Ford Ace De Zille Unlucky to Miss Out on Season-Ending Podium

Dunlop MSA Formula Ford Championship of Great Britain front-runner Dan De Zille produced three tremendous race performances during the season finale at Silverstone Grand Prix Circuit over the weekend, 8th/9th October, to wrap-up the campaign sixth in the driver standings.

Qualifying went well for the Jerseyman with the sixth fastest time, just 0.3 seconds shy of pole position, and the first of the weekend’s races on Saturday proved to be classic Formula Ford at its very best with overtaking at almost every corner.

Holding sixth early on, Dan gradually worked his way towards the front and by lap seven he was into second place and challenging JTR team-mate Geoff Uhrhane for the lead. Sandwiched between Uhrhane and Antti Burri, into the final lap Dan still held second but at Stowe he was mugged by Buri and Jeroen Slaghekke – although he did manage to re-take third at Brooklands.

Prior to Sunday’s action though, officials decided to remove Dan from the race one classification after declaring he took third place while yellow flags were being displayed. Disappointed, he was nonetheless phlegmatic: “I passed under yellow flags, I accept that and hold my hands up”, said the 24-year-old, “It’s a shame to lose the podium, it was a good race even though I did make mistakes.”

In race two, Dan and Finnish driver Buri were embroiled in a tremendous fight over fifth. Making a great start, he steered his JTR machine into fourth ahead of Buri and although being bundled back to sixth on lap two, Dan and Buri traded fifth place lap after lap with the Channel Islander taking the flag on lap eight just 0.2 seconds shy in sixth.

The final race of the season delivered another Formula Ford classic, albeit under ever-darkening skies in rural Northamptonshire. Starting in fifth place, Dan climbed as high as third on lap two and after some see-saw action he and Buri again diced wheel-to-wheel. Under massive pressure to the end, Dan held on to fourth brilliantly and missed out on the podium by little more than a second.

“Race two was really hard, I swapped places about 12 times with (Antti) Buri – we’ve been glued together for three years since we started together in Scholarship!”, added Dan, “The last race was up and down but, for me, it’s probably the best race I’ve driven. Just a bit frustrating it was for fourth.”

With the main championship season now concluded, Dan’s attention turns to the most famous Formula Ford event in the world – the Formula Ford Festival which takes place at Brands Hatch in Kent next weekend, 15th/16th October.

Dan de Zille takes 1st in Class and 2nd Overall with NMR in Britcar 24hr race.

Nicholas Mee Racing rounded off its victorious 2011 Aston Martin GT4 Challenge winning season with a Class 3 victory and second overall in last weekend’s gruelling Britcar 24hr race at Silverstone. Dan de Zille was joined by drivers Karsten Le Blanc, Christiaen van Lanschot, and Robert Nimkoff who together completed 560 laps of the 3.6604-mile GP circuit in the NMR Aston Martin V8 Vantage GT4 to finish behind the winning McInerney team’s Class 1 GT2 Ferrari 430 and just one lap ahead of the 3^rd-place-finishing Class 3 Lotus Evora of Marcos Racing International.

Jersey based Dan headed to Silverstone for this year’s 24hr race with high hopes of completing unfinished business after the team’s disappointment in 2010 when blighted by a crash late in the race while lying in 9^th overall.

In qualifying de Zille posted a time good enough for 16^th on the grid, but rather than gamble on gaining a few positions the team parked the car up and prepared for the race. With the qualifying session completed, NMR was placed 20^th on the grid.

The race got underway at 16.29 on the Saturday with Le Blanc piloting NMR’s Aston. Each driver then rotated through the early hours of the race and into the night with 2-hour ‘double’ stints. The car would pit roughly every hour to refuel, with fresh tyres fitted every two hours or so.

Keeping out of trouble and with an excellent strategy, NMR climbed swiftly up the field and into the lead of Class 3 – a position it would maintain for the most of the next 22 hours. De Zille was the last driver to take his turn and at midnight started a heroic 2hr 53min stint, just 7 minutes shorter than the maximum allowed. During this session he posted some stunning lap times that moved NMR up into the top five overall.

NMR’s race continued unbelievably smoothly with zero car issues, a faultless performance by all four drivers and rapid and efficient pit-work by the NMR crew, ably headed by Giles Dawson. One of themost exciting features of the entire race was NMR’s epic duel with the Lotus Evora GT4 driven by a team of experienced professional and semi-professional drivers including sportscar veteran Cor Euser. The two teams battled it out for the lead of Class 3 and overall podium honours for over half of the race.

With all of NMR’s drivers having completed roughly the same distance, it was down to Le Blanc to drive the final stint to the flag. With the Lotus charging hard from behind it was an extremely tense period with just one lap, and sometimes, just seconds separating the two. Finally, at 16.32 on the Sunday, NMR’s V8 Vantage crossed the line in second position overall and first in the ultra-competitive Class 3.

After the race NMR’s jubilant Team Principal Nicholas Mee said, “Heroes all! In 24 hours of racing we had no driver errors, no car failings, no time penalties, no damage and a dream result, all of which comes on top of five race wins and victory in this year’s Aston Martin Challenge series! I’m immensely proud and appreciative of the whole team’s achievements. Big thanks to our drivers, sponsors, pit-crew and supporters who have all helped make a great racing season even greater.

Epic Start in Formula Ford race sees Dan de Zille finish 2nd at Brands

Dan de Zille moved up into 5^th position in the championship at Brands Hatch this weekend in his fight for the British Formula Ford title after three Top Ten finishes, including a podium for coming 2^nd in race two..

Qualifying on Friday was incredibly close, with Dan getting closer to pole than ever before. Amazingly, the top 14 drivers were all within 1 second of each other: Dan qualified in 8^th position for Race 1, a scant 0.5 off the actual pole sitter. 

In Race 1, Dan gained a couple of places off the grid, quickly shifting up to 6^th place, only to lose a couple of positions through gearbox selector problems till he found a way to drive round the issue, finishing where he’d started, in 8^th place.

A change of set-up and some sheer determination on Sunday morning resulted in Dan flying from 7^th off the start of Race 2, and he was up into 4^th spot before daunting Paddock Hill Bend. Dan held 4^th throughout much of the race, and was promoted to 3^rd when rival Malvern received a drive-though penalty for jumping the start.

Once up to 3^rd, Dan drove a faultless race, in spite of having to battle an understeering car in the closing stages . On the penultimate lap, team-mate Geoff Uhrhane spun at Clearways, allowing Dan to zip past into 2^nd place to take the chequered flag.

Another good start in Race 3 elevated Dan from 7^th to 5^th, where he battled with McBride and Williams. Handling issues meant he struggled to keep Williams at bay, finally slipping back a slot to finish in 8^th position overall. 

Dan commented, “The final race was a frustrating result after this morning’s podium finish. We made yet more changes to the set-up, but it didn’t make the car any better as I was battling with understeer. We have some work to do in testing before Donington!”

Dan will be back out in the British Formula Ford counter at Donington on the 24/25^th September for the penultimate rounds of the Championship.

Pole, First Race Win – Dan ‘de Zille’ Dares and Wins!

Clean sweep – pole position and solo race win for Dan de Zille in round 8 of the Aston Martin GT4 Challenge at Brands on Saturday 27 August

Dan de Zille was driving solo this weekend due to prior commitments leaving his co-driver Karsten le Blanc absent from the no.12 car for Nicholas Mee Racing in the 90-minute GT4 endurance race.  In an exciting qualifying session, Dan was running 2^nd fastest to Richard Abra in the Generation AMR car, with just 6 minutes to go, a change of rubber – Dan went out to post a lap time of 49.8 on his last lap, promoting him to pole position – despite Abra chasing hard.

 “With Friday’s practice being a washout I was having to push to the limits in qualifying and when the team told me Abra was hot on my heels I put everything into that final lap.” Dan

The 90min race started at 14.20pm and Dan led the field into Paddock Hill Bend and for the first few laps. On lap 5, Richard Abra his nearest challenger got ahead, but Dan remained firmly on his rear bumper. By the pit stop window, Abra only had a 3 second lead over Dan, Generation AMR pitted first to hand over to Mark Poole and Dan went back into the lead. 

By the time NMR made their pit stop Dan had accrued such a lead that he was able to pit and rejoin the race still as race leader. A professional and faultless drive from Dan saw him maintain his lead right to the end of the 90 minutes finishing two laps head of the Vantage Racing pairing of Tom Black and Alan Bonner.

“I had to pace myself, Abra would be getting out the car at the stop whereas I would have to finish the race so settled into a rhythm, keeping the pressure on but making sure I didn’t take too much life out of the tires. As it happened, a mistake by their second driver took them out of contention and from then on it was a matter of looking after the car and myself and keeping an eye on Vantage Racing.”

The Aston Martin GT4 racing has been close all season, and Dan’s result puts the NMR car level on points with the Vantage Racing pairing of Black and Bonner who took their first win at Oulton Park earlier this month. The final round will be at Dijon 10/11 September where Karsten le Blanc will be back in the car also driving solo to decide who takes the title.

This result is Dan’s fourth win in just five outings the Aston Martin GT4 Challenge this season and is the Series’ first ever solo win!  Dan will be back out driving the NMR car as part of a team in the Britcar 24hr race at Silverstone in October.

Meanwhile, its back to Brands Hatch next weekend for Dan for rounds 16-18 of the British Formula Ford Championship where Dan is currently lying in 6th position overall. 

Dan commented “It was an amazing weekend but not quite as easy as it looked! It was a physically hard race, but probably the most satisfying of my career. We are back again next week in the Ford and I can hardly wait!”

 For up to the minute race results and to follow Dan’s progress throughout the weekend follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/ddezilleracing or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Dan-de-Zille-Racing/

 

QuickSilver Exhausts Sponsor ‘Rev-Off’ Competition at Wilton House Supercars

Our Clients QuickSilver Exhausts were proud sponsors of the recent ‘Rev-Off’ Competition at Wilton House on the 14th August – the brain child of charity event organiser, Jay Broom  - the Rev-off was an enormously popular part of the day. The spectators were so dense that the judges had difficulty in moving from car to car. At the end of the afternoon, as the cars left Wilton House, the drives were lined with hundreds of enthusiastic families shouting ‘Rev-it’ to all the cars – who were happy to respond!

RPM12 helped to produce the video of the event which has had positive feedback from the enthusiast forums.

A full write-up and list of results from the event can be found on their website here

Ginetta G40 road car review for My Michelin site.

RPM12 were recently invited along to the Ginetta G40 road car launch earlier this month, to review the new G40 road car for the ‘My Michelin‘ Site. The day was enormously fun, Lawrence Tomlinson gave us all a very personal tour and journey of how the first Ginetta road car under his rein – has been born out of 5 years hard graft, racing and development since his purchase of the Ginetta brand. We had a great day driving the car on a variety of roads and on track at Elvington, where we also got a sneaky go in the G40 racecar too! You can read the full road car review here at My Michelin.

Tune in to ‘My Michelin’ for Exclusive Offers, Lifestyle, Motoring News and Travel help.

Solo Aston drive for Dan de Zille in GT4 Challenge at Brands

 The Aston Martin Owners Club visits Brands Hatch this coming Saturday 27^th August, for round 8 of the Aston Martin GT4 Challenge. Where Dan de Zille will be driving the no.12 car for Nicholas Mee Racing for the duration of the 90-minute race.

The Aston Martin GT4 racing has been close all season, with the Vantage Racing pairing of Tom Black and Alan Bonner taking their first win at Oulton Park earlier this month. Dan will also need to watch out for the Generation AMR duo of Mark Poole and Richard Abra, winners of the opening round back in April.

Dan has already graced the top step of the GT4 Challenge podium three times this season driving alongside Karsten le Blanc however this is his debut driving solo.

Qualifying starts at 9.40 am on Saturday and the 90-minute race starts at 14.20pm. Other cars in the line–up for the days programme include Pre-War Team Challenge, Pre 66 and 60 Series and the AMOC Intermarque.

Dan commented “I’m really looking forward to racing the Aston Martin this weekend, its going to be close racing round Brands Indy circuit for 90 minutes and it will be hard work. The race precedes my races in the Dunlop Formula Ford Championship here on 3-4 September, which will be a totally different racing experience.”

For up to the minute race results and to follow Dan’s progress throughout the weekend follow him on Twitter at : http://twitter.com/#!/ddezilleracing or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Dan-de-Zille-Racing/