Stunning pole position & best race so far for Barwell Aston

The Barwell Motorsport Aston Martin DBRS9 GT3 was once again the fastest machine around the famous 7-kilometre Spa-Francorchamps Grand Prix track, in the latest round of the Belgian GT Championship. In the ‘pro’ qualifying session, Vincent Vosse secured our second pole position of the Belgian season with a lap (2m22.4s) nearly half a second quicker than the leading Dodge Viper – the car which up until this year was the dominant force at Spa. All the more incredible was that Vosse’s time – set on the Belgian GT Championship spec ‘customer’ Michelin tyres – would have put him third on the GT2 grid for the recent 1000kms race at Spa! Vosse and car owner-driver, Eddy Renard, then went on to have their most competitive race to date in Saturday’s first encounter, where they just missed out on a podium finish by two seconds.

The Barwell team has been working really hard to optimise and understand the set-up on the all-new for ’09 DBRS9 suspension and aero package, and our Spa pace is showing that this hard work is now paying off. Chief Engineer, Mark Lemmer, is really happy that we have now found a balance that gives us the best from the Michelin rubber on the Aston Martin.

ROUND 1 – 1 HOUR

Eddy made a cracking start from seventh on the grid to immediately get the better of the Ford GT3 of Kuismanen, and then also pass the Ferrari of Coens to slot into fifth place as they blasted through Eau Rouge and up the long main straight. The nimble Ferrari then got back ahead under braking for Les Combes, but this didn’t cost Eddy any time and he held sixth around the opening lap. Considering all of the cars in front of him had either ‘pros’ or much more experienced drivers in, Renard then did a sterling job over the first few laps of hanging on to the leading bunch of cars.

His pace on a full tank of fuel took him well clear of the rest of the pack behind, and for a while he shadowed the back of Coens’ Ferrari as he comfortably held on to sixth spot. The race was running a very quick pace up front, and with the leading cars settling down into a defined order after a few laps they started to pull clear of the Aston Martin Brussels-backed Aston. Eddy kept up a very consistent pace, however, and by the time the driver change pit stop ‘window’ opened had kept the gap to the leaders at around the 30-second mark. The plan was to bring him in as soon as possible to hand over to Vincent, who would then go like a ‘bat out of hell’ to try and catch up. The window starts after 23 minutes, and you are penalised if you come in earlier, so when it was extremely marginal that we could stop Eddy as he came around on the lap the window opened, we elected to send him around for another lap.

Vincent thus took over and had 14 laps in which to catch the leaders and go for our first Belgian GT podium. The former Le Mans Series GT1 Champion then produced an absolutely scintillating performance as he set about trying to slash down a 30-second deficit to the front. With the Porsche of Verbist/Longin retiring, he then easily outpaced the Viper of Vanthoor/Wauters to move up to fourth place, and on many laps was over two seconds a lap faster than any other car on the circuit !

He relentlessly closed down the leading three cars, with the Barwell Aston handling beautifully around the high-speed curves of the Spa-Francorchamps track and setting the fastest lap of the race. With five laps to go, the Bouvy Ferrari and Van Hooydonk Viper ahead starting squabbling over second place, and dropped their pace enough that it seemed Vincent would catch them very quickly. The two rival drivers quickly realised this situation, however, and ceased their battle so that they could both concentrate on staying ahead of the charging Aston and hang on to their podium finishes. In the end, Vosse just ran out of time, with the Viper just two seconds ahead at the flag and the winning factory Audi only six seconds away from the Barwell Aston. With a little bit more luck, we might just have been able to stop Eddy that one lap earlier, and a first victory could have been within our sights....

Top 8 Results – Belgian GT Championship Round 5 – Spa-Francorchamps
1. Hemroulle-Verbergt Phoenix Racing Audi R8 GT3
2. Bouvy/Coens Delahaye Racing Ferrari F430 GT3
3. Wauters/Van Hooydonk KRK Racing Dodge Viper
4. Renard/Vosse Barwell Motorsport Aston Martin DBRS9
5. Kuismanen/Huisman Kuismanen Competition Ford GT3
6. de Laet/van der Zwaan KS Motorsport Lamborghini Gallardo
7. Van der Straten/Lemeret VDS Racing Ford Mustang FR500 GT3
8. Vanthoor/Wauters KRK Racing Dodge Viper

ROUND 2 – 1 HOUR

From pole position Vincent made a clean getaway but then slightly locked up the brakes going into the La Source hairpin. Despite this, he had a comfortable gap back to the Viper as they exited Eau Rouge and started the long uphill straight to Les Combes. Incredibly the Viper then simply drove past the Aston in a straight line, displaying a surprising amount of superior speed over our 2009-spec DBRS9...and Vincent couldn’t even stay close enough to get back ahead under braking on the inside line for Les Combes. Unfortunately this had severely damaged our strategy of Vosse scampering away and trying to build up as big a lead as possible, as he was caught up in a three way fight for the lead with the Viper and the Ford GT3 of Huisman.

This battle for the lead provided a great deal of entertainment for the crowd, but was immensely frustrating for Vincent and the Barwell crew watching the TV monitor in the pits. Lap after lap Vosse would be climbing all over the back of the Viper through the high speed corners, but the wily Van Hooydonk could just stretch the gap out far enough on the straights so that Vincent wasn’t in a position to outbrake him into the next corner. Each time Vincent put the Viper under pressure he also had to watch his mirrors as the Mad Croc-backed Ford was snapping at his heels and ready to slither into any gaps that became available. After 18 minutes of racing our frustration sadly turned to despair, as Vincent suddenly slowed down with a punctured front tyre. He managed to crawl round the last third of a lap and get the car back to the pits, where the Barwell crew performed an ultra fast tyre change, but had lost over a minute to the leaders and any hope we had of that elusive top three podium result.

Eddy took over the car in eighth position and knuckled down well to the task of limiting the amount of damage the puncture had done to our race result. He had worked the car back up to sixth position, ahead of the Scuderia Monza Ferrari, by the time it started to drizzle with rain with just over 10 minutes to go. For a little while it looked like the rain would become hard enough to necessitate everyone making a pit stop to change their slick tyres to grooved wet ones, but the heavy rains never came. This was a shame as we felt that our extremely well-drilled pit stop crew could have gained a lot of time in the pits on some of our rivals, in the event of a full 4-wheel change pit stop.

Although the rain was light, it meant that the track surface was treacherous for the big powerful GT cars on dry slick tyres. Everyone was slithering around in the final few laps as the pace dropped by up to 40 seconds a lap, and the wet just caught Eddy out as he got on the power at Eau Rouge. The big Aston went into a lurid spin but luckily survived the moment without hitting anything, and Eddy was able to carry on and only lose one place to the Ferrari.

Top 8 Results – Belgian GT Championship Round 6 – Spa-Francorchamps
1. van Hooydonk/Wauters KRK Racing Dodge Viper
2. Kuismanen/Huisman Kuismanen Competition Ford GT3
3. Hemroulle-Verbergt Phoenix Racing Audi R8 GT3
4. de Laet/van der Zwaan KS Motorsport Lamborghini Gallardo
5. Van der Straten/Lemeret VDS Racing Ford Mustang FR500 GT3
6. Thiers/Thiers Scuderia Monza Ferrari F430 GT3
7. Renard/Vosse Barwell Motorsport Aston Martin DBRS9
8. Cracco/Lumbeeck Accent Racing Dodge Viper