Britcar GT Silverstone 500

Sumpter and Slater maintain Britcar GT title bid

 Once again the Paragon Porsche-entered Porsche 911GT3RSR was the big rival to the pacesetting Moslers at the head of the field as the six-hour race ran into the darkness of Saturday evening. With rain during the evening, it was a challenging race for everyone and a fine effort from the entire Paragon team brought a very good result, which netted points for second place when one of the cars ahead of them was ineligible for points.

  Knowing that they had slightly better fuel efficiency than the more powerful Moslers, Sumpter and Slater knew that they were in with a chance of overall victory and set some stunning laps times on the Silverstone Grand Prix circuit during qualifying. "We were three seconds a lap quicker than in 2008, so we were very happy with our pace," said Sumpter.

 In the opening laps they ran fourth behind three Moslers and then moved up to third when one of the Moslers retired with gearbox problems. Then, some clever pit work during a long safety car period brought the Paragon car in twice, thus saving a later stop under race conditions.

 As the rain started, Slater drove a great stint on intermediate tyres to put the car into the lead of the race.  Sumpter rejoined the race on slicks on a damp track and was caught out by oil at Brooklands and slid into the gravel. The car was soon pulled out, but precious time had been lost. "I got to the pits and we got the gravel out, but we were now 1m30s down in third," he said.  

 A very strong driving stint from Sumpter got them back into the lead again in the final minutes of the race, with the Porsche at times lapping 10s a lap faster than any other car on the way to taking the chequered flag. But late in the race they got a pit lane penalty and that dropped them to third in the final results. During the stop to clear the gravel, the car had rejoined eight seconds inside the minimum pit-stop time of 100s.

  Despite the penalty, the result keeps Sumpter and Slater at the head of the Britcar GT points with one race to run. "It was a really good race and we were very pleased with our showing against the Moslers on the Silverstone Grand Prix circuit," reported Mark. "The team did a great job and we are having a fantastic year with the car." 

 Now, they will take a one-point lead into the final race of the season when the Britcar GT Championship concludes with a night race at Brands Hatch on the 7th November.