Driving the Lotus Exige GT3 that he and the car’s owner, Angelo Lazaris, share in production sports and GT races, Barton clocked a best lap of 1min. 30.7050sec. around SMP’s 3.93km Grand Prix circuit.
That was good enough to place the two-wheel drive turbocharged Lotus an impressive sixth in the Pro class and ninth outright in the annual international sprintfest.
As in 2013, the British thoroughbred sports car was the only Pro class car not purpose-built for the single-lap sprint format. The others were all Japanese-sourced, with super-tuned engines producing up to 1000 horsepower and high-downforce aerodynamic aids.
(Barton and the Lotus featured in a WTAC website report about entries that didn’t fit the conventional sprint mould.)
Even so, the Lotus only just missed out on a place in the Superlap run-off for the top five cars in each class at the end of the two-day event.
Nevertheless Barton was pleased with his 2014 WTAC performance.
“I was fairly happy overall, even though we didn’t get to run in the Superlap,” he said. “We spent Friday and Saturday morning fine-tuning the engine, but Lachlan Cook and his Prep’d Motorsport crew had it firing on Saturday afternoon.
“My best lap was in the last session, when the track was hot and a bit slippery. The potential was definitely there to go faster in the Superlap later in the evening when it was cooler, but we’ll have to wait until next year for that!”
Barton is a fan of the Time Attack format, even though it’s very different from traditional motor racing.
“Time Attack is like qualifying at a normal race meeting, but without the races!” he said. “There are three 15-minute sessions on each day, with your fastest single lap from any session counting.
“Coming from an engineering background, I enjoy working to make the car set-up as close to perfect as possible. You make a small adjustment, go out on the track for just long enough to check the result, and then come back into the pits to make another adjustment.
“When there’s just enough time to make one more flying lap, you put on a set of new tyres and drive 100 percent flat-out. There’s no need to keep anything in reserve for racing later on.
“The fact that the Lotus is built for long-distance GT racing, not sprints, is an added challenge. The other cars have huge wings and splitters that give them massive downforce through the corners, and high-boost ‘hand grenade’ engines that really push them down the straights.
“We turned up the boost a bit on the Lotus, but that’s all. People couldn’t believe how fast it went without the extra aero gear!
"Thanks to Angelo Lazaris for letting me drive his Lotus again, Prep'd Motorsport for working on the car, and Mammoth Projects for sponsoring me at the event.
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