They're making a habbit of this. - FIA GT Silverstone

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WARNING! THIS IS A CHORE OF A READ AND I DO APPOLOGISE!
THIS IS ALSO ALL I NOTED FROM THE RACE FROM A SPECTATORS POINT OF VIEW WHO COULDN'T SEE THE BL**DY BIG SCREEN (because I forgot my glasses) AND COULDN'T HEAR THE COMMETRY!
Silverstone Race of Legends report:
So this morning I got up in the early hours of the cold british morning (about 5.30) with a cup of tea waiting for me. I get told it's gonna bloody freeze today so I wrapped up warm. First problem. Turns out the old man forgot to charge the video camera last night and the battery was completly dead, same goes with his camera (you'd think him being a photographer n all would remember). Anyway ,jump in the Nissan cameraless, and we treck up to Silverstone, all 1 and a half hours it took, to find one of the best british spring days period. On the way up we saw some increadible cars, like; Vanquish S, DB7GT a tuned up Tuscan (I thought it was something like a T400 or T440 road car - could be a Typhoon), about 12 Carrera's, several skylines and scooby's, 4 360 spiders, and too many more to mention. It was gorgeous and what a day to have the third round of the FIA GT championship and WTCC.
We managed to pinch grandstand seats on woodcote, so we could see the cars come into the complex (Beckets) and out down the start/finsih straight. That was about best seats what we were going to get as Silverstone is so flat you see sod all!
Suddenly this almight rumble starts up and out role the GT machines. OMG :drool: ! Sorry but GT racing is soo much better than F1 or anything else imo. The cars were gorgeous and all different, and the sounds they produced were........orgasmic to say the least! You had engines ranging from inline 6's and boxer 6's, to V8's and V12's. Some of the field was missing in the way of Lamboguinni, but it made up for the fact that the works Astons were racing.
So the field included on the day; 2 Aston Martin DB9R's, 1 Corvette C5-R, 2 Saleen S7's, 2 550 Marranello's, 2 575 Marranello's, 4 Maserrati's, 1 Lister Storm, about 1 million Porchse GT3's, some 360 spiders, a TVR 400R and 3 Moslers.
The grid girls came out (and that was another fine site), then followed by the cars. The cars are so increadibly fast and loud, you just have no idea if you haven't seen them before. And they simply blew my breath away. And that was on the warm up laps. Then the new Astons came round....... :drool: :eek: . They just looked quick and I knew they were going to be fast from just their looks. They're lower than the Ferrari's and seem to squat more than the Maserrati's (if that's possible) but they looked right and made you feel proud to be British.

Race Results
Anyway so onto the race report:
The gird was lined up and sounded phenominal. The two Astons were on the front row, followed by the Carsport C5R and a Masserati.They came round for a rolling start and just went. You could hear them from all the way around the circuit and the sound just set you rumbling to it.
The second Aston dropped from second to fourth on the first lap with the first Aston still retaining its lead. The Maserati quickly took the second Astons place into Copse and held second followed by the Carsport Corvette. On the second lap the second aston then dropped to fith but then soon after that made it up to fourth again. The first three set off at a blistering pace. With the DB9R keeping the Masserati comfortably at bay, but the Masserati was having to contend with the Corvette and was having to fight hard. By about 12 laps the Lead Aston had slipped up in traffic and they were all tightly bunched together. By this stage the second DB9R had clawed back fourth and was making a strong comback. It was then followed by a big group and gaggle of Maserati's, Ferrari's and one of the Saleens. The other Saleen wasn't running strong from the start and was contending with the GT2 leading Porsche. Whilst the Saleen which was now battling with the Ferrari's had fought its way impressively from the back of the field (for reason I don't know). Also in the opening laps the Lister had started strong but after several laps had come in and came back out again. It came out directly infront of the leaders and held them up for a good couple of laps. Justin Keen in the Lister had caused major grief to the leading GT1 cars. He was keeping a strong pace and was barely off their's but hew was proving to be a nuisance holding them up in the slower and more technical sections of ther track.
The first round of pitstops had come around. And........I was completly thrown. God knows what happened I must of fallen asleep but some how the Masserati's that weren't in contention and were further back...by the end of the pitstops had taken the lead along with the 550 Marranello. The leading DB9R had a long stop and fell behind in the pits. But the C5R and the second DB9R had aslo as well. It now looked like the Italians had it in the bag.
The Corvette was now down on power and misfiring and later retired of engines problems I'm guessing. The Saleens were still fighting at the back of the GT1 pack and the Lister was persistantly in and out of the pits with problems. It wasn't looking good. All the cars had spread out.
But one more round of stops were still to come. And.....well again the order was thrown into confusion again. The DB9's suddenly came to the front. With the originally leading Maserati now with a new pilot rapidly dropping back the other Maserati's were closing in. It was turning out to be a GT epic. A showdown between Aston Martin and Maserati. The second DB9R was a long way back from the leading duo of the Aston and Maserati. But with an increadible charge from Pedro Lammy he close this gap within a matter of laps through the other two being held up by backmarkers. Then he forced his way passed the Maserati and was snapping at the heels of his team mate Darren Turner in the leading Aston Martin. It was thrilling laps of driver skill where the two occasionally collided whilst fighting for the lead. The third placed Maserati kept on closing and then dropping off the pace finding it hard to keep with the DB9R's. Then Lammy in the second Aston Marting passed Turner to take the lead out the back of the circuit. From then on the DB9's controlled the pace of the race keeping the Masserati behind with a comfortable few seconds between them. The fourth placed Vitaphone Maserati was gainging hand over fist in the last stages of the race but couldn't get close enough in the end.
The Russian Age Ferrari had enginge problems in the latter stages of the race and dropped back a long way with the Labre competition Ferrari in the mix between the Maserati's. The leading Saleen couldn't pull back the deficit it had gained at the begining but did seem to be running quickly.
The GT2 battle was a question of tactics and reliability with the Grouppe M Porsche GT 3's cars being the pace setters for the race. I found it to hard to keep up with GT2.

So it was a fantastic one, two for Aston Martin in their only second race. With Maserati showing the MC-12 to be a very strong competitor.

WTCC: was just dull from a spectators point of view and not a scractch on BTCC. Unlss anyone requests I can't be arsed to write a review of those two races.

Well hope I didn't bore the crap out of you lot and sorry for no pics! But it was an amazing race and I was captivated for the whole 3 hours. The cars were greatm, the weather was great, the beer was great and in particulrly the pit babes were great! Worth all of my £25!
So next thing is just to get Eurosport to watch the rest of the season!#

Well done to Pro Drive, Dave Richars and Aston Martin!
 
you could perhaps spell the word anyway correctly instead of adding an extra, unneeded z.

lol. good review though. it's a shame you couldn't get the pictures.
 
Omnis
you could perhaps spell the word anyway correctly instead of adding an extra, unneeded z.

lol. good review though. it's a shame you couldn't get the pictures.

lol yeah I don't know why I do that, I do it all the time now. I even do it when I spell the word in everyday life (as opposed to just on the net)....which is really worrying!

thanks man, it was slightly lengthy......and as I've just found out by reading the brief race report slightly inaccurate in parts. Like the DBR9's and the JCM MC 12 were always in the lead and the other maserati's were never in the lead, they were actually lapped.
Yeah I was really miffed about the camera, because there were some amazing cars there as well (as in raod cars). There was this gorgeous Alfa 155 TSpark, completly kitted out, but not in a vulgar way. Like with the touring car body kit, so it looked like the touring car but without all the sponsorship. When I was comming back from getting a beer and saw it, it stopped me in my tracks.
 
I also love the sound of GT cars, I remember the GT cars racing as a support event at the V8 Supercars last year, the 550 Maranello sounded so bloody nice.

Sounds like you had an awesome day, lucky bastard! :grumpy:
 
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