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Chris Niarchos and Tim Mullen put in
two great performances in their Ferrari 360 GTC at
Silverstone this weekend and secured the runner-up spot in
the British GT Driver's Championship, making it a clean
sweep of results for Scuderia Ecosse.
RACE ONE
Race One on Saturday was a terrific 'one-two' for Scuderia
Ecosse and victory number 10 for reigning Champions Nathan
Kinch and Andrew Kirkaldy. It was Kinch who started the race
from pole position in car 35, with Chris Niarchos right
behind in third place. Both cars held position at the start
but Niarchos lost out to a charging Mike Jordan during the
first lap. No matter though, Chris followed Jordan for a few
laps then 10 minutes into the race took back his third
place. Both drivers made clean pit-stops and Kirkaldy and
Tim Mullen rejoined the race in first and third places
respectively.
As Mullen began to close down the gap to second, it
transpired that Embassy Racing had been having a spot of
'stopwatch trouble' and missed the pit window for switching
over from Cunningham to Collins, earning themselves a
stop-go penalty. This handed the advantage to Mullen who
took up second place. A few minutes later the Safety Car was
despatched while a pair of Porsches were recovered from the
circuit. Once this work was done there was only enough time
remaining for two flying laps and Kirkaldy and Mullen
brought the Ferraris home for a one-two finish.
RACE TWO
By securing pole position for the final race of the season
Andrew Kirkaldy completed an unprecedented set of results.
He and Nathan Kinch have taken every single GT2 pole
position for the 2005 British GT Championship; thirteen out
of thirteen!
The race itself had a familiar outcome: victory number
eleven for the young Scots! With both Ferraris starting on
the front row of the grid it was always going to be tight
going into the first corner. Both Kirkaldy and Mullen got a
tap going in but it was Mullen who found himself doing a
quick pirouette before driving around to re-join the race.
The spin dropped him to 13th so he would have a busy time
ahead of him. As Kirkaldy pulled away at the front, Mullen
got down to business and was up to fourth place by the 10
minute mark!
The pit stops ran smoothly for the team, Niarchos leaving
the pits with a precautionary set of fresh rubber after the
earlier off. Kinch continued where Kirkaldy left off and
Niarchos set about chasing down Jones' Porsche, passing him
for fourth with just ten minutes to go.
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