PIRELLI MARANELLO FERRARI CHALLENGE
REPORT : ROUND 14 : SNETTERTON : 14 OCTOBER 2001

Snetterton isn't everyone's cup of tea. It seems to be out of the way for almost all the teams but despite this there were a good 23 Ferraris on the entry list.

The main excitement left for this final round of the 2001 PMFC was the battle for the Maranello Trophy which Nathan Kinch could still, theoretically, nick from Ian Hetherington. Kinch, however, was one of the six non-starters and therefore Ian had it in the bag even before the race started. He could relax and just enjoy his racing.

Qualifying got under way a little later than scheduled due to early morning fog but this soon cleared and the Ferraris hit the track. Pole was taken by Hetherington's 360/Ch but a big surprise in second place was Tony Jones (355/Ch) who slotted himself ahead of Simon Bartholomew (360/Ch) and a whole raft of further 355s in the order David Ashburn, Robin Ward, Rod Carman and the rest.

The "O" class was again a small affair but at least this time there were three starters, with John Swift being quickest in the borrowed Ashburn 355GTS ahead of Terry Esom (308GTB) and the amazingly recalcitrant 328 of Richard Allen. As usual it conked out..... but managed seven laps.

The grid formed up for the three o'clock race and when the green lights came on Hetherington went straight into the lead from his pole position. Behind him, however, there was a tangle at the first corner as the 355s of Graham Reeder and Barnett Fletcher had a hard coming-together which led to Reeder's immediate retirement. Behind the Hetherington 360, Jones, Ashburn and Bartholomew ran nose-to-tail but then Bartholomew went through into second and Ashburn also slotted through ahead of Jones who, in turn, was caught by Ward.

The two 360s at the front began to move a little clearer of the field but behind them the "C" class battle between Ashburn, Jones and Ward was intense. Jones eventually got past the highly rated Ashburn and even began to close on Bartholomew in second spot.

Hetherington drove supremely at the front and took an unchallenged victory to secure his second Maranello title, the only person other than Robbie Stirling to win back-to-back Maranello championships. Bartholomew just saved his runner-up spot barely a second ahead of Jones, who in turn was only a smidgen ahead of Ashburn. Ward had dropped back a little to finish four seconds behind Ashburn, with Carman in sixth place, a further 12 seconds in arrears.

In the "O" class Swifty took the initial lead but then spun and stalled the engine. It took him a while to fire it back into life but by then Esom and Allen had gone through. Inevitably Allen retired and a very happy Esom took the class win with Swift just loosing too much time to be able to catch up again.

For his fabulous class-winning drive Tony Jones was awarded the Wilkinson Driver of the Meeting tankard and, just to make him even happier, his car was also judged to be the best turned out for the Wine & Beer Award.

And so we come to the end of a great 2001 season. Richard Smeeton and Gary Culver, neither of whom was driving at Snetterton, had already wrapped up the class championships in "O" and "C" respectively but Ian Hetherington ran out a very worthy winner of the top class.

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