It's all about to go wrong, as Andy Christopher (4) finds the gap getting smaller........

...... and chaos ensues.

Phil Nuttall qualified and raced into a strong 5th.

Powell and Culver clashed on the last lap.

Graham Reeder stayed away from trouble and took an excellent 2nd overall.

Hetherington's F50 sailed to a dominant victory.

PIRELLI MARANELLO FERRARI CHALLENGE
RACE REPORT : ROUND 4 : DONINGTON : 6 MAY 2000

F50 PowerTour

By recent standards it was a slightly modest field of 22 Ferraris that turned up for 9.00 a.m.(!) practice on the Donington short circuit. The early time and the Saturday race date was because Round 4 of the PMFC was on the supporting bill of the PowerTour package, which included F3s and Privilege GTs, who obviously dominated the proceedings.

Ian Hetherington (F50) made short work of taking pole position by almost 2 secs from John Seale and Rory Fordyce, both in 355/Chs. Alan Cosby (F512M) was closely behind, as was Phil Nuttall (355/Ch) who put in an excellent effort to claim fifth on the grid.

Gary Culver and David Ashburn in their "O" class 355s were barely separable , with Shaun Powell's similar tipo lurking just behind on the grid. According to PowerTour rules, the race was going to be run over 20 minutes instead of a fixed number of laps.

At precisely 3.30 p.m. the lights turned green and the field shot off into the first corner. Tightly packed together, the front runners immediately hit trouble as Nuttall missed a gear change and caused Andy Christopher, who was behind him, to take to the grass in the run up to Redgate. By the time they all arrived there, there was no room for the by now careering yellow 308 of Christopher and he collected Cosby, Seale and Fordyce and all four ended up in the gravel trap on the outside. Although Hetherington's F50 was in front of the melee, the avoiding actions by the rest of the field were amazing and no-one else became involved. After some dithering, the organisers elected to display the black and yellow signal, which meant that the field should bunch up behind the leader who then controlled the pace at about 50 mph until the carnage had been cleared.

Seale's 355/Ch managed to extract itself from the gravel, as did Fordyce's similar tipo, but the latter headed straight for the pits with extensive panel damage. Cosby's 512M and Christopher's 308 had to be towed away by the tractor.

All this meant that the first five laps were wasted and when racing resumed there were only some 12 minutes left.

Hetherington took an immediate lead followed by Graham Reeder (355/Ch), Peter Lowe (308GT4), the "O" class 355 of Ashburn and John Avery's 355/Ch. Hetherington's lead that was soon the length of the pit straight, ahead of Reeder and Lowe, but the amazing Ashburn continued to hold on to fourth place ahead of a battling Avery, Powell, Tony Winship (308GTB), Culver and Nuttall.

This group gradually caught Ashburn and fought a mighty, and at times close, battle until the chequered flag, by which time Avery had squeezed into fourth place less than ½ sec ahead of Nuttall.

The F50 of Hetherington ran out an easy winner, with Reeder and Lowe taking the other podium places. In the "O" class, Ashburn held on by the tiniest of margins from Shaun Powell, who, on the last lap, had pressured Culver into a spin from which he quickly recovered to take third in class.

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