GT/Sportscars

Hewland News

ETCC kicks off a new era with victory for Hewland.

Alpa

For 2003, the prestigious European Touring Car Championship (ETCC) has a new technical ruling: The cars may run a sequential shift racing gearbox, plus 30 kg of ballast (as opposed to H-gate, production based gearboxes and no ballast). Alfa Romeo (3 car, works team), Volvo and Seat all opted for sequential gearboxes. Significantly, they all opted for Hewland as their supplier.

The very first race (at Barcelona) under the new format saw an Alfa Romeo score a 1-2-3 in qualifying. Gabriele Tarquinis's Alfa went on to win the race, beating the BMW's.

2003 kicks off with Hewland domination in world GT racing.

Corvette win the Sebring 12 hour event.

The title-holding Pratt and Miller Corvette team beat all comers, including the Prodrive-Veloqx Ferraris, to take the first round of the 2003 ALMS at Sebring. A notoriously grueling 12 hour race for the Corvette’s was aided by the reliability of their Hewland gearboxes.
Nissan

This victory comes on top of their Le mans 2002 win.

Winning Drivers:
Ron Fellows, Johnny O'Connell, Franck Freon

Japanese GT Championship Round 1:

The first 11 home using Hewland!

For 2003, Honda, Nissan and Toyota all commissioned Hewland Engineering to design and build new tailor made transmissions for their respective Japanese GT (JGTC) campaigns. The JGTC is a technical challenge for car and gearbox designers, due to the unrestrictive (compared to FIA or Le Mans GT) technical regulations.

At round one at Aida, the three Hewland customers dominated:

JGTC Result - Circuit Aida - March 30
(Top 6)
1 1 500-1 ESSO Ultraflo Supra J.Wakisaka* / A.Iida 2:05:08.439 82 laps BS
2 23 500-2 Xanavi NISMO GT-R S.Motoyama* / M.Krumm -04.283 82 BS
3 18 500-3 TAKATA DOME NSX R.Michigami* / S.Philippe -29.358 82 BS
4 16 500-4 G'ZOX MUGEN NSX D.Ito* / T.Coronel -40.362 82 BS
5 64 500-5 Mobil 1 NSX T.Matsuda* / T.Kogure -1:08.948 82 BS
6 36 500-6 WOODONE TOM'S SUPRA T.Tsuchiya* / E.Comas -1:11.691 82 MI

Fellows and Chevrolet Corvette win championship at Petit Le Mans

Ron Fellows (with co drivers Johnny O'Connell and Oliver Gavin) won the final ALMS GTS race at Petit Le Mans, Road Atlanta to wrap up the series win for himself in the drivers championship. Chevrolet had already won the constructors and team championships after a dominant season. The main challenger in this race was the Ferrari 550 Maranello of Tomas Enge, Peter Kox and Alain Menu, which lead for most of the race, but a minor mechanical problem forced the Ferrari to make an unscheduled pit stop dropping it behind Fellow's Corvette.

The LMP675 race was won by Jon Field, Duncan Dayton and Michael Durand in their Knighthawk Racing Lola EX257-MG, winning the championship for Field, along with the constructors championship for Lola and the team championship for Knighthawk.

The Corvette uses the LSG-A gearbox, part of the standard Hewland range of gearboxes. Click HERE for details.

Lola cars use gearbox internals designed by Lola/Hewland and manufactured by Hewland. Click HERE for details.

Chevrolet Corvette Maintains ALMS Domination.
A one - two for the works Chevrolet Corvette C5-R at Mosport Park, Canada maintained the team's absolute domination of the ALMS GT-S class this season. Ron Fellows racing on his home track, racing with team mate Johnny O'Connell, took advantage of local knowledge to sweep past the pole sitting Saleen Mustang in the first corner, leading the race from that point. The second C5-R driven by Andy Pilgrin and Kelly Collins started the race on hard compound tyres, giving them oversteer problems. On changing to the softer compound Pilgrim set the fastest lap of the race en-route to second place.

The P675 class was won by Jeff Bucknum, Bryan Willman and Marc Neuhaus in their Pilbeam-Nissan MP84. Second place went to Ross Bentley and Melanie Patterson in their Lola-Nissan B2K/40.
The Corvette uses the LSG-A gearbox, part of the standard Hewland range of gearboxes. Click HERE for details.

The Pilbeam uses the NMT gearbox, part of the standard Hewland range of gearboxes. Click HERE for details.
Lola cars use gearbox internals designed by Lola/Hewland and manufactured by Hewland.

Chevrolet Corvette ALMS Streak Stands At Six!
Pilgrim And Collins Take Second Win Of The Year
Corvette Racing opened the second half of the 2002 American Le Mans Series season with the sixth win in six starts and a one - two finish in the GTS Category. Co- drivers Andy Pilgrim and Kelly Collins took the No.4 GM Goodwrench Chevrolet Corvette to Victory Circle with a flawless drive over the classic Trois-Riviers street circuit Saturday, August 3. They finished fifth overall to gain their second win of the season.
The Corvette uses the LSG-A gearbox, part of the standard Hewland range of gearboxes. Click HERE for details.

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