RACE PREVIEW
red machine and the striking Gunston-liveried example of Jamie Thwaites and his preparer Dean Forward . Thwaites and Forward made their series debut in the car earlier in the year at Donington and immediately hit the podium . Usually on his own in the closed-top B16 , Le Mans veteran John Sheldon will now have a B16 fight on his hands with Michael Birch and Gareth Burnett . Meanwhile , additional class variety is added by the remarkable Taydec Mk3 brought from America by father and son Harindra and Timothy De Silva .
The Bonnier class is for 2-litre cars from ’ 66 to ’ 69 and is usually monopolised by the Chevron B8 . When driven with gusto , these nippy coupés are able to mix it with some of the 2-litre prototypes , and the Julian Thomas / Calum Lockie and Christian Pittard / Darren Burke examples are definitely capable of that . In fact , Thomas and Lockie nearly stole overall victory at the Red Bull Ring . However , the B8 ’ s class monopoly will be lifted at Silverstone by the arrival of Georg Kjallgren ’ s Daren Mk2 and Simon and Dominik Jackson in the Lenham P70 . Both are rare cars , so be sure to have a close look in the paddock .
Friday 18:30 - 19:00 RACE 10 Saturday 18:10 - 19:00
The pre-66 era is represented by the cars from the Hulme class . These usually share the big American propulsion with the prototypes from the Rodriguez class and will be mainly open-top , apart from the Ford GT40 . This year ’ s regulars – Chris Jolly and Steve Farthing in their Ford-powered Cooper Monaco T61M and John Spiers and Nigel Greensall in their Chevypowered McLaren M1B – are joined at Silverstone by Mark Shaw ’ s M1A , who took pole on his first outing at the Red Bull Ring before failing to complete the
opening lap – he will surely aim to get further than that at The Classic ! Ewen Sergison and Steve Seaman will each bring a Mk2 version of the T70 , and it ’ s hard to find any visual similarities with the later Mk3B coupé , even though they share the same underpinnings . Finally , Americans Fred Wakeman and Jason Wright bring along a GT40 each , resulting in the most varied class of the field .
The Yokohama Trophy will be punctuated by a mandatory pitstop during a ten-minute pit window around the halfway point of the race . About half of the cars have solo drivers , but the others will be shared between two drivers swapping places during their mandatory stops . Most of the relief drivers will be the quicker of their pairing , so a shake-up of the order in the second part of the race is almost a given . Likely safety-car periods bunching up the field will only add more spice to the action .
MATTIJS DIEPRAAM
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