Action Packed Opening Race at Goodwood Revival
10 September 2016
The start to the Goodwood Revival race programme could not have been bettered with a frantic and at times frenetic Kinrara Trophy in which nine times 24 Hours of Le Mans winner, Tom Kristensen showed his undoubted class. The Dane, the most successful of all endurance drivers, has become a regular star at Goodwood and yesterday evening he took on some of the best historic racers in the country to share the winning car in this new 60-minute race. Remarkably, he had not seen Joe Macari’s Ferrari 250GT SWB before yesterday, having replaced former BTCC champion Jason Plato at the last minute.
Car owner Joe headed the large field of pre-1962 GT cars into the first corner but was soon overwhelmed by a gaggle of professional drivers. As the setting sun cast long shadows over the track, so Adrian Wilmot (Aston Martin DB4GT) and Rob Hall (Jaguar E-type) engaged in a furious battle for the lead. Rob went by on lap four but Adrian did not give up until an attempt to out fox his rival resulted in a cloud of smoke from his locked brakes and a spin right off the track. The closely pursuing James Cottingham, in another of the E-types, took advantage of this and moved into second.
The field may have been worth something in the region of a staggering £150 million, but these GTs are driven hard and a pair of incidents on lap 11 brought out the safety car. Significantly, this meant that Joe Macari did not fall further down the field and when Tom Kristensen took over the Ferrari, after the safety car pulled in, the race was truly on.
For a while it was still Rob versus James with Adrian pulling himself back into contention. Back in the field, though, Tom was ominously setting fastest laps. It was a while before the round of driver changes sorted matters out and now Simon Hadfield, who had taken over Wolfgang Friedrichs’ Aston Martin DB4GT, came into contention. James had also been able to hand over to another of the top historic racers, Andrew Smith and the race again changed complexion. Now it was Andrew versus Simon with a vengeance...but behind Tom was moving up fast. Into second place went TK with a great move round the outside of the Lavant Kink. Even a racer of Simon’s calibre could not hold the multi-Le Mans winner at bay and, with just four minutes left and the cars racing into darkness. Tom took the lead, overtaking again at Lavant. As Simon was to remark, coming second to Tom Kristensen can be no bad thing.
(Ends)
Editor’s Notes
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