Another Season of Historic Success for Bryant

In addition to finishing a stunning ninth in class on his Le Mans 24 hours debut in 2016, Olly Bryant also enjoyed another stellar season of success in historic racing.

The season started well with an outright win at the Goodwood 74th Members’ Meeting in March. Olly triumphed alongside father Grahame in the ex-Think Automotive Simoniz Chevrolet Camaro in the Gerry Marshall Trophy Race. He also claimed pole position on the car’s debut outing since a total restoration. Driving Lash McCall’s 1965 Lola T70 Spyder Olly also claimed P3 in the shortened Bruce McLaren Trophy race. Disappointed came in the Alan Mann Trophy race sharing a Ford GT40 with Phil Keen, when Keen had to retire the car with ailing oil pressure whilst challenging for the lead in the closing minutes.

More success came at the Donington Historic Festival in early May with a podium in the 1000km race in the Lola T70 Mk3b driving solo for 3 hours, pace was hampered by a lose plug lead which was rectified at the first pit stop, but in the end Olly had to settle with P3 after an enduring drive. The following day Olly & Grahame won together in the family Cobra GPG 4C also setting fastest lap. This was a deserved result after finishing a tough P2 in 2014 & 2015. Driving solo on a very wet circuit Olly won the class in the Lotus XV in the Stirling Moss Trophy race.

A week later, Olly was at Spa sharing the Historika 1964 Porsche 901 to P2 in class in the fantastically organised CER 60’s Endurance race.

After the chaos of Le Mans in June Olly returned to historic racing at the Silverstone Classic for the first time since 2013. The weekend started well with class pole positions in the Lotus XV and the Chevy Camaro. This was followed up with P3 in the Cobra for the Masters GT race and P5 in the Lola T70. The first race featured a stunning battle for the overall lead in the Lotus XV before handing over to Grahame to finish P5 overall and win the class with fastest overall race lap. Driving solo on Saturday evening Olly pushed as hard as possible and led for most of the race, unfortunately to be caught with a few laps to go by the much more effective Daytona Cobra of Simon Hadfield. Aboard the T70 Olly finished 2nd overall behind the much faster and later Matra of Rob Hall exactly 4 years since Olly last raced and won in the T70 at the SIlverstone Classic sharing with Andrew Smith.

The Goodwood Revival again brought success for Olly alongside Andrew Smith with a 3rd place finish in the RAC TT Celebration race following a fantastic battle with the similar Cobra of Frank Stippler. Olly also shone in the wet qualifying session posting the fastest Cobra time by some margin ending the session P2 behind the rapid double TT winning E type of Ward & Shedden. This made up for Friday evening’s disappointment in the Kinrara Trophy "into the dusk race" where alongside Phil Keen, Olly was running a stunning P3 driving a 1963 E Type Jaguar before being punted into the tyres 15 minutes into the race. Fortunately car and driver emerged basically unscathed. A stunning P2 in qualifying in the Lotus XV turned into P4 in the race as the Lotus was simply out-gunned by the more powerful Listers and Jaguars.

The following week, Olly returned to the Spa 6 hours, a meeting which has previously offered so many racing successes including most recently class podiums in the Spa 24 hours in 2014 & 2015 driving the Ecurie Ecosse BMW Z4.

Olly was driving a GT40 in the Spa 6 hour race and planted the car firmly on the front row with a decent lap at night with only the front spotlights working. Unfortunately 75 minutes into the race the car suffered a brake failure and Olly was lucky to avoid major incident as he spun the car backwards into the tyres at La Source avoiding all the expensive machinery he flew past.

A class pole and win in the Camaro sharing with Grahame was a special moment. But the real highlights of the weekend was a win from pole position driving the Lola T70 after a challenging race on a drying circuit with hard fought battled for the duration of the race. Even more special was securing pole position in the Cobra and following this up with a 6th outright Spa win for GPG 4C after a fantastic battle with the faster Daytona Coupe of Hart father and son.

The season finished with a visit to the inaugural Sebring Classic 12 hour. Class poles and wins in the 1965 Mustang GT350 and 2006 Dodge Charger Nascar were the highlight of the weekend. The classic 12 hour was split into 4 x 45 minute endurance races. Olly claimed class pole in the 1967 Chevy Camaro he was sharing with father Grahame. 1 class win and 1 2nd in class alongside 2 x DNFs meant an end result of 4th come Sunday. More was hoped for, but with a broken upright in race 2 and an engine issue in race 4, there was little more they could do.

Olly’s 2017 racing season kicks off at the Goodwood 75th Members’ Meeting on the 18th-19th March.