A bonus round on the Elise Trophy calender saw the teams arrive at the full Silverstone Grand Prix circuit to support the Britcar 24hr event – a great weekend for the Lotus On Track crew to gain some publicity in front of a good crowd and some important onlookers.
The weekend promised to be a busy one for the Sinclaire crew, with our own driver Andrew Walsh to look after, along with our supported driver Vitthal Chauhan and Sinclaire customer Stuart Kirkbride. We arrived late on Thursday evening (18th) for a one hour test session to shake the car down, only to discover upon adjusting the rear wing to suit the high-speed straights, that the mount had a hairline crack between its supports, meaning a fully-floating rear wing assembly – sudden and hasty rear wing repair needed! Some emergency repairs soon took care of the wing issue and Andrew headed out for an hour of testing. A few suspension tweaks and some tyre pressure adjustments were the sum total of the setup changes so with everyone happy we tidied up for the evening.
As we were about to pack up our final items for the evening, a new competitor to the series, Greg Noble, came over to ask for some help – fitting a transponder, and rewiring an incorrectly installed Cartek Isolator system. Being the Lotus enthusiasts we are, we gladly set about putting things right for him, despite light drawing in, and the overall desire to sit down and eat! A few hours later and the car was restored to fully working configuration, along with a race-legal and fully functioning isolator.
Friday morning dawned, and we were blessed with a beautifully clear and sunny morning. Qualify came around soon enough and our driver Andrew Walsh set a blistering pole time almost straight off of the bat with consistent 2:08’s, leading on lap six to a full-bore 2:07.261 – making him as fast as the slick-equipped Exige Britcar of Martin Roos – interesting stuff… Sinclaire class A driver Vitthal Chauhan had never driven Silverstone, so his times were understandably down, clocking himself onto the back of the grid with a 2:28.850, just behind Phil Hatswell with a 2:25.039 – Vitthal could only get faster as the day progressed – so it was a good baseline for him to work with. Padding out the front of the grid behind Andrew was Chris Headlam and Sean Bicknell, along with Gavin Kirby in his 211 in Forth place, another star performance from Ben Pitch put him in fifth slot in his B Class car. Sinclaire customer Stuart Kirkbride flew the flag admirably in 21st overall, making him forth in the class A field – great work by Stuart once again!
Being on a large international circuit meant that the racing was a mixed grid, with all classes heading out together, A/B/C/211 all in one 47 car grid – quite an impressive sight. The first race kicked off on the Friday afternoon, and from Andrew Walsh’s point of view was a fairly straightforward affair, taking a lights to flag victory from the front of the grid with little involvement of any other cars for the duration of the race. Further down the grid Vitthal found some pace and started to bring his lap times down into line with the rest of the back field runners, eventually getting a useable 2:24.006, bringing some four seconds off of his qualify time as his confidence grew – had he got this time in qualify he would have moved himself up some four places on the grid. Come race end, Vitthal found himself in 34th, ahead of Hans Baumhardt and Mark Wilson (who was suffering VVC problems). Stuart Kirkbrides race mostly involved tangles with the mid-field crew, eventually finishing in a respectable 17th overall and 7th in class, but never quite meeting his pace from qualifying. A high number of retirements from Race one spoke volumes for how hard the cars were working, with Chris Headlam, Chris Baker, Sean Bicknell (exploded gearbox) and Andrew Kell (broken front splitter) all retiring – leaving only our class C car in the running!
The following morning dawned as beautifully as the first, and race two was for Andrew Walsh, somewhat of a repeat of Race one. In order to mix things up a little the front ten places on the grid were reversed, meaning Andrew started from tenth place. He scorched from the line in his trademark style, and some two minutes later as he came past the pits on lap one, he was already up to first place and pulling out a four second lead over a hard charging Chris Headlam. This lead remained constant and unchallenged for Andrew, and as with the first race he won without so much as even a glance at anything other than back markers. Down the field however, action was to be found with Stuart Kirkbride battling his was up to 14th place, giving him a 4th place in class. Vitthal struggled to find his pace for race two, and although his fastest lap of the race was a slight improvement from the day before, his initially promising start was not set to continue and he dropped down to some twelve seconds behind the rest of the field by race end, following a “near-spin” moment. Learning all the time however, we are sure Vitthal is improving! Also rather like Race one there were retirements from the C class, with Chris Headlam spinning off and Chris Bakers Audi-powered S1 Elise retiring after only a few laps. Only Andrew Walsh and Andrew Kell (Sinclaire tuned) finished class C for race two, making the poor C class look somewhat sparse.
All around an excellent weekend, with a double first place for Andrew Walsh, and some great testing and setup experience for Vitthal. Next for the series is the long drive up north to the Croft circuit…
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- The team – after another great win at Silverstone GP
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- The official Sinclaire/Andrew Walsh class C racer…
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- The Sinclaire Motorsport camp, setup for business as usual. Stuart Kirkbrides car rests after another hard track session.
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- Andrew Walsh claiming his trophies!
