British GT Snetterton race 1 report: RAM wins race 1 after late drama for 2Seas

RAM Racing won the first 60-minute race at the Intelligent Money British GT Championship’s Snetterton double-header after late drama for 2 Seas Motorsport handed the win to Ian Loggie and Callum Macleod.

In GT4, chaos reigned at the end as a lengthy battle between Team Parker Racing and Academy Motorsport blew up in spectacular fashion, handing the class victory to the R Racing squad.

GT3

At the start, it was a typically solid getaway from Ian Loggie, who powered his Mercedes-AMG GT3 into a handy lead over fellow front-row starter Flick Haigh after just the first few corners who was fending off the advances of a rapid charging Mark Sansom – moving the Assetto Motorsport Bentley Continental GT3 from fifth to third with an audacious move on the first corner.

From that frenetic start, things started to calm down slightly as the crews elected not to go too wild ahead of the afternoon’s second one-hour race.

The only action of note in the first third of the race came from Sansom just overpowering slightly going through Williams and spinning onto the grass – slipping outside the top ten.

After that, the next point of action came as the pit window opened with 37 minutes to go. The majority of the leading Ams elected to make their mandatory stops as early as possible.

Through the stops, Haigh handed over to Jonny Adam and Loggie passed over to Macleod – with the Scot getting out the pits first in the 2 Seas Motorsport Mercedes.

While many might have expected a thrilling chase between the pair, what actually happened was Adam building up a relatively comfortable lead while Macleod also sat pretty with a comfortable buffer in second place – happy in the knowledge that he’d still bank full points with Adam and Haigh only being a part-time non-point-scoring entry.

However, there was to be drama right in the closing stages. Adam suffered a puncture and was forced to limp round about half-a-lap to get to the pits and replace the damaged Pirelli rubber. That promoted Macleod into a lead he suddenly found himself having to defend.

Having made a strong start in the hands of Michael Igoe, the WPI Motorsport Lamborghini Huracán GT3 was handed over to Phil Keen who then proceeded to ring every ounce of speed he could out of the red machine.

Ever closing on the back of the pink and black Mercedes-AMG, Keen just ran out of time to give himself a real move to attack for the victory, having to settle for second – 0.5sec down on Macleod as the flag came out.

Third went to the Nearys, with Richard and Sam putting on a clean and trouble-free race to move from outside of the top ten to a well-earned podium, really secured after a great spell of defending from Sam in the closing ten minutes to fend off Lewis Williamson in the second the of the 2 Seas entries.

Fifth went to Donington Park winners Morgan Tillbrook and Marcus Clutton, after the latter had no issue fending off Sandy Mitchell in the Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini which itself gained positions late-on after 2020 champion Mitchell stormed through the field.

The second RAM entry of John Ferguson and Ulysse De Pauw was seventh across the line, a fraction ahead of Redline Racing’s James Dorlin and Alex Malykhin.

GT4

The secondary class proved to be where the majority of the action came from in the end, with action all the way through – mainly involving the Ford Mustang of Academy Motorsport.

At the start, it was Matt Cowley who made the best getaway to hold onto his first position, aided by the fact that the majority of the battling was for second – between Tom Edgar in the Speedworks Toyota Supra and Jamie Orton in the Team Parker Racing Porsche 718 Cayman RS Clubsport.

The pair came into contact through Brundle. Edgar was slowed by Betty Chen – the Century Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 racer really struggling around the Norfolk circuit. Orton saw that as his chance to pull alongside, but as Edgar jinked out to try and pass Chen the pair touched. Thankfully there was no lasting damage, but that meant the battle fizzled out.

It was after the pitstops that action started to really ignite again and this time it was for the lead as Marco Signoretti – taking over from Cowley – defended from Orton’s replacement Seb Hopkins.

Hopkins had the pace in the slippery little Porsche, but Signoretti was canny with his defending and didn’t give the young racer any opportunities to try and get through.

The Porsche racer’s only chance came with eight minutes to go, as he went side-by-side with the Canadian through Brundle and the pair collided. That sent the Mustang spinning, and Hopkins slapped with a ten-second penalty for causing a collision.

That calamity gave R Racing’s Jamie Day and Josh Miller what will no doubt have been a completely unexpected victory. The pair were driving a solid race in their Aston Martin Vantage GT4, but didn’t quite have the pace to really challenge for the lead.

Second went the way of Richard Williams and Sennan Fielding, the latter capping off their race with a bit of barging as he forced his Audi R8 LMS ahead of Darren Turner in the Newbridge Motorsport Aston to ensure Steller Motorsport’s position on the runner-up spot.

The second British GT race of the weekend takes place at 16.05 local time (17.05 CEST) and you can watch it live here.