to coming into the pits!

Another precisely timed pit lane visit put Andrew back out into the race in second position, behind the leading Ferrari 458 of Cameron/Griffin and just ahead of the Fisken/Bridgman Porsche. These three then pulled out a big gap over the rest of the pack as they put on a great fight for the race victory. With two laps to go Fisken managed to push Andrew’s Aston down to third, but the Beechdean man stayed on his bumper and the three lead cars started the final lap with less than two seconds separating them! Unfortunately slower traffic got in the way of the tussle, but Andrew brought the car home for a superb third place finish. “This was a terrific result in what is one of the oldest GT3 cars in the world,” commented Mark Lemmer. “I was extremely happy with the set-up that we got on the car and the Avon tyres worked really well in the race.”

Secure Racing, the motorsport team powered by the IT security industry charged to its first podium place at the British GT Championship race at the Spa race circuit in Belgium this weekend.


In only their third race of the season, drivers Peter Erceg and Chris Holmes fought an epic battle to fend off the challenge of determined competitors for over an hour and grabbed third place in the closing laps of the race. A trophy after just two rounds of the championship demonstrates the potential of the team to win big by the end of the year.

Erceg and Holme’s result is even more impressive considering the Secure Racing Aston Martin is almost 200kg heavier than most of its competition, making it a tough job to match their speed over the course of the chase. Not only did they match it, on several occasions they bettered it and Secure Racing held fourth, third, second and first positions at various points during the hour long race.

Secure Racing was set up in April to provide IT security organisations the chance to demonstrate that information security has a role to play outside the office environment, in some of the most exciting areas of modern life. The Secure Racing team comprises individuals from across the industry and all major sponsors are Information Security companies. Everyone involved in the industry is invited to take part.
Each GT Championship stage must involve both drivers and a changeover during the race. Starting fourth on the grid, Holmes took the first stint powering the Aston to second by the time the pit change came along. The speed of the pit change gave Erceg the opportunity to go out in the lead and he took it. But the hot sun, the harsh track and heavy car took its toll on the tyres but with some tough scrambling at the front of the pack including a blown gearbox for the Ginetta holding second, Erceg managed to pull out all stops holding on for a well deserved podium finish in third place.

“This is a huge achievement and we are rightly proud of the hard work everyone put in leading up to this race”, says Mohan Koo, MD of team sponsor Dtex Systems. “We’re not just another team on the grid – we are a team on the podium challenging for first place. The Information Security industry doesn’t just have a motorsport team – it has a championship challenging team right from the start.”

“This circuit is something special and today we have used it to produce a special result,” says driver Chris Holmes. “Of course we all wanted to retain first place but this is only the second time we’ve raced this car, and our power to weight ratio as limited by homologation is a clear disadvantage. But even with this challenge, on the right day, on the right track, and with the right team behind the car, it’s unstoppable.”
But it was down to Erceg to have the last word. “This was epic. We worked hard all weekend to get to that podium and it paid off. We trained, and practiced, and practiced again. We’re a formidable team on the track now and that third place is well justified.”

Secure Racing

Secure Racing, the motorsport team powered by the IT security industry, outperformed all expectations to grab fifth place in its first race at Brands Hatch on June 19th. Amongst a competitive starting grid and against some of the worst weather conditions known to man driver Peter Erceg and Chris Holmes kept the Aston Martin V8 Vantage GT4 nailed to the track to bring home a well deserved fifth place.

Pressure was building from early on Sunday morning as the grandstands began to fill and the Secure Racing pit garage buzzed with more than 60 people, including leading professionals from companies such as PWC, Visa, Legal and General and Reuters, all battling to get their first glimpse of the car and drivers they had come to cheer on. Guests experienced a full day of VIP treatment exploring GT4 racing up close and personal. Tours of the car by Erceg and Holmes, a walkthrough of all the cars on the starting, perfect viewing from the Securing Racing hospitality suite, and the unveiling of a cipher challenge on the back of the Aston all made for a real occasion for Secure Racing’s first competitive drive.

With torrential rain an hour before the start, Erceg knew he was going to have to work hard to keep the 1600kg Aston on the tarmac. And keep it nailed he did – through bright sunshine and yet more downpours Erceg kept position increasing his lap times at every stage of the first hour of racing. His best lap of the day – a 1.38.53 was simply outstanding given the hellish conditions thrown at him on track. And as the sun shone through the clouds Holmes took to the wheel and etched up increasingly faster times as the track dried and the Aston came good. Flying round the track Holmes chipped away at the leading Lotuses and KTMs ending up with a best time of 1.35.56 – matching the race leaders’ times consistently by the time the final lap came around. Holding strongly onto 6th place Holmes remembered the golden rule of endurance racing – to have a chance of finishing first, first you have to finish. Something race leader Phil Glew in the Lotus Evora clearly forgot as he speared off at the final corner pushing Secure Racing into 5th place as the chequered flag fell.

“It was difficult conditions out there for sure,” said Erceg after the race. “But we kept the car on the island and that’s the main thing. A good finish in our first GT4 race of the season in our first competitive drive is fantastic so we’re all pretty pleased.”

Holmes saw the first success as simply the start. “The aim of the weekend was to finish the race but by the closing stages we were right on the front runners and that is extremely promising. I know we can get faster and we have to look forward to the next round and see how we can get that pace going from lap one.”

Secure Racing

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

Secure Racing, the Information Security industry’s motorsport team, has laid down a challenge to anyone with a flair for code-breaking or a passion for cryptography. At the team’s first race on 19th June at the Brands Hatch circuit in Kent, the Secure Racing Aston Martin will feature a hidden coded message somewhere within its livery and decals. The question is – can you find it and decipher it?

This is the first time a motorsport team anywhere in the world has offered a competition like this on their car. Developed by the Threats and Vulnerabilities Team at PWC, it forms the basis of a competition for anyone who wants to test their mettle and win fantastic prizes. Anyone can enter. One week after the race, one winner and nine runners up will be drawn at random from the first 100 correct answers that we receive. Later this year, the lucky winner will get to jump in the Secure Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT4 to experience the exhilarating speed of getting around a circuit alongside a professional race driver. The winner will also get tickets to join the team at the Silverstone British GT Championship round and, along with the nine runners up, they will also receive complimentary membership to the Secure Racing members club – the details of which will be announced on race day.

Anyone who attends the Brands Hatch race on 19th June will have a chance to get up close and personal with our Aston and therefore have the best chance of spotting and cracking the code. For those that can’t make it, we will be posting pictures of the car on our website a couple of days after the race so you can take part.
Those who find and crack our code should email their answer to richard.moss@secureracing.co.uk

Ladies and gentlemen – the fun begins here. Start your engines, the Secure Racing story is about to begin.

Discounted admission tickets available exclusively for Secure Racing fans at: www.motorsportvision.co.uk/secracing

Secure Racing

IT security has become the first business community in the world to have its own motorsport team. Led by monitoring technology company Dtex Systems, and supported by AlgoSec, the market leader in network security policy management, Secure Racing has been launched to raise awareness that security technologies have a critical role to play beyond the office environment. The team hopes to inspire the industry to come together and be part of a shared challenge – to enable the information security industry to be represented at the world famous Le Mans 24hrs race by 2015. Secure Racing is offering an open invitation to anyone involved in information security to join the team and be part of the adventure.

“IT security plays a critical role in some of the most exciting and challenging environments in the world, explains Dtex’s UK MD Mohan Koo. “Motorsport is a perfect demonstration – it’s an environment where the margin for error is so small that keeping any competitive advantage within the team is critical. It’s a perfect example of where data security is paramount for achieving success outside the corporate world. We established Secure Racing to highlight that IT security is about much more than firewalls and anti-virus. It’s an enabling technology for success in dynamic, exciting and precision environments.”

“Subsequent to the 2007 Ferrari-McLaren F1 data leakage scandal information security has become a key focus within many sectors including motorsport. This has resulted in information security and technology companies becoming increasingly invested in motorsport both on and off the track. For many companies, the costs associated with motor racing present a barrier to entry so we created Secure Racing to offer a way for any information security business, no matter how big or small, to get involved and share in the thrill of racing.” Paul Clark, Regional Director at AlgoSec.

Secure Racing’s car will be driven by ex-Porsche Club, Britcar 24 hour and GT3 Challenge racer Peter Erceg and talented youngster Chris Holmes. Erceg, who is the Director of IT Security for Everything, Everywhere, one of the UKs leading mobile operators, brings to the team a wealth of racing experience including placing 1st in class in the inaugural Porsche GB GT3 Challenge in 2010 and a 3rd in class in the 2007 24 hours of Silverstone. 24 year old Chris Holmes, from Leeds, comes to Secure Racing after competing in the British Caterham Superlight Championship, Formula BMW, Formula Renault, and British Formula 4 which saw Chris take 8 race wins from 11 starts, 2 podiums, and 6 new lap records (Vice Champion).

For more information on Secure Racing follow us on twitter @secureracing or check out the website www.secureracing.org

Secure Racing