British GT Donington Park: Am drivers shine in Donington sun

It was a tale of the amateur drivers doing the hard work throughout the field in this afternoon’s British GT race at Donington Park, putting in the hard yards in their opening stints to give the pros a relatively unhindered run to the chequered flag.

In GT3 Rob and Ricky Collard driving the #63 Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini took a lights to flag victory. The father and son pairing never looked like breaking a sweat with a comfortable drive at the head of the field, with Rob doing the hard work in the opening stint to eke out a sufficient lead to successfully nullify a 15-second success penalty.

The result means the driver’s championship will go on to the final race at Brands Hatch in two weeks, whilst the team’s championship is wrapped up with Barwell Motorsport securing the title.

In GT4 it was the #71 BMW of Ravi Ramyead and Charlie Robertson who worked through the field following a strong opening stint from Ramyead handing the car over to Robertson with an 8-second lead having started the race from the mid-pack.

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GT3

At the start, Rob Collard held the lead through the first corner whilst behind him John Ferguson made a strong start to challenge Kevin Tse for third place. Tse attempted to close the door on Ferguson who had got his Ram Racing BMW alongside Tse but contact saw the Mercedes come off worse as it was dumped into the gravel.

It took two laps to recover Tse’s stranded car and rejoin the race however Ferguson was less fortunate and on the same lap that Tse rejoined the race, Ferguson pulled up along the Wheatcroft Straight, his race over with a suspected gear box failure.

Behind all of this, a train of cars led by Mike Price in the Greystone GT Mercedes, were battling for position with Giacomo Petrobelli pushing hard to take the position from Price followed closely by Morgan Tillbrook in the #77 Garage 59 McLaren, the #27 Optimum Motorsport McLaren of Mark Radcliffe and Matt Topham in the #10 Blackthorn Aston Martin.

At the front Collard and Martin were also pulling away from the pack but with a 15-second success penalty hanging over Collard, he couldn’t shake off Martin who seemed glued to his stablemates bumper. However having cleared the GT4 traffic, Collard was able to pull out a gap and started to drive away from Martin. A puncture late in the lap 45 minutes into the race after a brush against The Esses tyre stack saw Martin lose time for a tyre change. The stop dropped him down to P6 and gifted P2 to Giacomo Petrobelli who was now some 26 seconds behind Collard.

Further back in the pack, Matt Topham was turned around by Mark Radcliffe in the #27 McLaren around Goddards. Carl Cavers in the #22 Century BMW also got involved, as Radcliffe was forced to come to a stop to avoid the spinning Aston Martin in front of him and Cavers had no choice but to go into the back of the stationary McLaren. Ian Loggie in his new Porsche was able to jump three places in the ensuing chaos, driving around the outside of the stricken cars and staying out of trouble.

Mike Price continued to go backwards through the pack losing positions to both Shaun Balfe and second later Richard Neary. Falling into the clutches of Ian Loggie, Price was easy pickings for the former British GT Champion.

Following the GT3 pitstops the positions remained much the same however Jonny Adam in the #87 Blackthorn Aston Martin had taken over from Petrobelli and was making a concerted effort to catch Ricky Collard, With 20 minutes remaining the gap between the two was less than 10 seconds when a full course yellow came about to repair a Ginetta sized hole in the tyre wall at the Melbourne Hairpin.

With the clock ticking down the race restarted with 2 minutes remaining. The #69 Mahiki Lotus GT4 sitting between Collard and Adam was used to perfection by Collard to give the Lamborghini a 3.7 lead going into the first corner with just two laps of the race remaining.

As Collard swept to victory there was a final moment of drama in the pack as Sam Neary in the #8 Team Abba Mercedes suffered a brake failure when one of the discs shattered as he slowed for Macleans, causing the Mercedes to crash heavily into the tyre wall. It was a bitter moment for the team who fought their way to P3 following a superb drive from Richard Neary in the opening stint from near the back of the field.

GT4

Mikey Porter got away well from pole position in the #7 Forsetti Aston Martin and held onto first place into the first corner with the #56 DTO Motorsport Ginetta of Aston Millar chasing hard resulting in the leading two pulling significantly away from the pack. Further down the field Mark Warren in the #47 Forsetti Aston Martin bashed doors with the #90 McLaren of Zac Meakin, putting the Aston onto the grass. The touch seemed innocuous but within a few laps, Warren was forced to pit to repair some significant damage to the rear of the Aston Martin.

At the front Millar eventually passed Porter with an overtake at the Melbourne Hairpin and once he was ahead he quickly extended his lead. Porter soon found himself fending off the attentions of Zac Meakin in the #90 Optimum McLaren. Meakin had started the race from P4 after a 2-place grid penalty following a qualifying transgression by teammate, Jack Brown.

Porter was able to fend off Meakin up to the pit window but a slow stop for the Forsetti Aston Martin saw Jack Brown in the #90 McLaren leave the pit lane first and claim second place. At the front, Charlie Robertson took the lead of GT4 in the #71 Century Motorsport BMW, a shorter pit stop gave him a 17-second lead over Freddie Tomlinson in the DTO Ginetta. In third place was Erik Evans in the #61 Academy Motorsport Mustang but this would be shortlived following a stop and go penalty for a short pitstop.

Tomlinson’s race ended with 20 minutes remaining after a brake failure heading into the Melbourne Hairpin which led to a full course yellow to retrieve the stranded Ginetta.