TF Sport once again climbed the GT Cup winners’ rostrum on two occasions at Corby’s Rockingham Motor Speedway last weekend (23-24 May), Paul Bailey and Andy Schulz overcoming a 30-second success penalty to finish runner-up in the weekend’s opening race.
Having stood on the podium in every race so far this season, Bailey and Schulz once again dominated proceedings in free practice and qualifying, topping the timesheets behind the wheel of their TF Sport-prepared Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3, despite the circuit not playing to the car’s strengths.
Bailey was first to take the reins and lined-up on a familiar spot on the front row and held the initiative as the 23-car field charged towards the tight Turn 2 chicane for the first time.
The Ferrari 458 GT3 of Darren Nelson snapped at Bailey’s heels, but the Rutland racer held his nerve to keep his rival at bay lap-after-lap, before a slight wobble on the tenth tour saw Nelson slip by and into the lead.
However, with a mandatory 30-second stop-go success penalty applied for for victories at Donington Park and Brands Hatch, it was an age before the TF Sport Aston Martin was released from its pit stop and Schulz subsequently re-joined the fray in fifth position.
Nevertheless, Schulz bided his time and, following a Safety Car intervention, began scything his way through the field up to second position, which he would hold to the chequered flag.
Bailey, who was suffering from engine-related issues, set the fourth quickest time in mixed weather conditions during Sunday (24 May) morning’s 30-minute qualifying session for the weekend’s final two sprint races.
A good start from the second row saw Bailey become entangled in a four-way battle for the lead into the first corner and the Rutland-based racer was soon in a podium position and threatening for yet another race victory.
Midway through the 16-lap contest, the rain once again began to fall and, as drivers tiptoed around the 1.94mile circuit on slick tyres, Bailey reduced a 17-second gap to leader Nelson in just a handful of laps, before crossing the line in second position, narrowly missing out on a fifth race win this season.
In the weekend’s third and final race, Bailey once again started from the second row in third position and was right up behind polesitter Nelson at the start, almost pushing him along.
While expecting his V12 engine’s life to come to an abrupt end during the race, Bailey continued to push on and hound the leaders, before entering a tense battle with the Ferrari 458 GTC of Stanley for second position that lasted several laps.
Bailey would eventually bring his Aston Martin home in fourth position and second in the GTO category to retain his and Schulz’s lead atop of the overall Drivers’ standings.
“We had an amazing weekend and TF Sport has done a great job in preparing the car, as usual,” said Bailey. “We weren’t able to let the competition know, but we were very much down on power, so the engine has gone back to Aston Martin. We don’t know what the problem was, so in reality, with the engine being down on power, we did well to qualify on pole for the opening race and to follow it up with a fantastic performance. I believe we could have won the race, but the 30-second success penalty hindered us.
“I was over the moon on Sunday, as when the rain fell, I was 17 seconds down on the leading Ferrari and I was able to recover that to finish just one second behind. I am confident that had we had one more lap we would have put on a great scrap. We have a fantastic weekend, once again ending it with three P2s in class, two of which were runner-up finishes overall. We are still leading the championship and I’m now really looking forward to Silverstone.”
In the team’s second Aston Martin, AllFloors Express Director, Martin Johnston, continued to go from strength-to-strength, bettering his previous best lap times around Rockingham by several seconds.
Johnston’s confidence in both car and team continued to grow and this showed on track when he took the battle to several of his class rivals.
“It was a really positive weekend for me and I ticked every box,” said Johnston. “I unfortunately had a power steering pump failure during the second race when I was battling with some of my class rivals, which spat fluid all over my rear tyres. Any other team would have given up on fixing the problem, but not TF Sport. I cannot thank the team enough.”
For more information on TF Sport and its racing activities, visit the official www.tfsport.co.uk website, ‘like’ the team’s Facebook page of follow @OfficialTFSport on Twitter.