Race 1: Zielonka puts polish on Barcelona silverware
A sun-blessed Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya was the perfect place to start our season, in contrast to most of the early season testing at damp and cold UK circuits.
A stunning start for both Chris Preen in the turbocharged Radical SR10 and Chris Hoy in the supercharged Revolution 500SC saw them both jump the invitation class LMP3 cars to lead lap one.
Jacek Zielonka made good use of his softer compound Goodyear tyres to jump into third place in his SR10, demoting the LMP3 cars a further place later in the lap. Revolution Trophy pole-sitter Richard Morris lost some ground on lap one in his 500SC, but looked well-placed to stage one of his trademark comeback drives.
Preen, a winner in Sports Prototype Cup’s inaugural season in 2019, looked assured at the front, building a three second lead over Olympian Hoy after five laps. Zielonka was now in Hoy’s slipstream, with Morris and Joaquim Penteado (Revolution 427) completing the top five Cup contenders.
Jim Booth (SR10) and Nino La Rosa (500SC) ran solidly in the top ten overall. Booth’s performance was particularly noteworthy, just a day after his car caught fire in free practice. A sterling effort from the Valour team had the American back on track very quickly.
When the pit window opened after 15 minutes of the 40 min race, it was Morris who stopped first, intending to hand over to rapid youngster, Milan de Laet, However, the team spotted a fluid leak 500SC at the stop, meaning the Belgian would have to wait until race two to make his Sports Prototype Cup racing debut.
Once the stops were over, it was Ben Stone (replacing Preen) under pressure from solo-driver Zielonka. With ten minutes to go, just 0.3 sec separated the SR10 pair at the front. The race was decided on pit lane speeding penalties, meaning the Pole took overall victory, as well as Radical Trophy honours. Roger Green, sharing with Hoy, took Revolution Trophy victory from the impressively consistent Penteado.
Race 1 Podium:
Radical Trophy and Open class: 1st Jacek Zielonka, 2nd Chris Preen/Ben Stone 3rd Jim Booth
Revolution Trophy: 1st Chris Hoy/Roger Green, 2nd Joaquim Penteado 3rd Nino La Rosa
Race 2: Preen/Stone fend off De Laet charge
After a closely fought race one, the two-driver entries swapped starting duties, meaning that De Laet should have taken pole, from Stone, Zielonka and Green. Despite a tremendous team effort from the Revolution crew to repair the fluid leak, De Laet missed the start countdown by a few seconds, meaning he had to start from the pitlane.
Stone repeated his team-mate’s race one sensational start to jump the LMP3 cars in the Valour Radical SR10, with Zielonka and Green chasing hard.By lap three, De Laet was already up to 10th overall, matching the leader’s pace.
By lap five, Stone had pulled out a five second gap from Zielonka, with Green building a comfortable gap to Booth, who succumbed to the flying De Laet later in the lap. It only took another lap for De Laet to pass Green’s sister Revolution 500SC, bringing him to within 20 seconds of the lead.
In the leading trio, Stone pitted first to hand over to Preen, with solo-driver Zielonka and De Laet (handing back to Morris) diving into the pit-lane a lap later.
With the stops completed, Preen led Zielonka by just 1.5 seconds, with Morris a further 15 seconds back.
With just eight minutes left, Preen and Zielonka were nose to tail and a grandstand finish was on the cards, until drama struck. A small fire, quickly extinguished, ended the Pole’s charge. Preen was able to reel off the laps to take an accomplished victory, with Morris securing the Revolution Trophy win.
Jim Booth was another to suffer a late retirement, pitting his SR10 in similarly spectacular style to Zielonka, but was still classified as a finisher.
Race 2 Podium:
Radical Trophy and Open class: 1st Chris Preen/Ben Stone 2nd Jim Booth 3rd Jacek Zielonka
Revolution Trophy: 1st Milan De Laet/Richard Morris 2nd Chris Hoy/Roger Green, 3rd Joaquim Penteado
The Cup moves to the UK for its next four rounds at Silverstone Grand Prix circuit and Donington Park on 20th May and 19th June respectively. These mid-year dates have been chosen to allow prototype racers to compete in on top British circuits when the weather should be closer to the temperatures enjoyed in Barcelona! Entries are now open, with the Open class catering for a wider range of prototypes, such as Praga, CN, LMP3, Ligier or other models of comparable performance.