MONDAY 3 AUGUST 2009
DRAMATIC DONINGTON DOWNPOUR DILUTES RACE RESULT
Sometimes you can become a victim of success. That certainly appears to be the way with a lot of GT racing, all around the globe. It's a never ending battle for the championship sanctioning bodies to try to keep the field as even as possible thus ensuring exciting battles and races that draw a crowd.

As the Donington British GT round approached, The Rosso Verde/UBC Ferrari Team were feeling the long arm of parity apon them.
After winning the Snetterton round only to have the car disqualified (Hector Lester was found to be in contrivention of the rules regarding specific fire proof clothing) it was easy to see that the championship could slip away.

However common sense did prevail and after Hector appealed the penalty. The MSA changed their mind, in favour of Hector, fining him 600 pounds and taking away 3 points. This was a far better outcome than disqualifying the entire team.

Consequently, the sucess brought a weight penalty – now up to 45kg. To that add 5kg of camera gear and 7kg to run a cool suit and you're up to 57kg. That equates to between 0.5 an 1.0 second per lap! Not sometime you want especially for the lowest powered car in the field. On top of that, another team had now sorted their 430 Scuderia out and it was flying.

For the first time this year, Allan Simonsen did not top the time sheets in practice. The ballast was taking its toll and since nothing could be done to remove it, the pairing focused on a good race setup, for the years first 2 hour event.

Allan qualified 3rd – also the first time away from the front row – yet only 0.4 sec off his 2008 pole time.

Typical English weather came to lash the Donington circuit just moments before the start. An equaliser? Hector had started and after 50 minutes came in to hand the car to Allan. Five laps prior, a safety car was deployed and that would have been the ideal moment to pit, but it was very touch and go that the Ferrari would manage 75 mins on the fuel.

As luch would have it, a second safety car period was called, after Allan had reeled off a mere 4 laps. That effectively cost the team a lap.

The monsoonal type weather had caused a rash of safety cars following a series of dangerous aquaplaning moments.

What had appeared to be a good race setup quickly evaporated in the wet conditions and it wasn't long before Allan realised that it was impossible to reclaim the lost lap in 35 mins.

Gambling once again, Simnsen pitted for dry tyres and with the track now starting to dry out there was a slim chance. Why not try it? If the track continued to dry then others would need to swap. Another SC could also play back into their hands...
It was, however, not to be. Everyone else stayed on track and the drizzle never really eased up. Allan finished 6th. One consolation was that he did set fastest lap, which helped him on his way to winning the Sunoca Driver Challenge.

Next race for Allan is LMS @ Algarve, Portugal and then back into BGT for Silverstone.

Soon after its LMS at Nurburgring before heading down to Australia for V8 Superc ar testing with Triple 8/Team Vodafone and his teammate, BTCC star James Thompson.