Grainger & Musgrave take BTCC title
The last round of this year’s BTCC championship was held at Mendip Model Motor Racing Club track just outside the holiday resort of Weston-Super-Mare, a track we seem to end up at most years. The weather, when we got up Sunday morning was cloudy with some fine rain not enough to dampen the track but the day didn’t look to promising. At the drivers briefing it was decided that the format for the day would be 4 rounds of round by round qualifying the best 2 to count followed by 1 final.
It was carry on where he left off at the last round, with Zak Finlay setting a blistering pace in the first round of the qualifiers in 13.5 leaving the rest of the field in his wake, second in the round was Rob Sawell ahead of Schumacherís Mark Musgrove in third place, fourth fastest in the round was Jeremy Clarke with Les Baldry rounding out the top five. In Super touring 10.5 it was Schumacher’s Chris Grainger who set the fastest time with Chris Kerswell second, a few hundredths ahead of James Hart third, fourth in the round was John Pape and rounding out the top five was Phil Chambers.
Come qualifying round 2 in the 13.5 Stock Class, guess who was fastest, yes you got it, it was Zak who set the fastest time with RC racing TV’s Oli Meggitt second fastest, Mark was again third in the round, in fourth place it was Damian Giddins and rounding out the top five was Jeremy Clarke. In the 10.5 Super Touring it was again Chris G who set the fastest time, with a great drive Zak Smith was second fastest 3 tenths ahead James Hart in third, Elliott Harper was fourth fastest and again rounding out the top five was Phil chambers.
In qualifying round 3 of the 13.5 Stock Class it was again Zak who set the fastest time, Mark Musgrove was second fastest, in third place it was Damian Giddins, fourth was James Greener and rounding out the top five Oli Meggitt. The Super Touring 10.5 class it was again Chris Grainger who set the fastest time with James Hart half a second behind him, Phil chambers was third fastest with Elliott Harper fourth and rounding out the top five it was Stefan Chodzynski.
Round 4 saw Zak Finlay in the TQ position for the fourth time in the 13.5 Stock Class, Oli Meggitt was second, third like in the last round was Damian Giddins, Mark Musgrove was fourth fastest with Rob Sawell fifth. In the 10.5 Super Touring like Zak Finlay in the 13.5 class it was Chris Grainger who set the fastest time, second fastest in this round was Elliott Harper, and needing a good score in this round to get in to the A final was Olly Jefferies who was third, in fourth it was Zak Smith and like the last round, fifth fastest was Stefan Chodzynski.
After 4 rounds of round by round qualifying the best 2 to count, the top 10 in each class were as follows:
Top 10 Stock 13.5
1. Zak Finlay
2. Oli Meggitt
3. Mark Musgrove
4. Damian Giddins
5. Rob Sawell
6. Jeremy Clarke
7. Les Baldry
8. James Greener
9. Mark Caton
10. Rob Long
Top 10 Super Touring 10.5
1. Chris Grainger
2. James Hart
3. Elliott Harper
4. Zak Smith
5. Chris Kerswell
6. Phil Chambers
7. Stefan Chodzynski
8. Olly Jefferies
9. John Pape
10. Alan Bickerstaff
In the Stock 13.5 A Final all that can be said about it is who was going to get second place as the buzzer sounded Zak Finlay got a clean start and left almost everyone by a second a lap with Oli Meggitt having a bad couple of first laps something which he would not recover from, it was left to Mark Musgrove and Damian Giddins to give chase but try as they may couldn’t match Zak’s lap times. Mark then began to gap Damian and Les Baldry started to catch him, Rob Sawell was next, then from second was Oli, by the end of the race Mark had a 3 second gap over Damian, who held off Les and Rob came home in fifth place.
Top 5 Stock 13.5 A final were:
1. Zak Finlay
2. Mark Musgrove
3. Damian Giddins
4. Les Baldry
5. Rob Sawell
The Super touring final saw the whole field get away cleanly with James hart pushing to make a move on Chris Grainger, Chris clipped a kerb which forced him wide allowing James to take the lead. Chris was able to keep second place from Elliott Harper all three of them began to build a gap on the rest of the field. On lap 3 James had a bobble round the sweeper off the straight allowing Chris to close the gap on him, then on the next lap in the same position James got a little unstable carrying less corner speed than Chris, unfortunately the pair collided, sending them both off the track, this allowed Elliott to take up the lead. A lap later he had an incident giving Zak Smith the lead, a lead which he held till the end of the race with Phil chambers moving up to four tenths of a second behind him. A further four tenths behind Phil was Olly Jefferies, a good result for all three of them and nice to see some different podium finishers. In fourth place with a good five minute run was Stefan Chodzynski one tenth of a second in front of the recovering James Hart, Chris Grainger retired on lap 10 and Elliott on lap 11 the rest of the field completed five minutes.
Top 5 Super Touring A final was:
1. Zak Smith
2. Phil Chambers
3. Olly Jefferies
4. Stefan Chodzynski
5. James Hart
With the 10.5T Championship already wrapped up for the Schumacher Mi4CXL of Chris Grainger with 4 round wins already the battle for second and third went right down to the wire. In the end some great results for Phil Chambers saw him see off Olly Jefferies, even though the pair were tied on points. In the 13.5 Schumacher’s own Mark Musgrove took the Championship with his Mi4CXL from Zack Finlay and Damian Giddins.
Source: Schumacher [racing-cars.com]
