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Week 2 of the IMB World Series League GT3 Season 5 brought us to Silverstone for a sprint event consisting of a 25 minute race and a 50 minute race.
First to qualifying where, in a 2 lap qualifying format, Taylor Lane followed up his strong start last week with a P2 in the PRO field. Jon Williams started P5, Håkon Eide Lindmo was P7 and Chris Chadderton P8. Dean Timms lined up P6 in the PRO-AM field hoping to move forwards as the racing progressed.
Race one and Taylor Lane followed up his win with a strong P2 after a battle with Kai Dalziel to really start the season of strong in the only BMW we have fielded in the PRO field. Jon settled into in Race one to bring home strong points in P6, Håkon followed Jon home a couple of seconds back in P7 and Chris Chadderton brought home the PRO field in P9 after an incident with Harry Wills dropping him to the back of the field. Dean Timms had a really strong race to gather precious points in a very competitive PRO-AM field with a P4 finish.
Onto Race 2 where a reverse grid meant that Prestanda NOMAD was heavily featured at the front of the PRO field with Chris on Pole, Håkon in P3 and Jon P4 meant we were all confident of being able to secure good points in Race 2 with Taylor Lane P8 after his effort in Race 1.
Different strategies were evident early, with Chris Chadderton setting a strong pace at the start due to his plan of taking 4 tyres at the pit stop while Jon and Håkon settled into their respective races not following such an aggressive strategy. This lead to Chris having a 2 second lead over Jon by the time he pitted but with the knowledge that his pit stop would be a lot longer than Jon due to a lack of confidence in the tyres.
Håkon was having a battle with two of the twisted cars in Kai Dalziel and Stuart Reynolds but was well in the battle for fourth at this point. Post pit stops and it was evident that Jon Williams had the advantage over the whole field, a combination of superb fuel saving while keeping his tyres in a good working window meant that he had an 8 second lead over the rest of the PRO field after the pitstops. He would keep this lead until the chequered flag despite some issues for drivers in the AM field causing him to lose a handful of seconds.
Chris battled with Harry Wills to the flag bringing it home for the team to secure a 1-2 overall in race 2. Håkon battled hard with the Twisted drivers after the pit stops leading to him also bringing home a great P4 result. Taylor Lane couldn't carry on his great start to the season with some hardware issues but he still battled hard to get vital points and keep his Championship lead into next week. Dean showed his consistency over the longer format race to secure P4 again and give him a strong platform to build from going into week 3.
Overall a fantastic night for the team with a P2 in race one and a 1-2 in race two. Onwards and upwards to Imola next week!
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