Wet Winton Sprint

Sunday 16th April

See page 64 for competition results

Once again, at Winton, the weather wasn’t on our side, with rain and showers throughout the day. It seemed that every time the track started to dry out there would be just enough rain to make the surface wet again! There were a few periods throughout the day where the track dried out enough for a lucky group or two to be able to push their cars, but a big puddle on the entry to turn four ensured that there were no lap records threatened on the day.

I find it tests your mettle when you’re out on track and it starts to drizzle, but it seems like heavy rain when you’re doing 200kph! You keep telling yourself that the grip level is fine, but it’s very hard to commit!

Despite the challenging conditions, there were still some respectable times achieved. Peter Fitzgerald, in his Cayman S, got the closest of anyone to their class lap record. He posted a 1:31.3 lap, only 1.8 seconds off the Modified 0 record. That was a fantastic result given the conditions!

I was lucky enough to be next closest, 2.2 seconds slower than the GT1 lap record in my GT3RS, followed by Andy Hall in his 991 Cup Car and Andrew Lipman in his Boxster in class B, both 2.9 seconds behind their respective class records. Andrew Lipman also managed to earn more class points than anyone else on the day, so congratulations to Andrew!

The outright win went to Andy Hall, followed by me in second and Peter Fitzgerald in third place.