Topcats Racing’s Japanese entry with the Class 3 Marcos Mantis; Ryu Seya, Yosuke Shimojima, Masashi Kakiuchi and QuickSilvers Japanese agent Toru Nakano and Nicholas Mee Racing's Class 3 Aston Martin GT4 with Karsten Le Blanc, Ben de Zille Butler, Dan de Zille and QuickSilver’s PR and Social Media guru, Sarah Bennett-Baggs.
Both Teams had to contend with the best that British weather can throw at them, in the Marcos three of the drivers have never been to the UK and one of the drivers was only in his first year of racing in a Mazda MX5 having never turned a wheel on a wet track! The Marcos Mantis with an all Japanese squad put in fine performance too to qualify 31st, over halfway up the grid.
To add complication, they were accompanied by their translator, Hedeki Seto, who would be their radio man for the race weekend as, save for a few words, did not speak English!
It was on the first lap that the Japanese driver squad would give the team and spectators a taster of what would be quite a remarkable race for them. Shimojima, having started 31st, made up an astonishing 12 places on the first lap. Before the first hour of the race was over, Shimojima was running in 16th place.
Shimojima, who had been putting in some stunning laps on his second run could not avoid a coming together with the Morcillo/Cintrano Porsche as they both hit standing water. Shimojima faired worse though sustaining front left suspension damage and the souvenir of a Porsche light lens wedged into the cracked bonnet.
Shimojimo was able to limp back to the pits where the team worked frenziedly to replace the steering and trailing arm,although crucial to their standing in the race, only five laps later Shimojima was rolled back out of the garage to rejoin the race. The all-Japanese driver squad were matching the times set by the Class 2 sister car and really seemed to be relishing the whole experience. Having dropped to 21st they were back up to 16th.
The Japanese squad really proved what an incredibly powerful combination they were and it would have been fantastic to see just what they could have achieved had they had the chance to compete in a dry race. They finished the race in 15th, The sister Class 2 GT Marcos of Harrison/Fiorentino/Hyde/O’Neill finished just behind them in 16th place.
Fine finish for Nicholas Mee Racing in the Silverstone Britcar 24hr
In the Aston Martin GT 4 - The team qualified 27th out of 60 starters, 15th in class and over the first few hours the team quickly rose into the teens at 4hrs they were 18th overall. As darkness fell the conditions soon got tricky, but still the team continued to climb the leader board and by midnight they were up into 14th position.
The night driving bought lots of safety car periods due to accidents and thick fog brought visibility down to virtually zero. Despite being hit by a passing Mosler and a long fog bound safety car stint, by dawn the team were up into 11th position. By Sunday morning everything was looking good, whilst the team were having breakfast they were looking at P10 overall, 6th in class and thinking 'this is going well'.
However, the morning stints bought issues, a broken seat bolt cost the team 5 laps when it was replaced dropping them to 12th, then an excursion into the wall at 11.30am followed by a lengthy recovery and requirement to mend the damaged wing and a radiator change dropped the team down to 20th position. The car was back out in record time looking slightly worse for wear. The final 3 hours were greasy, wet difficult conditions but the team continued to the end with no more problems finally crossing the finish line 22nd overall 13th in class having completed exactly 500 laps. Testiment to the professionalism of the NMR team, and a fantastic car!
Congratulations to all the drivers of both teams on finishing so well in such a demanding race.
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