At that point, Metcalfe led from Whight, Gornall, Wilkins, Meadows and Shovlin with Lester having climbed up to seventh from eleventh on the grid. Before the Safety Car was removed however, and with the Gallardo finally making its way onto the rear of the flat-bed truck, the clock hit 23 minutes with all the cars still running diving into the pits to swap drivers, bar the Ginetta of Steve Tandy which elected to stay out for another lap.
As it was, that proved to be a somewhat wise move with 17 cars all heading for one of the smaller pit lanes on the calendar at the same time. That was the cue for absolute chaos in the pits, with some cars double parked to make changes, others boxed into the pits and unable to go once driver changes were completed and some even stopping on the edge of the live' pit lane as other cars were attempting to leave.
The result was a number of incidents of contact, the most notable including the cars that had entered the pits in first and second the #16 Ferrari and the Cadena Aston while the #2 Viper, now a lap down following its earlier stop, rejoined nursing plentiful damage to the rear after contact. A number of other cars were now also bearing battle scars from contact on pitlane, while a number of team members were lucky to escape being caught up in the various incidents as the field streamed back onto the track.
Somehow, in all the melee, it was Simonsen in the Ferrari who rejoined in the lead despite the car pitting from seventh place, while Adam Jones in the Team Modena Gallardo was second with Piers Johnson having pitted from ninth. Barnes had rejoined third ahead of Michael Bentwood in the 22GTRacing Aston, which had gone into the change from eighth, Stuart Linn in the leading GT4 Ginetta, Scott in the ABG Viper and Paddy Shovlin in the
Ferrari. Luke Hines and Gavan Kershaw rejoined in the cars that had previously held the top two positions down in eighth and ninth.
