Highly impressive, but shortened 24 Race Debut for the Aquila CR1
The Wessex Vehicles/Tolman Motorsports entered and ran an Aquila
CR1 which delivered an eye-opening performance at the Britcar 24
Hours at Silverstone. Not only was the car fastest in qualifying
and started from pole, WTC Champion Rob Huff stormed into an
immediate lead, pulling rapidly away from the 60-car strong field
behind him. Such was the pace of the flying Aquila that the field
came around at the completion of lap one, the bright yellow CR1 had
pulled out a lead of 7 seconds!
From a position of absolute control at the front, the CR1's lead
grew steadily, only being temporarily lost at the first round of
pit stops. However, pit stop smoothly completed, it only took five
laps to regain the lead, and once there, it lead steadily grew
again by several seconds on each lap, and yet the team and drivers
were pacing themselves conservatively - 24 hours is definitely not
a sprint race!
As night fell, so did the rain and racing conditions became ever
trickier on the still very crowded and increasingly wet Silverstone
circuit. Still, the Wessex Vehicles/Tolman Motorsports Aquila CR1
continued its domination of the race irrespective of whom of the
top-notch driver trio WTC Champion Rob Huff, Formula 1 test driver
Kelvin Burt and vastly experienced Phil Bennett was behind the
steering wheel for a stint.
Into the race's fifth hour, in darkness and under pretty bad
weather conditions - which would only grow worse during the night -
the team of drivers had built up a lead of almost five laps to the
second-placed Mosler, which was running with the same Chevrolet LS7
engine as the CR1. The drivers were pacing themselves to conserve
the car, not taking unnecessary chances in the ever more
challenging wet race conditions, and their car was running like a
clockwork. Barring mishaps, the chances of outright victory on the
Aquila's 24 hour race debut appeared a distinct possibility!
24 hours on a very wet, dark and misty circuit shared by several
dozens of cars in many different classes with considerable speed
differential, all fighting for position in the difficult conditions
is an immense challenge for any team and driver. Things can - and
do - occasionally go wrong, somewhere in the process of threading
the dominant CR1 through the field at a considerably faster pace
than anyone else out there, but still with conservative reserves of
speed, a backmarker may have been caught out by the immense closing
speed of the bright yellow but spray and mist-shrouded Aquila.
Whatever the circumstances, a backmarker was being lapped, contact
was made, and the leading Aquila took a pretty hefty knock on a
rear wheel. Kelvin Burt, whose stint it was at the time, reported
the incident by radio to the team in the pit, and after conferring
with the pit crew, decided to complete the stint as the car's
handling did not feel affected by the impact, which was also proven
by his consistently fast lap times.
Photo Credit: Chris Gurton Photography
Kelvin duly came in for his scheduled pit stop and driver
change, wheels were changed, the rear suspension was checked for
play and the damage to the rear bodywork was fixed. As the car
still had handled impeccably after the knock, Phil Bennet got in
the driver's seat for his scheduled stint, it was refuelled, and
with seemingly only taped-up bodywork and exhaust tail pipes
appearing the worse for wear after the wheels had been changed, the
Aquila set off again, still in the lead. But about half an hour
into his stint, Phil reported by radio that the car's handling was
becoming unstable, and as it got worse over the next handful of
laps, he was called into the pits for a thorough investigation of
the problem. It transpired that the top rear cross-member, which
carries the rear spring/damper units, had been damaged and
partially dislodged from the transaxle casing, having pulled out
two threads in the casing. This would be lengthy pit stop, because
a lot of disassembly and re-assembly would be required to replace
the damaged component and to provide the accessibility needed to
tap new threads in the transaxle casing.
Well over an hour was lost in this very long unscheduled pit
stop, and so it would appear were the chances of an Aquila victory.
Still, Racers being Racers, it was decided to continue nonetheless,
even after having dropped to 41stposition. Other leading
cars could hit trouble too, and with up to 8 seconds to possibly be
gained on each lap, of course depending on traffic, water, and
safety car presence - such was the speed superiority of the Aquila
- there was still a realistic chance of a top 10 finish position
come Sunday afternoon. All was not lost and near the end of his
next stint at about 01:30 in the morning, Kelvin Burt was now in
32nd place. Places were being made up rapidly, but not
as rapidly as the team would have liked, because by now we were
also into an hour long safety car period, due to the atrocious
conditions and various on and off-track incidents.
Alas - it was not to be. A handful of laps from the end of his
stint, Kelvin and the Aquila were suddenly missing from the action.
The car was stuck in the gravel out on the circuit, somewhere in
the murk, the result of a sticking throttle. At a place on the
circuit that requires a lift to get around the high speed corner, a
throttle stuck open is definitely not the thing to have, and a trip
into the gravel bed was inevitable - there was nothing Kelvin could
do about it. Kelvin duly reported back over the radio, but he was
stranded in an area with poor radio contact, so it took a little
while to sort the situation out. Eventually the car was brought
back to the pits on a flatbed, full of gravel and pebbles.
Since the car was now full of gravel and it would take a lot of
time to clean out, still with a risk of missing some in a safety
critical area, and since it wasn't possible to positively determine
the cause of the sticking throttle under these circumstances, it
was decided to retire the car from the race. A huge disappointment,
of course, but the Aquila, the team and its drivers had really left
their mark on the race nonetheless, having led - dominated - with
ease and in complete control, until one of these incidents, which
are part and parcel of 24-hour racing, had delayed them and
possibly precipitated their eventual retirement. Everybody had
given their best, and the 24-hour race debut for the Aquila CR1 can
rightly be said to have been impressive by any standard, even if
shortened by circumstances. As this is written, Silverstone is
still wet, so there is still a chance that the fastest race lap set
about an hour into the race by Rob Huff will remain with
Aquila…
The drivers have sung their praises of the Aquila in the most
convincing manner by being so consistently quick, while still
driving very conservatively - they, and Nigel Mustill's Wessex
Vehicles team with Christopher Tolman Motorsports, have shown that
the Aquila CR1 is definitely a force to be reckoned with in
Britain's premier sports-GT racing series.