Podium for Jake racing at Spa for the first time.
Copyright Jakob Ebrey
Racing at the spectacular Spa-Francorchamps circuit, over five miles of demanding sweeps in the Belgian Ardennes forest, AmD Tuning's Graham Coomes and Jake Hill showed excellent pace in their Porsche 997 in practice ahead of round five of the Avon Tyres British GT Championship.
Frustratingly a technical problem meant that the car was unable to complete any laps in qualifying, forcing them to start the two-hour race from the very back of the field.
From the outset Graham using his prior knowledge of the circuit, was on form, slicing past car after car in his 50 minute stint, working his way up to a remarkable fourth place before f the Ginetta G55 in 3rd had engine failure, dropping a huge amount of oil just ahead of Coomes, causing him to skate off the circuit and narrowly miss the Armco at the fast Pif-Paf corner, dropping the AmD car to ninth in class in the process.....
Shortly afterwards the team called Graham in to re-fuel and hand over to Jake, the team and Graham timing things perfectly judging the stop so well that the # 49 Porsche with Jake now on board, exited the pits in third place!
"That was a crazy stint for me!" smiled Coomes. "The car worked really well and I was able to work myself through the pack nicely before I hit the oil. I had to use all of my experience to keep it out of the wall, so to still be in the race, let alone come out of the pit stop in third is amazing."
Jake set about putting in quick and consistent lap times, despite never having driven at Spa before, his best of 2m38.363 being the fastest lap for much of the race, only being eclipsed late on. In sweltering conditions the 21-year old BRDC Rising Star put in a faultless drive, the team scoring their first podium of 2015.
"Last week I raced in the Porsche Supercup at the British Grand Prix, this week we have taken a podium at Spa-Francorchamps on my and the team's first time here - two Grand Prix circuits in less than a week - and both incredible experiences. I can't thank the team enough for their hard work this weekend and to our sponsors - AmD, Sportif Motor Group, Borderland Fencing, Fujifilm, JEP Photography, Octane, Zynth and everyone else who has helped.
Standing on the podium with Graham at Spa in the sunshine with the team rewarded for their efforts, we couldn't be happier"
Next British GT race is on the Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit on 1st & 2nd August.
Frustratingly a technical problem meant that the car was unable to complete any laps in qualifying, forcing them to start the two-hour race from the very back of the field.
From the outset Graham using his prior knowledge of the circuit, was on form, slicing past car after car in his 50 minute stint, working his way up to a remarkable fourth place before f the Ginetta G55 in 3rd had engine failure, dropping a huge amount of oil just ahead of Coomes, causing him to skate off the circuit and narrowly miss the Armco at the fast Pif-Paf corner, dropping the AmD car to ninth in class in the process.....
Shortly afterwards the team called Graham in to re-fuel and hand over to Jake, the team and Graham timing things perfectly judging the stop so well that the # 49 Porsche with Jake now on board, exited the pits in third place!
"That was a crazy stint for me!" smiled Coomes. "The car worked really well and I was able to work myself through the pack nicely before I hit the oil. I had to use all of my experience to keep it out of the wall, so to still be in the race, let alone come out of the pit stop in third is amazing."
Jake set about putting in quick and consistent lap times, despite never having driven at Spa before, his best of 2m38.363 being the fastest lap for much of the race, only being eclipsed late on. In sweltering conditions the 21-year old BRDC Rising Star put in a faultless drive, the team scoring their first podium of 2015.
"Last week I raced in the Porsche Supercup at the British Grand Prix, this week we have taken a podium at Spa-Francorchamps on my and the team's first time here - two Grand Prix circuits in less than a week - and both incredible experiences. I can't thank the team enough for their hard work this weekend and to our sponsors - AmD, Sportif Motor Group, Borderland Fencing, Fujifilm, JEP Photography, Octane, Zynth and everyone else who has helped.
Standing on the podium with Graham at Spa in the sunshine with the team rewarded for their efforts, we couldn't be happier"
Next British GT race is on the Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit on 1st & 2nd August.