Team change leads to Silverstone podium
THE Hughes/Speedworks Motorsport squad were on ‘home soil’ for their latest endurance outing as they tackled the Dunlop 24 Hours at Silverstone, finishing the round-the-clock contest a fine third place in class.
The Stockport-based team fielded an altered line-up from the one that raced at Mugello in March, as Hughes Safety Showers boss Tony Hughes joined the ‘sister’ Aston Martin of John Gilbert, Ollie Hancock and Devon Modell.
The 24 Hours at Silverstone was making its comeback after a two-year layoff, and featured cars as varied as a Ginetta Le Mans Prototype to a Ford Fiesta. Run on Silverstone’s full ‘Grand Prix’ layout, drivers would be treading in the same footsteps as Formula stars such as Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button.
As expected it was the Ginetta LMP3, with a line-up including Sir Chris Hoy, that took overall Pole Position in qualifying, whilst the Speedworks Aston was embroiled in its own class fight for position on the twentynine car grid. The team sat pretty, second in class, until the very last lap of the hour long session. The BMW GTR of Rollcentre Racing pipping them to second place by just a tenth of a second.
With Devon at the wheel for the start, the Aston ran as high as first in class early on, in what was the race’s largest and most closely fought class, with better to come as the team would run as high as third place overall during the early hours of the morning.
The race wouldn’t run without complications, despite the car running faultlessly. As with most endurance races, contact with other cars isn’t unheard of, and the Aston had a few moments of its own, the most significant of which involved the car’s owner John Gilbert.
Contact with another car as Gilbert entered the pits led to a long delay as the team repaired suspension damage sustained in the accident.
By mid morning the race was being led outright by the similar Aston Martin Vantage of Beechdean AMR (Aston Martin Racing), with the Speedworks Aston back to third in class they would spend the rest of the race chasing down the Lotus Evora of Cor Euser Racing but the gap proved to be too much. They did however, claim fourth place overall in the process.
Incidentally, third place meant that the Team’s Aston Martin has a 100 per cent record of reaching the podium since they starting competing with it at the Dubai 24hr in January.
“It was a fantastic experience racing the Aston Martin with John and I’d like to thank him for the opportunity” said Hughes. “I really have enjoyed driving it and it’s great that we could make it on to the podium here at our home race.
“We’ll be getting both cars ready to go to Holland next, so I’m looking forward to getting back behind the wheel of my Ginetta, and hopefully get some more points on the board in the 24H Series.”
The team’s trip to Holland for the 12H Zandvoort takes place on the 29-30 May.