Top five for Lyons at Brands Hatch in British GT

Essex-based professional racing driver Michael Lyons was back in action in his Ferrari 458 GT3 in the Avon Tyres British GT Championship at Brands Hatch, taking a hard earned fifth place to get his championship back on track.

The 20-year-old was taking part in round three of the British Championship for Scuderia Vittoria in the Ferrari GT3 458 and both Michael and his team mate had a raft of updated parts on their car for this event and qualified in 9^th position for the two hour race on the Sunday.

Michael’s teammate began the race and after a frantic start settled into 8^th place. Shortly afterwards and during the first half an hour he began to pick off the competitors until he was up to second place.

After a sudden burst of rain there was a question mark over whether to pit for wet tyres, but with the rain clearing quickly the number 5 car stayed out.

In an exciting first part of the race the safety car then came out; – just as the Ferrari took the lead – to clear away the debris from a previous accident.

As the safety car came in, at the 50-minute mark, the number 5 Ferrari then pulled out a lead on the second placed car.

As the number 5 Ferrari pitted for Michael to take charge, the Scuderia Vittoria team decided to put a fresher set of slick tyres on the car in the hope of helping the car to find even more grip and balance on the still damp circuit. This decision though cost the team dearly and unfortunately the tyres never gave enough feel to the driver to finish on the podium.

In spite of this Michael drove a very strong race, maintaining a good pace on the tyres under him and finished a strong fifth ahead of championship challengers in the Mercedes and Audis.

After the race Michael said;

“During my stint the car struggled massively with front graining on the tyres which meant the balance of the car was just not there.”

“I think if we did some testing we would begin to understand these issues and would hopefully resolve them.”

“Overall, it was a tough race as the car was not really on form. I’m really looking forward to racing at Spa Francorchamps next time in July and hope we can really get our championship going with some good points there.”