British GT Snetterton: Mitchell & Martin win again to extend championship lead, Optimum takes GT4

Alex Martin and Sandy Mitchell swept the Snetterton British GT weekend as they took their second win of the day in their Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini, but finished under investigation for a potential safety car issue for Martin – the only safety car of the weekend.

In GT4, Zac Meakin and Jack Brown added more points to their championship haul as they converted pole to the win with a few great bits of overtaking in their Optimum Motorsport McLaren Artura.

GT3

The Barwell pair of Mitchell and Martin continued what has been a remarkable run of racing for the team over this weekend with pole for the former being easily converted into victory, despite what was a bit of a sketchy moment in the pits involving the 2 Seas Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT3.

There was drama early on for Race One podium finishers Team Abba Racing as Sam Neary was forced out onto the grass on two occasions as he looked to make moves on the opening lap. The first, and biggest, incident was at Palmer, with Ricky Collard given a five-second penalty served at the mandatory pitstop for ‘crowding’ the Mercedes-AMG GT3 onto the grass, before Neary was given an elbow again as he fought his way back at Agostini.

That, oddly, proved to be the only incident of note in what is normally a category that always brings action and drama in the opening stint – the Pros perhaps keeping a calmer handle on things before letting their Ams takeover and get out their racing excitement ahead of what is a lengthy summer break before the next round at Donington Park in September.

Such was Mitchell’s ease at growing his advantage at the front, aided by being able to keep a fresh set of Pirelli tyres for this race, he’d overcome his pitstop compensation time by the time he came to hand over to Alex Martin. It wasn’t a clean handover though, as the 2 Seas crew pushed Ian Loggie’s Mercedes-AMG GT3 right into the path of Martin, who had to come to a complete stop, Loggie came out the pits first and didn’t give the place back.

Race control didn’t take a positive view on what was quite a stupid decision and slapped the #6 with a drive-through penalty which promoted Martin back up into the lead and dropped Loggie down to ninth – which became 11th at the finish.

Things were going pretty smoothly for Martin, but a late safety car with 16 minutes to go – to recover Kavi Jundu’s Toyota Gazoo Racing UK Supra which was overheating – put a question mark over his eventual win as he slammed the brakes on as the yellow flags came out, perhaps expecting a Full Course Yellow, held up Ian Duggan’s Mahiki Racing Lotus and Charles Dawson’s Team Parker Racing Mercedes-AMG GT4 who had to decide who was ahead as Dawson was about to overtake the Emira.

While things will get sorted in the Stewards office to confirm the official result, on the track Martin didn’t have much trouble thanks to the number of GT4 cars that peppered the top five in GT3, giving the Barwell car a bit of breathing space on the restart.

Kevin Tse closed in during the last six minutes of green flag running, but needed another lap or two to properly close in on the Huracán and he finished second alongside Maxi Götz, 1.303sec down.

John Ferguson capped what was a really good weekend alongside temporary teammate Max Hesse as he snatched third from Mark Radcliffe at the restart and powered his RAM Racing BMW M4 GT3 onto the overall podium – just about holding off Rob Collard, who was on a charge to regain places lost by son Ricky’s perhaps overly-harsh penalty.

He was fortunate to finish at all, though, as on the restart he was clobbered by Tim Docker’s Audi coming out of Agostini. The Steller racer pulled hard left coming out of the hairpin and smacked the side of the Barwell machine, but Docker came out second-best with comprehensive damage to the left-front suspension of the R8 LMS, while Collard continued unscathed.

Behind that chaos, Radcliffe finished fifth in the Optimum McLaren 720S GT3 he shared with tom Gamble, while sixth went to Shaun Balfe and Adam Smalley. The pair, racing for Garage 59, took the Silver-Am class victory and the overall championship – the pair now too far ahead to be caught by the competition with just two races left to go after a remarkable run of six class wins in seven races – a model of consistency this season.

Seventh went to Jonny Adam and Giacomo Petrobelli in what was an uncharacteristically quiet race for the Aston Martin Vantage crew. They were fortunate not to be robbed of the position by Mike Price right on the line – the Greystone GT racer just 0.062sec down at the chequered flag.

GT4

The secondary class proved to be another exciting battle, even if it didn’t quite live up to the drama of the opening race earlier on – not that Meakin and Brown will mind one bit.

On the very first lap, the pair that gave us such an amazing battle for the win in Race One collided at Murrays at the end of the first lap. Heading into the sharp left, Robertson went in very quick in his Century Motorsport BMW M4 GT4 and clobbered the back end of Freddie Tomlinson’s DTO Motorsport Ginetta. The pair both got going again, but damage meant Robertson stopped out on track, while the DTO machine limped through to the pits.

Incidents involving Century BMWs continued in just two laps later, with the Ford Mustang of Erik Evans and Tom Wrigley’s M4 coming together around the fast right of Coram. This was more of a racing incident, with neither wanting to give each other an inch, Evans squeezed Wrigley possibly too hard going through the Bomb Hole which caused the Mustang to spin through Coram.

Compared to the opening race, the action was a bit more tempered in the first half of the one-hour race with Zac Meakin converting pole to a comfortable lead in his Optimum McLaren Artura – easily gapping Jordan Albert’s Steller Motorsport Audi R8 LMS, who himself was growing an advantage over Will Orton in the Forsetti Aston Martin.

The only action in the opening 20 or so minutes came from Race One podium finisher Seb Morris who was all over the back of Orton’s teammate Jamie Day in the second of the Forsetti Vantages. The Team Parker Racing driver, though, found Day a tricky proposition to get past despite sitting within half-a-second for most of the first stint.

Come the pitstops and the switch from either one Silver to another, or a Pro to an Am, generated a bit more excitement as Marc Warren – taking over from Orton – found himself out ahead of Meakin’s co-driver Jack Brown and was doing a great job at defending from the GT4 championship leader.

But, that lack of racing experience told in the end and going through Coram and into the tight left of Murrays, Warren kept himself to the right and on the racing line, but that allowed Brown to go wide and dive down the inside line and into second.

Freed into second, that well-timed safety car to recover Jundu’s Supra allowed Brown to get right on the back of Tim Docker – who handed over from Albert in the lead thanks to the lack of Silver Cup penalties – and it didn’t take the Artura racer long to take the class lead as he swept through at the first corner – the long right of Riches.

From there, Brown was untroubled on his run to the flag – aided by Docker taking himself out of the fight in the incident described above with Rob Collard.

Behind, Forsetti put on a comfortable performance to take a two-three overall with Day and Mikey Porter taking a quiet second, while Warren took the Pro-Am win alongside Orton in what was an assured drive to the flag on what was an absolutely chaotic restart.

Dawson and Morris took fourth – second in Pro-Am – but are also under the same investigation that has absorbed Mitchell & Martin in GT3, so that could well change.

Evans recovered from his early half-spin with Wrigley to round out the Silver Cup podium alongside Marco Signoretti – some silver-lining for Academy Motorsport, after the sister car was forced to retire with Drive issues having been hit up the rear by another GT4 competitor.

Duggan, the final party in that safety car infringement investigation with the Parker Mercedes and Barwell Lamborghini, rounded out the Pro-Am podium alongside Mahiki Racing teammate Gordie Mutch.

The next round of the British GT Championship – the penultimate race of the season – takes the field back to Donington Park on 7 & 8 September.