Schumacher BTCC R1 West London Report

By Matt On April 8, 2014 · Add Comment

The 2014 BTCC series kicked off in fine style at the superb West London venue with over 110 drivers booked in for the event. The weather was dry for Saturday, and this saw many of the drivers use the day for practise to get their cars fine-tuned ready for race day on Sunday. However, what greeted us all Sunday morning was rain, followed by more heavy rain – the weather was going to make for some very interesting racing!
The race classes for this year’s BTCC would follow on from last year’s successful series would be 17.5T blinky class, 13.5T and modified. Due to the adverse weather conditions it was decided on round by round qualifying for the format, with the best two from four qualifying runs that would count towards the overall final position, followed by a final for everyone.
The rain stopped during the first round of qualifying and throughout the day it track dried slowly. It stayed this way all the way through until the last few finals and then the rain started to fall again.
There was some fantastic close racing in the 17.5T blinky class but it was Dominic Skinner who would line up on pole position just ahead of a very close grid. After the A final had taken place the result was as follows:

Result – A Final 17.5T Blinky
1. Mark Passingham
2. Mark Young
3, Dominic Skinner
4. Chris House
5. Andy Tietjen
6. Dani Young
7. Chris Graco
8. Kris Kennedy
9. Lewis Brown
10. Malc Hall

Moving onto 13.5T and the drivers in this class had a big decision to make. Just before the final, the rain started to come down again and drivers were undecided between wet or slick tyres as the rain was very light. Everyone opted for slicks except for pole sitter Zak Finlay who made the brave call to go on wets. This was a decision that would see him go off in the distance having more grip than anyone else in the changing track conditions. So the final result was:

Result – A Final 13.5T
1. Zak Finlay
2. Rob West
3. Daniel Booker
4. Leigh Dibble
5. Lee Price
6. David Usher
7. James Baker
8. Ben Putt
9. Spencer Jones
10. Nathan Wilson

Finally it was time for the modified class, by now the track was damp so everyone opted for wet tyres as far as we could tell. After the final the result was:

Result – A Final Modified
1. Olly Jefferies
2. James Hart
3. Colin Price
4. John Pape
5. Stefan Chodzynski
6. Matt White
7. Paul Pinkney
8. Brian Eldridge
9. Ashley Wiffen
10. David Hall

After the racing had finished the trophy presentation and the traditional BTCC raffle was completed with some great prices once again from Schumacher Racing. Congratulations to all the Final winners and also to the raffle winners.
A huge thanks as always goes to Paul and the rest of the team at the West London race track, who helped put on a great event with us once again. Also to Kris Kennedy for the usual superb commentary he provided us all with for the finals. Full results for the event can be found on Central Booking.
The next round of the series is being held at the Halifax race track on Sunday 4 May 2014. Entries are still available, so get yourself booked in through www.centralbooking.org if you haven’t already done so. Hope to see you there.