The Wessex Vehicles/Tolman Motorsports entered and run Aquila CR1 has delivered an eye-opening performance at the Britcar 24 Hours at Silverstone. Not only was the car fast 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 as 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 Aquilas 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 and every lap, and yet the Aquilas 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 races fifth hour, in darkness and under pretty bad weather conditions which would only grow worse during the night the Aquilas team of brilliant 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 Aquila CR1. The Aquila 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 Aquilas 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 atrocious conditions is an immense challenge for any team and driver, and 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 cars handling did not feel affected by the impact, which was also borne out by his consistently fast lap times.
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 racers do, with duct tape. As the car still had handled impeccably after the knock, Phil Bennet got in the drivers 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 cars 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 41st position. 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 1:30 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 wasnt 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 Mustills Wessex Vehicles team with Christopher Tolman Motorsports, have shown that the Aquila CR1 is definitely a force to be reckoned with in Britains premier sports-GT racing series.
