The first round of the Ferrari Open Series at Snetterton saw 14 cars start the series, split between the four classes, with a number of new cars and new car owners emerging.

The race meeting heralded the debut in Class C4 for a Ferrari F430 GT2, driven by owner Paul Bailey and also the race debut of the FF Corse GTC aero kit on the Ferrari 458 Challenge of Gary Eastwood.

Saturday qualifying on the Snetterton 300 was held in dry conditions and the front row consisted of Paul Bailey on pole position with a time of 1:57.683 and Gary Eastwood alongside. Class C3 pole position was taken by Wayne Marrs on the second row and James Shirley took the advantage in Class C2.

Race 1

Gary Eastwood made use of his new tyres on the opening lap to dive inside Paul Bailey for the lead and then pulled away over the next few laps before controlling the pace to take a fine win in the FF Corse run car. After a first corner incident effectively eliminated Ian Hartley and Jacques Duyver from the front of Class C3, Wayne Marrs had things all his own way to lead home. Nick Kaye reversed the position on James Shirley to take his first C2 win. Class 1B was won by Paul Brooks in the 456 GT and Darren Laverty 355 took the win in 1A.

Race 1

Race 2

Race 2 on Sunday was held on the shorter Snetterton 200 and pole position was taken by Gary Eastwood with Mick Dwane completing the front row in his Ferrari 458 Challenge. Jacques Duyver secured his debut pole position in C3. The weather conditions made the race a real lottery in terms of tyre choice; the rain began to fall just as the cars headed out onto the circuit for the first of two warm-up laps and with the majority of the field on slick tyres. By the time the race started it was very wet and the 430 GT2 of Paul Bailey immediately took full advantage of his wet tyre choice to surge into the lead. The chasing pack battled to keep up, but it looked like the race was all over, then the rain stopped…..

Gary Eastwood was driving fantastically on slicks in the rain and had managed not to fall too far behind and as soon as a dry line began to emerge his lap times began to improve “when it began drying out I managed to get some heat into my tyres and suddenly I found some [additional] grip” he commented. Quickly he caught Paul Bailey and surged past with 10 minutes to go and went onto extend the winning margin to 42 seconds.

Mick Dwane was having a similar experience in his 458 Challenge and despite an early spin managed to surge through the field to take an excellent second place overall, setting the fastest lap [1m15.699] along the way. After changing for wet tyres on the warm up lap, Jacques Duyver began the race from the pit lane and surged through the field setting consecutive quickest laps along in the wet. He got as high as third position overall and first in C3, before the tyres went off allowing Wayne Marrs past to take his second C3 win of the weekend. Nick Kay won C2 in his Ferrari 360 with Darren Laverey also completing a double win.

Click here for results.

Next meeting: April 28 Silverstone.

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