Throughout this season we'll be highlighting individual teams in the 2007 Avon British GT Championship and ahead of rounds 3 and 4 at Donington Park, this weekend it's the turn of Barwell Motorsport and its troop of DBRS9s.
Barwell Motorsport have been racing competitively for 30 years in various forms, but turned professional in 1990 running a Mazda MX-5 in the self titled Cup series, and even ran a car for Donny Osmand. They competed in various disciplines throughout the 90's, notching up over 50 race victories and 3 championships. They then upped a gear in 1999 when they moved into their current premises in Bookham, Surrey and had the facilities to compete in BTCC Production Class. In 2000 and 2001 they gained 18 wins and two championship runner-up spots. The next years were very successful racing BTCC Touring and Production Class before switching to Britcar series in 2004. In 2005 the team ran across multiple championships: competing in Formula BMW (which they had started in 2004), SEAT Cupra Cup and Britcar. Last year they were the inugural British GT3 Champions and also took part in the FIA GT3 championship both with the DBRS9.
The Barwell runners and riders for this season are:
Car number one: Paul Drayson and Jonny Cocker
Car number two: Tom Alexander and Michael Bentwood
Car number three: Guy Harrington and Ben De Zille Butler
Although all of Barwell's Aston Martins are green, for one of the cars this is more than just the colour. Out of the three DBRS9s the Barwell team will be running, the Drayson's car will be converted to run on Bio Ethanol-fuel. This is a first for both Aston Martin and the British GT Championship and Barwell Motorsport have become a campaign partner with the Energy Efficient Motorsport (EEMS) body.
The Bio Ethanol-fuelled engines can produce the same amount of horsepower as a conventional petrol engine, but to achieve this the fuel injector, fuel line and fuel pump delivery capacity has to be increased to account for the less energy produced by the petrol. As this results in more fuel being used the team are very conscious of developing the engine to be as efficient as possible.
The first outing of the season at Oulton Park certainly proved that the Bio Ethanol-fuelled car can do the business by firstly putting the Bio Ethanol run car on pole position, the first ever for an eco-fuelled car. The rest of the cars had equal success with the team securing two runner-up spots and all the cars in the points for both races.
Barwell will also be hosting the second PH fan forum this weekend. Twenty lucky PHers will be asking the team whatever they choose in a pit garage session on Sunday, and they will also be getting free race day tickets too.
Keep an eye out for similar opportunities throughout the season.