Not quite the weekend we were hoping for at the Silverstone 500, but one that leaves us hugely optimistic about the rounds to come.
A fantastic start off the line by Nick Halstead saw him gaining places in the opening corners, but disaster struck when contact with a GT4 in the opening lap forced the McLaren into limp mode. An electrical reset whilst on track got the car running again, but resulted in us falling to 29th, a lap behind the race leaders.
Nick then produced an outstanding opening stint, setting his fastest laps to catch the field, and work his way through to 16th. Once again demonstrating that he’s one of fastest Am’s in British GT this year . The remaining 2 hours of the race saw Nick and Jamie battling up through the pack with strong race pace and clean, quick pit stops, to cross the line seventh in GT3 Pro-Am.
The McLaren’s seventh-place finish actually netted Nick and Jamie fourth-place points in Pro-Am as three of the cars that finished ahead of them were guest entrants and therefore not eligible to score. They are currently sitting provisionally fifth in the Pro-Am Drivers’ standings - just 10 points from the lead.
Nick Halstead said: “This is the definition of a mixed weekend. We were chasing the set-up all day on Saturday, but the team made some big changes to the front end overnight and the car was absolutely mega in the race. I was hit on the first lap by a GT4 car, stopped and lost so much time re-setting the car that we were out of it almost before we’d started. But we had the quickest car of anyone through most of my stint and I swear without the contact, I could have been up towards the top five or six overall by the time of the first pitstop. If we can get the car working like that from the get-go at Donington, we’ll be big contenders.”
Jamie Stanley said: “We could have had an amazing result today, but the reality is that after Nick was hit on the first lap and we had a couple of electrical issues, we finished and we banked solid points from a race that you could view as pretty nightmarish otherwise. Silverstone was rubbish for us last year with the GT4 car too, but we soldiered on, scored a handful of points and came back to take the title fight to the final lap of the season, so there’s every reason to be optimistic for the rest of the year given the pace we’ve shown today.”
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