BGTC: Freke/Smed Knockhill summary

Freke/Smed get double Podium at Knockhill

Kidderminster's Nathan Freke was competing in the Avon Tyres British GT Championship races last weekend at the Scottish circuit of Knockhill, with his Century Motorsport team. His co-driver was Danish driver Vibe Smed, who was still learning the car and circuit.

Smed commented at the beginning of the weekend "I am used to left hand drive cars like the Porsche I drove last year, so moving, for the first time, to right hand drive in the British built Ginetta G50 G4 car was a challenge."

It had been a hectic week for the Century Motorsport team after only getting the upgrade kit for the Ginetta G50 at the last minute so it was a hectic week leading up to the event with only just getting the car ready in time!

The two 1 hour free practice sessions went well with the car setup being spot on from the off I was happy to let Smed have most of the track time as she had never driven the circuit before. We were both happy after testing that the car was good and that Vibe could find some more time before qualifying as she got to know the track better.

After qualifying the car finished 5th in class in Qualifying 1 (with Smed driving) and 1st in class in Qualifying 2 (with Freke driving). The pole in class was with Freke's last lap and was just 1/10th of a second quicker. As Freke commented "My qualifying was good with setting the pole time at 53.9, the only G4 car to break into the 53's so I was looking forward to the races"

With Smed starting the first race in 5th Freke would have some work to do and after a great first stint she brought the car home safe and sound and passed over to Freke in 3rd place - I managed to close the gap from 35seconds to 7 over the 30minutes He had in the car but just ran out of time at the end. As Freke commented "It was great to get on the podium for the first time this year though!"

After the rolling start Freke had a battle on the opening lap with the KTM XBow of local Scottish racer Rory Butcher but then managed to pull a huge lead of 17.5 seconds, the car felt perfect and he bettered his pole time with a fastest lap of 53.8 second. With a slow pit stop they lost the lead but another sold drive from Smed saw the car brought home in 3rd place for the 2nd podium of the weekend.

As Freke said after the race "To top it off we set fastest lap in both races and got a new G4 class lap record".

"We're both looking forward to the next round and Smed is coming over for a test before hand to try and get some more seat time and gain more confidence in the Ginetta G50 car so we can move forward and look to go 2steps higher in the next race".

The next British GT race will be at the Rockingham Motor Speedway in mid July.

-source: widerviewphoto.co.uk