British GT Oulton Park: Barwell double up in disrupted second race, Parker takes GT4 spoils

Alex Martin and Sandy Mitchell secured another win for Barwell Motorsport in the second British GT Championship race at Oulton Park, in a race that was neutralised for the final 24 minutes as lengthy barrier damage curtailed the action.

In GT4, Seb Morris and Charles Dawson converted pole to victory as the Team Parker Racing duo demonstrated a great turn of speed to jump Forsetti Motorsport in the pits.

GT3

The rain that had hammered the circuit, and caused significant issues for spectators trying to get into Oulton Park, finally eased ahead of the final race of the weekend and with sun beating down, it was apparent that wet Pirellis weren’t going to be needed for too long.

In GT3, the race went according to plan, for Mitchell at least anyway, as he powered clear of any potential trouble and eased his way clear of Tom Gamble’s Optimum McLaren 720S. He didn’t need to build up a lead for too long, as a four-car incident in GT4 caused an early safety car.

That incident was started after Charlie Robertson found himself spun coming out of Old Hall and he was clipped by the #95 Race Lab Artura, which then caused a domino effect of damage to the #62 Academy Motorsport Ford Mustang and Jordan Albert’s Steller Motorsport Audi R8 LMS as they all tried to avoid the chaos ahead.

It was the first of two interruptions, but was relative brief – compared to what we’ve had this weekend – and when the action went green again Mitchell wasted no time in getting his Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2 back up to speed and just two laps after he got going again, his lead had gone out to more than four seconds, with Gamble unable to respond.

Not wanting to rest on his margin, Mitchell continued to push on a track that was rapidly drying into a territory where slicks wouldn’t be an unfeasible option come the pit window. To ensure he gave Alex Martin as much of a margin as possible, he pushed all the way to a seven-second lead and pitted just after the half-hour mark to finally hand over.

That margin proved key. Coming out behind the Optimum McLaren – which Gamble handed over to Mark Radcliffe – Martin was on inspired form as he went round the outside of him at Island Bend to retake his lead.

Into the lead, there wasn’t much time – or real need – to grow it any further. That’s because Matt Topham caused the first of what was likely two incidents that meant the final 24 minutes of the race were held under Full Course Yellow. The Aston Martin racer went straight on at the first corner and hit the barriers, thankfully he didn’t seem hurt but the barriers needed extensive repairs.

It looked like we might get a final 10 minutes of racing, but for an odd incident for Garage 59’s Morgan Tillbrook. The radiator on his McLaren 720S GT3 seemed to give up the ghost and blew steam out the vents heading round the Shell Oils hairpin, causing him to grind to a halt and needing recovery. It was a sad end for Tillbrook, who’s co-driver Marcus Clutton was involved in a great battle with RAM Racing’s Raffaele Marciello early in the race.

With the race ending under safety car, positions remained as they were pretty much just after the pitstops, with Radcliffe and Gamble clinching second and Ian Loggie & Phil Keen adding another trophy with third in their 2 Seas Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT3.

After the race, Mitchell told GT REPORT that Barwell’s success this weekend was down to the work the team has done to perfect the set up on the Lamborghini: “It was a really good race, the key was getting a good qualifying on Saturday, in the top three for both races which is the main thing – it’s so difficult to overtake round here.

“Then the challenge was that it was drying out really, really quickly. It was so wet at the start of the race and I couldn’t believe it went to slicks. I was saying on the radio at the start that I didn’t think it would, then quite quickly it was slicks and I think we just nailed the tyre pressures and making the wets last into the drying conditions which was really important.

“This time last year we were struggling a little bit with the brand-new car, but we’ve really got on top of it and know how to get the best out of it now. This track has always suited the Lamborghini historically, it’s not a surprise that we’ve come here with a good set up and a good line up and done well.”

Fourth, and Silver-Am success, went to Adam Smalley and Shaun Balfe, in another display of good racing from the Garage 59 crew – ahead of race one winners Rob & Ricky Collard.

Chris and Alex Buncombe took sixth, but it could have so easily been disaster for the Team RJN duo. Chris tried a move up the inside of Mike Price heading into Old Hall, and he seemed to have the move pretty comfortably done, but for Price to seemingly not realise Buncombe had made the move and took his usual line into the corner. It was just a brief clip, and seemed to do more damage to Price as the Greystone GT racer slipped down to ninth at the flag.

Seventh was the first of the BMWs in a day where the M4 GT3s suffered through their pre-event BoP reduction. Marciello and John Ferguson took the position for RAM, ahead of Richard & Sam Neary’s Team ABBA Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 – the pair recovering superbly after Richard’s qualifying crash meant they had to start at the back of the GT3 field.

Rounding out the top 10 was Kevin Tse and Maxi Götz in the second 2 Seas AMG.

GT4

After the chaos of four cars being forced into retirement through no fault of their own on the first corner of the first lap, the race settled down into what was a quiet thriller and demonstrated the speed of both eventual winners Team Parker Racing and the Forsetti Motorsport Aston Martin Vantage of Mikey Porter and Jamie Day.

From the start, Seb Morris was demonstrating the pace that secured him pole position in the Mercedes-AMG GT4 and was holding off the attentions of Zac Meakin in the equally rapid starting Optimum Motorsport McLaren Artura – both benefiting from Robertson being spun out of third place – with a suggestion that the CWS Racing Ginetta could have been the cause of his going around.

Having won the earlier race, the driver on the move was Porter who dispatched the Ginetta and set about chasing down Meakin. When he caught Meakin to take second, it took him no time at all to then hunt down Morris and make a bold move to inherit the lead.

Behind, it was also all go with Thomas Holland – in the CWS Ginetta – trying to line up a move on Meakin for third going round the outside of Old Hall but found himself pushed onto the kerbs, losing fourth to Will Orton in the second Forsetti Aston.

When the pitstops filtered through – mainly under the Full Course Yellow – the extra 15 seconds for being in the Silver Cup relegated Porter & Day down to third, with both Morris & Dawson and Orton & Marc Warren vaulting ahead to take the top spots in both Pro-Am and GT4 overall.

Porter and Day took third – first in the Silver Cup – with Meakin and Jack Brown just behind to take the second spot in the Silver Cup. Fifth overall went to RAM Racing’s Harry George & Luca Hopkinson, the Mercedes-AMG GT4 racers rounding out the Silver podium.

Marco Signoretti and Erik Evans took a decent result for the surviving Academy Mustang, with Century Motorsport rounding out the Pro-Am podium just behind – Tom Wrigley and Ian Gough powering the BMW M4 GT4 to seventh overall.

The next round of the British GT Championship takes the field to Silverstone, for the blue-riband Silverstone 500 on April 27/28.