The second round of the Britcar MSA British Endurance Championship and Production Cup Championship was held this weekend at Donington park England 21st-22nd April 2012.
The first round of the series saw fewer cars participate in the race, however there seems to be an influx of new talent and spectacular race cars hitting the track for the second round of the series. The production cup has 27 cars take to the starting grid and the MSA endurance championship has 21 cars start the race across all classes in the series.
The race meeting also hosted several other championships which included the Mini Miglia and Mini Se7en Championships, Intersteps Championship, Dunlop Production Touring Car Trophy, Mighty Mini, Smart 4two Cup and BRSCC Mighty Mini Championship. This gives the spectators two days of action to keep them entertained.
The forty-five minute qualifying session saw the NO 6 Mosler MT900R driven by Morcillo/Ciantro/White gain pole position in a lap time of 1.05:318 closely followed by No 3 Ferrari 430 driven by Bailey/Schulz with a lap time of 1:05:820. The third position on the starting grid was taken by No 17 Ginetta 55 driven by Mowle/Murrels in a time of 1:06:395. The top ten qualifying times were covered by less than five seconds.
Upon entering this race meeting I knew that the three main contenders of the race would be no 6 Mosler, no 8 SR2 and no 3 Ferrari 430 in the first class. This series tests the racers stamina and ability to race for the three hours. This coupled with pit stops and driver changes it helps keep the series fair to all that compete. Like the production cup the weather played a part on the race with mixed conditions. Partly sunny one minute and wet the next.
I was not disappointed that the Mosler and SR2 dominated the first half of the race by being first and second respectively. The no6 Mosler driven by Morcillo for the first hour and a half led from the beginning and continued to even after its first pit. At the half way point third place was held by no 13 Ginetta G55 driven by Tomlinson. The No 3 Ferrari didn’t perform as well as I expected throughout the race and pitted more than most other teams, it clearly had issues with the car.
On lap 72 the lead swapped and the no 8 SR2 took the lead but due to the Mosler and no 60 BMW coming off track the safety car make an appearance for several laps. Once the safety car started to take to the track the rain started again and led to several cars making pit stops and changing tyres.
As the safety car exited the track on lap 78 no 13 Ginetta was at the front of the pack ahead of no 17 Ginetta 55 followed by no 6 in third. The next 30 laps saw the safety car make several appearances due to the bad weather conditions and the number of cars which come off track. The race was cut short by fifteen minutes due to the 8pm curfew set at Donington. The No 13 Ginetta G55 won the 119 lap race followed by No 17 Ginetta 55 and third place was taken by the No 6 Mosler.
Class 2 was won by No 35 Marcos Mantis, Class 3 was won by No 51 Lotus Evora who was sixth overall. Class 4 was won by No 94 Lotus Elise, both the Lotus Evora and Elise performed exceptionally well and thrashed many racers in higher classes than themselves.
The fastest lap was set by Morcillo in the no 6 Mosler with a time of 106:609.