It has been a long and tough weekend in Silverstone for the first round of the FIA GT Championship. It has been a less than smooth weekend, but definitely a big learning experience as we faced many challenges throughout the weekend.

With the stellar field of drivers, the qualifying was tight and even with my qualifying time 1 second from 1st position in the GT2 class, it was only enough to put me in 11th position for the start of the race.

The day didn't start as planned as in the morning warm up, an oil seal in the gearbox broke which ended our session after 1 lap. We shrugged off the warm up and prepared for the race. Our focus was to drive without mistake, try to keep our tires in good condition for the long stints, and to make quick and perfect driver changes/pit stops.

My team mate, Marco Holzer and I, knew we would have to drive a strong race in order to make it up the field and we gave it our best effort.

The race didnt start too well as I struggled with the tire grip on the opening stint. We haven't figured out exactly why, but the first set of tires seemed to fall off the pace really quickly making the car very difficult to drive.

The team saw the struggle for pace in the opening stint so we cut the stint short and put Holzer in the car. We were very unlucky because 2 laps after we stopped, the safety car came out. This allowed many of the teams the chance to stop during the yellow flag causing us to lose alot of time. Although was lost time to a few of the top teams, we made a perfect pit stop and managed to move up two positions.

After the race was restarted, Holzer pushed hard and drove a strong stint keeping pace with the cars ahead. After a 40 min stint, he came in for the final pit stop of the race. His strong drive put us in position to make it further up the field as we made a second perfect and quick pitstop. This moved us up another position up to 5th position in the GT2 category.

I pushed hard in my final stint and fought hard to keep our top 5 position. The car was handling much better on the 2nd set of tires which allowed me to push hard and set much better lap times. A Ferrari was behind me pressuring me the entire final stint. I held him at bay and although he put alot of pressure on me, I managed to hold him off... It was only on the final lap that suddenly something went wrong...

My car began surging for fuel. I gave it my all to keep the Ferrari behind, but at the last corner, my car took a big fuel surge slowing my car all the way down and allowing the Ferrari to sneak by before the chequered flag. We finished our first race in 6th position.

Of course, I am not happy to lose a position in the final corner, but it was the first team working with Prospeed team this weekend and everyone gave it their all. It was a strong team effort and to fight for a top 5 position in our first race is quite promising. The team is highly motivated to improve on this and all eyes are aimed at the podium right now. It will not be an easy road getting there, but we will not aim for anything less than race wins and podiums.

My team mates, Richard Westbrook and Emmanuel Collard drove a strong race to win the race in the GT2 category. Both our results combined have given Prospeed Compeition the early lead in the team championship category.

I head back to Hong Kong for 2 days today and then head over to Beijing next weekend for the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia. 2 weeks from now I will be back in Europe in Adria, Italy just outside Venice for the second round of the FIA GT Championship...

More updates to come soon!

Darryl

We took to the track today for the first official free practice in the LKM/A-ha Coffee sponsored #61 Prospeed Porsche GT3 RSR at the Silverstone circuit.

We started the day off going through the car to make sure we were familiar with everything. Marco Holzer and myself spent the morning doing our seat fitting and working out our safety belts etc.. After we got all that organised, we began practicing our driver changes.

Driver changes are a key part of the FIA GT championship as gaining 10 seconds on the track is quite difficult, but losing 10 seconds in the pit stop is extremely easy!

The practice session didn't go as well as we wanted because we had hoped to be quicker...but on the opening few laps where the time had to be set on new tires, I wasn't quite familiar enough with the RSR on the Silverstone circuit and I was unable to set a quick enough time. I made improvements throughout the session but it will take alot of work to improve our position in the standings.

I started the session making a few setup changes, and passed the car off to Marco to finish off the session. He faces a big challenge this wknd as well as it is his first wknd in an RSR and he has a limited time to adapt to the car. We will work hard as a team and hope to close the gap to the leaders as much as we can on our debut weekend of the season in the FIA GT Championship.

Please see the link below as it is a video preview to the FIA GT race this wknd at Silverstone. Enjoy and I'll come back with qualifying updates from tomorrows session.

http://www.fiagt.com/scripts/anarchy_me ... lick=false

It has been a long and tough weekend in Silverstone for the first round of the FIA GT Championship. It has been a less than smooth weekend, but definitely a big learning experience as we faced many challenges throughout the weekend.

With the stellar field of drivers, the qualifying was tight and even with my qualifying time 1 second from 1st position in the GT2 class, it was only enough to put me in 11th position for the start of the race.

The day didn't start as planned as in the morning warm up, an oil seal in the gearbox broke which ended our session after 1 lap. We shrugged off the warm up and prepared for the race. Our focus was to drive without mistake, try to keep our tires in good condition for the long stints, and to make quick and perfect driver changes/pit stops.

My team mate, Marco Holzer and I, knew we would have to drive a strong race in order to make it up the field and we gave it our best effort.

The race didnt start too well as I struggled with the tire grip on the opening stint. We haven't figured out exactly why, but the first set of tires seemed to fall off the pace really quickly making the car very difficult to drive.

The team saw the struggle for pace in the opening stint so we cut the stint short and put Holzer in the car. We were very unlucky because 2 laps after we stopped, the safety car came out. This allowed many of the teams the chance to stop during the yellow flag causing us to lose alot of time. Although we lost time to a few of the top teams, we made a perfect pit stop and still managed to move up two positions into 6th.

After the race was restarted, Holzer pushed hard and drove a strong stint keeping pace with the cars ahead. The top 3 cars which pitted under safety car were able to gain a big advantage so for us, it came down to race for 4th position. After a 40 min stint, he came in for the final pit stop of the race. His strong drive put us in position to make it further up the field as we made a second perfect and quick pitstop. This moved us up another position up to 5th position in the GT2 category.

I pushed hard in my final stint and fought hard to keep our top 5 position. The car was handling much better on the 2nd set of tires which allowed me to drive hard and set much better lap times. A Ferrari was behind me pressuring me the entire final stint to try and take away our 5th position. I held him at bay and although he put alot of pressure on me, I managed to hold him off for 25 min... It was only on the final lap that suddenly something went wrong...

My car began surging for fuel. I gave it my all to keep the Ferrari behind, but at the last corner, my car took a big fuel surge slowing my car all the way down and allowing the Ferrari to sneak by before the chequered flag. We finished our first race in 6th position.

Of course, I am not happy to lose a position in the final corner, but it was the first time working with Prospeed Competition this weekend and everyone gave it their all. It was a strong team effort and to fight for a top 5 position in our first race is quite promising. The team is highly motivated to improve on this and all eyes are aimed at the podium right now. It will not be an easy road getting there, but we will not aim for anything less than race wins and podiums.

My team mates, Richard Westbrook and Emmanuel Collard drove a strong race to win the race in the GT2 category. Both our results combined have given Prospeed Compeition the early lead in the team championship category.

I head back to Hong Kong for 2 days today and then head over to Beijing next weekend for the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia. 2 weeks from now I will be back in Europe in Adria, Italy just outside Venice for the second round of the FIA GT Championship...I can't wait!

More updates to come soon!

Darryl

My team in the FIA GT Championship, Prospeed Competition announced Marco Holzer of Germany as my team mate for the championship season. He currently drives as a Porsche Junior driver for Porsche Motorsport. I know him from the past season as we competed against each other in the Porsche Supercup, but now we team up to fight against some of the best GT drivers in the world..

I'm delighted to have him as a team mate as he's quick on the track and a great guy off the track..Our first race of the season is this weekend at Silverstone and we hope to put in a good result to get our campaign underway...

We are both rookies to this championship so we will have a uphill road to climb, but it is fantatstic that we have experienced team mates in the #60 Prospeed car such as Richard Westbrook and Emmanuel Collard so they can give us advice and guidance as we fight for Porsche in our GT3 RSR.

Here's a link to Marco's website...

http://www.marco-holzer.de/

Hello everyone! It has been a long off season and yes, i've been a bit behind on my blogging!! Well, i'm back for the season and it will be a busy season ahead!

Actually, the off-season has been a bit hectic as well as I have been testing in both Asia and Europe. I had the opportunity to test in both GT1 and GT2 cars over the winter. Some of the circuits were completely new to me such as Paul Ricard in the South of France and also the new Portimao circuit in the Algarve, Portugal.

Today, my sponsors and I have officially announced that I will be competing the full championship in the FIA GT Championship in the GT2 category. It is extremely exciting as I will be competing for Prospeed Competition, the official Porsche factory supported team. We will be driving in Porsche GT3 RSR's and we will go head to head with other makes with the main competitor being Ferrari.

The news section of my website has alot more details about the project so you can click there for the official press release.

The FIA GT will consist of 8 rounds, 7 of which will be 2 hour races and 1 which will be the 24 hours of Spa in Belgium. In addition, Team Jebsen and I have partnered up again to defend our championship title in the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia which will have 12 rounds all around Asia.

Last week I already competed the first two rounds of the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia. It was a support race for Formula 1 at the Shanghai Grand Prix. Shanghai has not been kind to me in the past couple seasons. It is the only circuit on the Asian tour in which I have yet to record a victory placing runner-up numerous times. Last year, Shanghai was where my suspension came loose during the race which effectively lost my 20 point lead in the championship, so it would only be right if it all goes wrong again to start off my 2009 season.

I was quickest in the first free practice on Friday, but that was the only thing the entire weekend that would put a small smile on my face. After the practice session was over, the team discovered an engine problem which forced us to replace the engine. This was a very standard engine change and was quite simple for the team to do.

We replaced the engine for the qualifying session which took place on Saturday. After only 3 corners, the engine felt a bit strange and came to a halt. I pulled the car off to the side of the track and that ended my qualifying session. This is quite unbelievable as in the past 6 seasons i've raced for Team Jebsen in the PCCA, I've NEVER had any problems with the engine, but this wknd, we had two!!

The team worked as hard as they possibly could between the qualifying and race 1, but there was very minimal time between the sessions and it could not be fixed in time. It was my entire teams nightmare, but I had to sit out the first race of the championship and watch the race on TV.

In round 2 which took place on Sunday, the team fixed the engine and I started the race in last position. I had a blinding start which saw me past 6 cars off the line, but that was short lived because in turn 1, I went to overtake a car and we touched wheels. This gave me a puncture which forced me to pit on the first lap. All my chances at a top 5 were gone and after driving as hard as I could, I was only able to make it back up to 11th position.

Yes, a disastorous start to the season. It will be a very difficult task, but I will just have to race as hard as I can, take as many race wins as possible and hopefully climb my way back up in the championship from a 33 point deficit to the current leader of the championship! There are 10 rounds remaining in the season...


My car ready to race in round 1