World Sportscar Masters Win for Olly Bryant!

Qualifying
Olly was racing a 1969 Lola T70 Mk3b and claimed repeated his 2009 perdormance of claiming pole position with a 1m31.455s lap, just over 0.9s quicker than the later Abarth PA01 of Richard Evans.

Race 1
Olly made a good start and lead as the pack reached paddock hill bend for the first time. On the inside of the track, Olly was forced to take the tighter (and slower) line, and the more nimble Abarth drove around the outside to take the lead. Olly got on the power early to get a good run up the hill and got very sideways struggling for grip on the cold tyres and conceded 2nd to Roger Wills in his Mclaren M1C. Olly retook the position around the outside into Hawthorns the following lap and set off to chase the rapid Abarth. Olly drove flat out for the half hour race distance, trading fastest laps with the Abarth but was unable to recover the ground lost in the early laps and had to settle for 2nd overall, but first in class. Such was the pace of the leading 2 cars, that Olly finished over a minute in front of the next Lola T70 in his class.

Race 2
Race 2 starts positions were determined by the finishing positions from race 1. Olly made a fantastic start from the outside of the front row and pressured Richard Evans into paddock. The Abarth spun into retirement on the way down the hill with a broken gear stick. Olly was not aware that the Abarth was out of the race for good, and got his head down to pull out a margin incase the nimble Abarth was to come charging back through the order. Olly pressed on and lapped quickly and consistently, monitoring the gap being signaled by the car’s preparer on the pit wall. Olly crossed the line in first place with a 25 second lead after half an hour of racing.

The results of the two races were combined and Olly was the winner by 1m40s from Steve Tandy’s continuation Lola T70 in second place, ahead of Chris Beighton and Jon Finnemore’s Lola T70 in third.

Masters Gentlemen Drivers- over 3 litre cars
The AC Cobra that Olly was sharing with his father Grahame, was suffering from an engine problem and was down on power. Olly managed to drive around this problem in qualifying, by braking late and carrying speed through the corners, but the car was hopelessly slow on the straights. Even so, Olly posted a 1m45.411s lap to line the car up 2nd on the grid just 0.184s slower than the AC Cobra driven by Simon Hadfield.

Unfortunately, the engine was too sick to complete the race so the car was retired early on to prevent further damage.