Ben Barker made a welcome return to the GT racing podium in Hungary on Sunday, despite facing the obvious difficulties of being a last-minute call-up to replace an ill driver.
The FIA World Endurance Championship regular was minding his own business late last week when he received a call to replace the stricken Al Faisal Al Zubair in the #77 Lechner Racing Porsche GT3R at the Hungaroring, joining frontrunner Andy Soucek at the third round of the International GT Open series.
Despite having previous experience of racing a GT3R and working with Lechner — whom he represented in the Porsche Supercup in 2014 — it had been some five years since Barker’s last appearance at the Hungaroring and the lateness of the summons left him not only hurrying to get to the circuit, but also limiting his time to relearn the track on his arrival.
“It was very much last-minute,” the Cambridge resident confirmed. “Al Faisal only withdrew on the Thursday and, while it was great for Walter to think of me, it was a bit of a rush to arrange a PCR test, book a flight and get out to Budapest for Friday. As a result, I missed FP1 and only had half an hour to prepare myself for FP2. Typically, I then had to get acclimatised while running slicks on a damp track and only got eight laps under my belt…”
The GT Open format, with two races each weekend, meant that Barker would not return to the cockpit before taking his stint in the opening event, with Soucek slated to qualifying and take the start. The Spaniard, however, put the #77 machine third on the grid, giving the makeshift pairing a shot at battling for the podium, despite the car proving prone to excessive oversteer. That characteristic continued into the opening race and contributed to Soucek ceding a position prior to the driver change, but Barker was able to reclaim third place early in his stint and was closing rapidly on the Lamborghini ahead of him on the road when the chequered flag was shown.
“Another few laps and the result could have been even better,” Barker insisted. “We just ran out of time, which is a little frustrating as the gap was less than the time I lost having to wait for traffic during the driver change. The car was tricky to drive too, but Andy and I made the best of it and a place on the podium was definitely deserved.”
Hard work between race one and qualifying for race two improved the Porsche’s handling in time for Barker to jump in for his timed session, and the Briton again showed his mettle by putting the #77 just over a tenth off pole position, echoing team-mate Soucek’s third place on the grid from earlier in the weekend. His start was, if anything, better still, allowing the Lechner car to draw alongside pole-sitter Christian Klien into Turn One, and remain in a three-wide battle before being pushed wide at the second corner and dropping to fourth. Barker, however, wasted little time in regaining his initial position and had caught Klien again before handing over to Soucek.
The Spaniard’s entrance was quickly followed by that of Mother Nature, who decided that a rain shower would spice up proceedings. Soucek duly pitted for wet-weather tyres but, with no further precipitation and a safety car bunching up the field during the pit-stops, had to settle for fourth on the road at the end.
“Another case of what might have been,” Barker conceded. “Qualifying third was great, but it could so easily have been pole position if I hadn’t run a little wide at the chicane and lost a couple of tenths. Similarly, things didn’t quite fall our way in the race, with the brief rainstorm proving to be something of a lottery. We finished behind three cars running slicks as the track dried, so we clearly didn’t have the winning ticket.
“It was mega to be running at the front of the field in both races though. The start of race two was manic, particularly going three-abreast into the first couple of corners, but I knew that my priority was to keep the car out of trouble and help bring home a good points finish for Andy, Al Faisal and the team. Being back in a GT3R and with Lechner Racing was nice too — a lot of the same faces from 2014 were still on the crew, and that helped on what was a very spontaneous weekend. Thanks to Walter for considering me a worthwhile stand-in and Al Faisal for entrusting me. I’m glad I could keep the team fighting at the front.”
Barker’s next competitive outing is scheduled to be with GR Racing in round three of the2021 FIA World Endurance Series at the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza, in Italy, this weekend (16-18 July).
