Few home comforts for Tilley

LEICESTER businessman Grahame Tilley had an up and down weekend in the GT Cup at his home circuit of Donington Park, writes Peter Scherer.

Tilley shared his Nissan Nismo GTR GT3 with Sennan Fielding again because regular co-driver Will Tregurtha was unavailable.

Saturday morning’s qualifying proved hard for Tilley and he qualified sixth overall and fourth in class for the first of the weekend’s four races.

From the start, he retained sixth but lost a place to Richard Chamberlain’s Porsche.

Tilley had dropped down to eighth when Richard Neary’s Mercedes came charging by, recovering from a first corner excursion after leading from lights out.

He had a comfortable gap over Paul Bailey’s McLaren and held station for most of the race until Chamberlain hit trouble with a lap to go, handing seventh place back to Tilley at the flag.

“I struggled with the car, it was very difficult to drive, a lot more than usual right from the start,” said Tilley, right.

“As the race wore on I had to try and adjust to it, but things were fine otherwise.”

It was a fourth row start for the second race of the day and the first two-driver Enduro race of the weekend. It was a particularly good start from Tilley but as he arrived at Redgate for the first time, that’s where the trouble started.

“I just got squeezed after a really good start,” he said.

Tilley was in the middle of a three-car battle, with Ben Dimmack’s Radical to his right and

John Dhillon’s Lamborghini Huracan to his left.

As Dhillon turned in, Tilley was forced into the Radical and ended up in the gravel trap, as did Dhillon.

Having lost a lap, the Triple M crew had the car sorted and back in the race.

“There was no pressure on me so I just enjoyed being out there and driving,” said Tilley.

He pitted on lap 15 to hand to Fielding, “and we got a penalty too as our stop was short, so not our day really,” Tilley added.

They still made it home in the top 20 however, with Fielding taking the flag 19th overall and fifth in class.

There was a shower before Sunday morning’s qualifying session, but in parts the track was already drying when the session started.

“It was going well and I could see part of the track by Schwantz Curve was drying,” said Tilley.

“I changed the settings to full power and thought I could go faster. Then I spun at the Old Hairpin and hit the tyre wall.”

Most of the damage was cosmetic, but extensive down one side.

The team had hoped to miss the sprint race but be ready for the final Enduro, which sadly proved not to be.

The team now have just two weeks before the final rounds of the Championship at Snetterton.