WSR FlexiFly were dealt a cruel blow right at the end of the British GT Championship’s annual overseas visit to Circuit Spa-Francorchamps, following a competitive showing by drivers Ernie Graham and Colin Turkington.
Eyeing a potential podium finish in the GT4 Pro-Am division with less than a lap to go, a technical issue for the #61 BMW M4 GT4 Evo dropped the pair to sixth place in the division to leave them with a result that did not merit what their performance deserved.
Racing for the first time at Spa for 39 years, the 18-time British Touring Car Champions – who are in their maiden season of GT competition – acclimatised to the Belgian Grand Prix venue across a single Friday test and two practice sessions on Saturday.
Starting a career-best fourth in Pro-Am, based on the combined times of both drivers from Saturday’s qualifying session, Ernie set a consistent pace early on, despite his rhythm being severely disrupted by the first of three Full-Course Yellow (FCY) periods.
With 55 minutes of the two-hour race run under ‘non-racing’ conditions, Ernie, starting only his fourth GT race, did well to re-establish his pace and reached his mid-race pitstop – still under FCY conditions – sixth in class.
Four-time British Touring Car Champion Colin – who set the second-fastest time across all the GT4 categories in Saturday qualifying – climbed aboard hopeful of adding to the podium finish that he and Ernie scored at the Silverstone season opener.
It was at this point, however, that luck turned against the Northern Irish duo. Just seconds before he exited the pits, FCY status was given over to a Safety Car period.
While this should have been a prime moment to help Colin close the gap to the GT4 leaders, what happened was just the opposite.
Instead of picking up the overall race leader, the Safety Car entered the racetrack just ahead of a group of cars that featured Colin’s BMW.
The time it took to wave them past, pick up the leader and allow racing to resume did not give Colin’s group time to circulate and join the back of the pack before green-flag conditions were restored, leaving him over half a lap in arrears.
This restricted Colin’s battle to being one for fourth place and he made good on this to move into the spot with only five minutes left to put himself just one spot away from the podium in case any of the top three suffered a late mishap.
Even that proved a false dawn, however, as a malfunction with the BMW’s Anti-Lock Braking System caused the car to fall into ‘Limp Mode’ as a safety precaution on the final lap, limiting Colin to just 80kph maximum and causing him to drop to sixth spot.
Despite the obvious disappointment, Ernie and Colin – who are sixth in the Pro-Am points – are looking forward to the second half of the season commencing at Snetterton on August 15-16.
Ernie Graham: “What an amazing place to race a GT car, but what a shame the race didn’t turn out how we wanted. We qualified well and Colin’s laptimes were very strong so we were poised for a good race. My stint went reasonably well, even with all the Full-Course Yellow laps, but we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time when the Safety Car came out after the pitstops and we found ourselves the best part of a lap down. Then our ABS failed with a lap to go so we could only cruise around at the back, but this is part of motor racing and we’ll come back more determined than ever at Snetterton.”
Colin Turkington: “It was a frustrating race with the number of Full-Course Yellows and Safety Car laps and there wasn’t any real rhythm because of it. You’d get what felt like five racing laps and then an FCY, and the positioning of the Safety Car after the pitstop was just really unfortunate for us because we basically lost a lap waiting to be waved by. It was a bit demoralising knowing that with the pace we had in the BMW, we could have been right up there, but instead we were only fighting over fourth. Then, on the last lap the car went into limp mode, which is an in-built safety feature when you have an issue with the DSC (Dynamic Stability Control) or the ABS, and it can’t be overridden manually from inside the car, so I was restricted to 80kph and lost all the positions I’d made up.”
Carl Mitchell, Sporting & Operations Director: “It’s been a big weekend for everyone here as I don’t think many of us were even born when WSR last raced at Spa in the 1980s! We’ve adapted well to the demands of the track and got the BMW dialled in, despite having only one Friday test session, rather than the normal three. Ernie’s raised his game yet again and driven really well at what’s such a hard track to master, and Colin’s shown his ultimate class with a very quick qualifying lap. The Safety Car situation that put us the best part of a lap down was frustrating, as was what happened on the last lap – a situation the BMW Motorsport engineers were quick to investigate post-race – but it’s all a learning experience and we’ll be back even stronger at Snetterton.”
