Outside the top ten, Bamford and Machitski were now running together and by lap seven, the former GT3 champion made his move at the Chicane to take eleventh place in the Gallardo and then set about chasing down Phil Burton for a place in the top ten.
In GT4 meanwhile, Nigel Moore led the race in the #51 RPM Ginetta but was being chased hard by Matt Nicoll-Jones in the IMS Motorsport entry and Fulvio Mussi in the second of the RPM cars. Despite posting what would be the quickest GT4 lap of the race on only the second tour however, the race would end for Moore on the eighth lap as he suddenly failed to reappear from around the back of the circuit and the Safety Car was then deployed to allow the stricken car to be recovered.
As the field raced to the line, Machitski had closed onto the rear of Burton and tried to repeat his feat of going around Bamford into the right-hander of the Chicane to take the place. This time however, the move wasn't as successful as Machitski committed himself to the outside line but then turned in on Burton – leaving the VRS man with nowhere to go and resulting in contact between the two cars.
While Burton escaped unscathed, the contact broke the rear right suspension on the Gallardo, which Machitski then tried to drag back to the pits. All he could succeed in doing however was to get himself stuck in the middle of the corner which would lengthen the Safety Car period and set off a chain of events that would ultimately decide the race – and leave one team in particular to curse the continuation of a series of rotten luck.
The recovery of the Gallardo was leisurely at best, with the field circulating slowly behind the Safety Car as the car was
slowly winched onto the back of a recovery truck as the clock ticked towards the 23 minute mark which would signal the opening of the pit lane for the mandatory driver change.
