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Nicholas Mee Racing secures victory in inaugural Aston Martin challenge

Nicholas Mee Racing’s regular drivers Christiaen Van Lanschot and Karsten Le Blanc, along with guest driver Sarah Bennett-Baggs, finished the Britcar 500 6-hour race at Silverstone on 3rd October in a fine 15th position overall and 2nd of the Aston Martin Challenge contenders. Driving the team’s Aston Martin Vantage V8 GT4, this fine placing confirmed NMR’s first place in the inaugural ’09 Aston Martin Challenge series.

Sarah Bennett-Baggs is an experienced racer who has had enjoyed a successful career behind the wheel of a variety of cars, most recently an Aston Martin N24.

Held on Silverstone’s Grand Prix circuit, this particular event in the Britcar diary was previously the Silverstone 24-hour, but the race was shortened this year due to economic uncertainties.

Friday saw three hours of qualifying – one hour in daytime with the remaining two held as night-time qualifying sessions. During qualifying all three NMR drivers showed that darkness wouldn’t slow them by closely matching their daylight lap times, with Karsten Le Blanc setting an excellent time of 2:08.7, just 1.5 secs off Stuart Hall’s pace. NMR secured a satisfactory 27th place on the grid and was 2nd of the Aston Martin Challenge cars behind the Vantage Racing entry co-driven by Stuart Hall, a works Aston Martin LMP1 driver.

Following Saturday’s 1-hour grid walkabout for team guests and spectators, the track was cleared for the 4pm start. Christiaen took the start but following a clean getaway he suffered a spin on the opening lap while bringing the GT4’s slick tyres up to full operating temperature. Some fine driving saw him claw his way back to a mid-field position, before handing over to Sarah after a 2-hour stint.

Sarah immediately demonstrated that she needed little time to become accustomed to a new car and team by posting some excellent lap times, and so made further progress toward the front of the field. As darkness began to fall so did the rain, and so Team Manager Craig Dawson brought the car in for treaded tyres and, fortuitously, another 50 litres of fuel. With the correct tyres Sarah became the fastest driver on the circuit for a while and made excellent progress on her immediate competitors. Half way through her stint, the safety car was on track for a lengthy period while marshals cleared an oil spill and beached cars at the Luffield corner.

At 8.20pm Sarah handed over to Karsten Le Blanc for the last sector of the race. With the car now fuelled to the finish, he set about reeling in the Vantage Racing team’s Stuart Hall. Karsten drove superbly on a drying track with worn rain tyres but at the 10pm chequered flag the team settled for 2nd place in the AM Challenge and a very credible 15th overall (out of 43 starters).

This 2nd place confirmed NMR's victory in the 2009 Aston Martin V8 Vantage GT4/N24 Challenge – a series which saw NMR start the season with a hat-trick of firsts and go on to finish fourout of the five long-distance endurance races entered thus far.

Having popped the corks on several bottles of champagne in NMR’s hospitality awning, Team Principal Nicholas Mee said, “I’m incredibly proud of what the team has done this season. We’ve achieved exactly what we set out to achieve and I’d like to thank all our drivers, commercial partners, Team Manager Craig Dawson and, by no means least, the hard-working NMR pit crew – the best in pit lane”.