'Baptism of fire' but points in the bag for Turner in Sonoma

Darren Turner described his return to fulltime racing in North America as something of a ‘baptism of fire’, after a weekend full of promise was upended by a frustrating sequence of unfortunate events.

The British multiple sportscar champion made his GT World Challenge America Powered by AWS debut alongside The Heart of Racing teammate Gray Newell at Sonoma Raceway last weekend. And while both drivers went into the opening double-header of the championship full of optimism, issues outside of their control prevented them from showing theirs, the team’s and the Aston Martin Vantage GT3’s full potential at the Californian venue.

“I have to say first of all that the team, and the series are fantastic!” said Turner. “The racing is feisty and exciting, and I really enjoyed it.

“Sonoma is a tough circuit to learn, and a real challenge, like a more intense version of Oulton Park! But by the end of the week, we felt like we were in a good place and ready to go.

“We definitely thought we were good for more than the eighth-place finish in the opening race that we came away with.”

Turner and Newell participated in two 90-minutes races, one on each day of the weekend, while contesting the highly competitive Pro-Am class. Gray qualified for the first race and Turner the second, and this was when fate intervened for the first time.

“In this series you spend a couple of laps bringing in the tyres and getting heat into them as there are no tyre warmers allowed as part of the regulations, but while I was doing that the session was red-flagged,” said Turner.

It meant that 13 cars, including Turner’s, were left without a representative qualifying time, putting the former Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona winner 13th on the grid. Newell meanwhile had no such dramas for Race 1, qualifying a strong ninth overall and eighth in class on his Vantage GT3 debut. 

“Gray was strong from the start of the opening race, and did a great job to bring the car in from his stint in a competitive position,” explained Turner.

But then more misfortune struck when the team’s tyre gun failed, having fitted just one fresh tyre for Turner to complete the race with. Ten precious seconds were lost while the team worked the problem, and eventually it sent Darren back on track with just a new left-rear to work with.

“I knew I was in for a challenge… this had been my first real race stint in nearly a year, I had one fresh tyre on a track I was still a little unfamiliar with and the competition was on me straight away!”

Emerging from the pits tenth in class, Turner got his head down and delivered a characteristically gritty and defensive drive. With 30 minutes to go he’d climbed to eighth and was having to use all his wits and knowledge to fend off the pursuing Porsche now that his tyres were essentially shot.

“I was under pressure right away and getting a lot of nibbles on the rear,” said Turner. “My diffuser at the end of the race was finished because I had been hit so many times.”

Turner held on to record eighth place and in the closing stages made up 25s on seventh place as he recovered from the pitstop dramas.

Turner and Newell went into Sunday hoping to repay the team’s hard work with a more representative result, in spite of starting 13th, but more bad luck was in store… it was just one of those weekends.

“The random qualifying session put us in a vulnerable position,” explained Turner. “The first couple of laps I was really happy and I made up a couple of positions. But because of the way qualifying had gone there were two cars that were totally out of position and further up the grid than they should have been.

“They acted like the cork in a bottle and everyone was tripping over each other behind them. I just got hit repeatedly. There was lots of contact from lots of people, but it was because we were all tripping over the slower guys.

“Then I got one proper whack on lap two, and after that we didn’t have a car close to the one we had in Race 1. It just felt like we had lost downforce on the front end and we were just understeering everywhere.”

“There were lots of positives from the weekend, even if there weren’t the results,” said Turner in conclusion. “Gray did a fantastic job in tricky circumstances. The racing is brilliant and the team is first class. We go to COTA next, a circuit I know well and love, and I’m looking forward to us showing what we can really do!”