Britcar GT Spa

Sumpter and Slater win at Spa for Paragon Porsche

Mark Sumpter and Adrian Slater were the stars of Spa-Francorchamps over the weekend (26/27 June) when they scored another Britcar GT victory in the Paragon Porsche-entered Porsche 911GT3RSR.  

 In challenging weather conditions at the famous Belgian track, Sumpter and Slater drove superbly through the three-hour race, which ran into the twilight of Saturday evening. Supported by faultless team work by the Paragon squad, they finally won by over a lap against some very strong opposition.

  "We had a really excellent weekend," said Sumpter. "It was one of those weekends when we had to make some difficult decisions on tyres and set-up, but we were always on the right tyres and it all worked for us."

  Slater also paid tribute to the Paragon team. "The whole weekend was great," he said. "We didn’t put a foot wrong between us and the guys did a great job. We were ready for whatever happened with the weather."  

 Sumpter set out for qualifying expecting to be only around the top six, as the field was very strong. However, in high ambient temperatures, he put the Porsche on pole position with his last flying lap. "I really didn’t expect to be on pole," he said.

  Half an hour before the race started, the rain arrived and with no experience of racing the Porsche in the rain, they had to make educated guesses at the set-up needed for the wet track. Sumpter started the race and got away well to lead clearly on the opening lap. But there was soon a long safety car period after a major accident on the opening lap. "The rain really came down while we were behind the safety car and I was aquaplaning on the straight," reported Mark.

  When racing resumed, the Porsche 911GT3 Cup of John Gaw initially coped better with the conditions and moved ahead for a few laps before Sumpter was able to pick up his pace and re-take the lead. Eventually, Sumpter pitted after an hour and three-quarters and handed the car over to Slater for the final hour and a quarter.

  "Mark had the hardest part of the race in the wet and I went out on intermediate tyres. I had no idea what to expect, but the car was superb," said Slater. "As the track dried out it got better and better and then another safety car period allowed the tyres to cool down."

  With the car running faultlessly, Slater took the chequered flag with a lead of more than a lap and they now lead the Britcar GT championship by a handy margin. 

(Images Supplied by P J Cherry)