A cruel puncture early in the race robbed Rick Parfitt Jnr of the chance of fighting for victory in the penultimate round of the 2014 Avon Tyres British GT Championship at Brands Hatch Grand Prix.
Reigning British GT4 champion Parfitt returned to the scene of a dominant victory twelve months ago hunting for an elusive first class win of the campaign, and confidence was high after carding three podium finishes in the previous four races.
After focusing on finding the best set-up for the Century Motorsport Ginetta G55 GT4 in the two free practice sessions, Parfitt stormed to the top of the timesheets in his fifteen minute qualifying session, a superb lap of 1m 33.869s putting him two tenths of a second quicker than his closest competitor.
That time, added to team-mate Tom Oliphant’s fifth best in his session, put the team up to second in the combined classifications, just 0.068s off class pole. With Parfitt knowing there was more time in the car after hitting traffic on his best lap, they headed into the two-hour race confident of emerging victorious.
The race started well for the RPJ band lead singer as he held second off the start and kept in touch with the leader over the first couple of laps whilst building a gap to the car behind. Just as Parfitt was preparing to mount a challenge for the lead though, a tyre blowout at Paddock Hill Bend on lap three halted his charge.
A lap lost in the pits to replace the disintegrated tyre ended his race win hopes, though Parfitt went on to establish himself as comfortably the quickest GT4 runner on track after his pitstop, posting the fastest lap in the first half of the race. Oliphant eventually brought the car home sixth in class at the flag.
Rick Parfitt Jnr – #42 Ginetta G55 GT4:
“We got a decent set-up on the car on new rubber in practice. We missed pole by just six hundredths of a second, which is a shame, but it proved that we were on the pace.
“The race started absolutely perfectly to plan, we were building a gap and I was happy to sit behind the leader and let him use his tyres, that was our plan from the team and I’d already lined up three possible passing spots where I noticed he was weak.
“Then turning into Paddock Hill Bend, at full throttle at the bottom of the bend under full compression the tyre burst. A completely freak incident that cost us the race.
“After the puncture I just went out and got my head down and drove as fast as I could. It’s nice to be fastest and we were catching, but the gap was unsurmountable. Yet again it’s another weekend where our luck has killed us, but I’ve proved again that I have the pace to win.”