British GT 2008: Thruxton Race One Report
What should have been a classic race descended into chaos on Saturday afternoon at the fast Thruxton circuit.
Cadena Motorsport held second place on the grid at the start and as the cars came to the start Barrie Whight held his line and second place into the first corner. The leading Ferrari and Barrie’s Aston Martin left the rest of the field for dead and headed off on their own for a battle of Italy versus England.
The Ferrari and Aston traded lap times until the safety car was deployed to allow marshals to recover a stricken Lamborghini which had crashed at the last corner. Lap after lap the grid of supercars paraded behind the safety car waiting for the Lamborghini to be recovered, but nothing seemed to be happening. By this time the driver change pit window was approaching and all teams were readying their crews for what was bound to be a hectic pit lane. No-one could have expected how hectic though. The lead Ferrari and Cadena’s Aston dived into the pits, followed by the entire grid. Cadena stopped in their allocated pit area and were subsequently blocked in by a two Ferraris. Barrie Whight got out and Gavan Kershaw took his place, but had no chance of getting his car round the cars blocking him in. In the most farcical circumstances, Gavan finally got out of the Cadena pit area and rejoined in 11th place! A terrible piece of bad luck, or as some would see it, bad control of the race by the officials.
To add to the bad fortune, Gavan Kershaw was then awarded a ten second stop-and-go penalty, for allegedly pulling out into moving traffic in the pit lane. The team immediately remonstrated to the race officials but might as well have been talking to a brick wall. Funnily enough, the officials failed to notice the Cadena Aston Martin being blocked in at the pit stop. How convenient.
Gavan Kershaw brought the Aston into the pit lane and served the ridiculous penalty. He rejoined the race, but was now down in 14th place. Cadena should have been fighting for a win, not a mid table position.
In demonstration to the officials, Cadena pulled the car off of the track and retired from the race. Barrie Whight commented “Something has to be changed. Teams are told week after week about the important of being professional, but that professionalism doesn’t seem to apply to the race officials”. He continued “In hindsight the Ferrari team could have avoided blocking us in at the pitstop, but I do not blame them for what happened. Race officials have to take responsibility for their actions, which led to not only our car, but many others being held up”.
Disheartened, but not defeated, the team look forward to the second race of the weekend. Starting from a net fourth on the grid, Gavan Kershaw will be on full attack mode to put the Aston where it deserves to be... at the front.