Allan Simonsen was left to rue a wrong tyre choice as the wet conditions at Croft prevented the United Christian Broadcasters team from securing a strong double finish in the latest round of the British GT championship.

The Danish driver, and team-mate Hector Lester, had finished second in the opening race of the weekend on Saturday afternoon after Simonsen took advantage of damp conditions and a safety car period to work his way up from the mid-field and expectations were high of a repeat in Sunday's second race.

However, ahead of the race, Croft was hit by a huge hailstorm which left all the teams unsure of what tyres to go with, and Simonsen told Crash.net that the UCB team had more worries than most about getting the decision right.

"It was a matter of making a decision on what tyres we were going to use, whether to go for wets, intermediates or dry tyres," he said. "On the Ferrari we have a five nut wheel system where most of the other cars just have a single wheel nut so we knew that whatever tyre we chose had to last for the hour and we couldn't afford to do a tyre change. Looking into the distance we could see that the track was certainly wet enough for wet tyres to start off with but we could also see the blue skies around the back so we made the decision to go with intermediate tyres and its one of those decisions where you either win the race or you lose it."

Starting from the front row of the grid alongside the Tech 9 Porsche, Simonsen was then left to rue the decision as the cars headed down to Clervaux for the first time.

"We took the gamble and when I went around on the installation laps the car felt pretty good," he said. "I had an awesome start and sold Piers [Masarati] a bit of a dummy which he bought, but then going down to the first corner I started to aquaplane before I even hit the brakes and I was floating on the water and thinking 'What do I do here, do I brake or just hope that I hit the tyres in a soft place?' When I hit the brakes, obviously nothing happened, and once I got into the stones I managed to get the car sideways and just before I hit the tyres I was able to get the power on and drive out of it without hitting anything so that was another lucky escape.

"It was a dreadful first couple of laps as the car was aquaplaning everywhere and we lost a lot of time and a lot of places but it improved as the track started to dry out. Towards the end of my stint I could see that I had put up the fastest lap at that point so it was clear that the track was perfect for us. Hector got in the car and after the first two or three laps he was doing well and was up to about eighth and then the water came down again and spoiled it for us as he started to aquaplane.

"I don't think we could have won this race but we could have finished in the top six if the track had stayed dry but it's a gamble – you either win or you lose."