Tandy and Harvey take Carrera Cup victories at Silverstone

Nick Tandy and Tim Harvey shared the victories in a tremendous day of racing in the Porsche Carrera Cup GB at Silverstone on Sunday (31 August). Harvey's sensational drive in the second race to win after starting near the back of the grid gives him a seven-point championship lead with two races left to run. In the Pro-Am1 category, Nigel Rice raced hard to win twice and close the points’ gap to Tony Gilham, while in Pro-Am2, Glynn Geddie took a double win as Paul Hogarth and Steve Rance chased.

Round 17

Phil Quaife (Tonbridge) converted his pole position into a first lap lead as Tim Bridgman (Stansted) edged ahead of Tandy (Bedford) on the run to Copse. Just behind, Michael Caine (Newmarket) battled through to fourth from Sam Hancock (London) and Harvey (Oxford) in a hectic opening lap.

Bridgman settled into second behind Quaife, but it went wrong for Bridgman as they completed the second lap. Quaife clipped one of the plastic corner markers at Woodcote, which flicked up and hit the radiator on Bridgman’s car. With coolant spraying onto a front wheel he spun at Copse. “I thought I’d got a rear puncture,” said Bridgman, who drove back to the pits, leaving coolant around much of the lap.

Quaife was the first to find the coolant at Becketts and ran wide, allowing Tandy into the lead, while Hancock lost time and Caine spun as he hit the slippery corner. Harvey, however, picked his way through the drama and was able to battle back in front of Hancock as they both closed in on Quaife. “I had a great start and everything looked good,” said Quaife. “Then the power steering pump started playing up and from then on I was just hanging on for dear life!”

Lap by lap, Harvey hunted Quaife down and went ahead on lap 12 as Quaife struggled. Hancock later caught his team-mate and took third after a close battle between the pair of Jota Sport cars. But up front, Tandy (a finalist in the McLaren Autosport Young Driver of the Year 2007) reeled off the remaining laps for an impressive victory, as Harvey took second on the road and maximum championship points. “They race you really hard,” said Harvey of the young guns on the grid. “But it’s maximum points, which is really important.”

Having lost a lot of time with his spin. Caine managed to fight back to fifth despite some further problems. In the closing stages he caught the battling pair of Rice (Beverley) and Charles Bateman (Boston) and Caine’s progress up the order was boosted when Bateman clipped the back of Rice’s car and damaged a radiator. Rice duly took sixth overall and pro-am1 spoils, as well as closing the gap on Gilham (Dartford) in the points. “I could have done with Bateman finishing between us,” said Rice, who is now only eight points behind Gilham.

Into seventh with an excellent debut drive came Sean Paul Breslin (St Albans), having gone ahead of Gilham when the ReDesign car spun on the coolant fluid from Bateman’s car at Luffield and stalled. “I had a job to get it started again,” said Gilham, after claiming eighth overall and third in Pro-Am1.

In Pro-Am2, Geddie (Aberdeen) always set the pace, but his team-mate Rance (Suffolk) was a constant shadow. “It was a controlled drive; I was just measuring my pace,” said Geddie. However, Rance got close enough late in the race to try a dive at Brooklands, but his car spun and that allowed Hogarth (Knutsford) through to second after an excellent run.

Round 18

Harvey drove the race the season to win a superb round 18. The fantastic contest, which went out live on ITV4, featured a four-way battle for the lead and it was Harvey, after starting fifteenth on the grid, who stormed through for a stunning victory and now takes a seven-point championship lead into the final race weekend. In the Pro-Am1 category, Rice took another victory to further close the points’ gap to Gilham, who struggled home with car problems. In Pro-Am2, Geddie completed a double win with a fine fifth overall as Rance and Paul Hogarth joined him on the podium.

With a wet and very slippery track, Caine got the jump on pole-sitter Quaife to lead into Copse as Bridgman and Tandy made contact in the crowded rush to the first corner. Bridgman had to pit for a wheel change and Tandy later slipped back with a stop after running through the gravel.

Up front, Hancock edged ahead of Quaife and then dived by Caine into Becketts on the second lap. Meanwhile, Harvey was driving a superb race and was up to fourth place in three laps. Hancock started to edge clear, but it all went wrong for him on the exit of Luffield on the ninth lap when he put a wheel onto the slippery kerb and spun onto the grass. “I just made the smallest mistake,” he said later.

Now, it was Quaife leading from the recovering Hancock as Harvey edged ahead of Caine for third and set about attacking Hancock. Caine tried to go with them, but knew he simply did not have the pace to challenge for the lead. “I just didn’t have the grip at the back of the car,” said Caine. Nevertheless, the leading four now ran nose-to-tail in a tremendous display of exciting racing in treacherous conditions.

It was Harvey that was on the move and once past Hancock was able to move in on Quaife. It took until the penultimate lap for Harvey to make his move and he ran down the inside under braking at Brooklands to cap a remarkable drive. “I had nothing to lose from where I started and I had a very good car,” said Harvey. “It was desperately slippery, but it was a brilliant finish to a weekend that started disastrously.” Harvey was named ‘driver of the weekend’ and Red Line Racing won the ‘team of the weekend’ award.

Quaife gave his all to try and hold on, but could not defend from Harvey in the last two laps. “I pushed harder and harder, but it wasn’t enough,” said Quaife as Hancock and Caine chased him to the flag. Fifth overall and a great Pro-Am2 victory went to Geddie after tigering ahead of Pro-Am1 winner Rice. “That was brilliant; I really enjoyed it,” said Geddie.

Rance had a very strong run to take seventh overall and second in Pro-Am2, while Gilham battled home second in Pro-Am1 with his car stuck in fourth gear. Bridgman salvaged ninth place, with Hogarth tenth and third in Pro-Am2.