Kevin Tse and Maxi Götz gave their British GT championship hopes a real boost as they stormed to a thrilling victory in the second race at Snetterton, as their 2 Seas Motorsport teammates – and title leaders – Charles Dawson and Kiern Jewiss received a time penalty which dropped them down the order.

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Penalties have closed up the GT4 battle too, with Charlie Robertson and Ravi Ramyead enjoying both the race victory and a reduction in their championship deficit as leaders Jack Brown and Marc Warren had a race to forget. 

GT3

The last race of the weekend normally causes a bit of chaos, especially when you stick 13 Pro drivers into GT3 cars and let them have it. This race, though, seemed to be one of the more reasonable examples of an opening lap. 

It was, though, still a bit frantic – especially Sven Muller in the Team Parker Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R, who lost a bit of time tucked right underneath Kiern Jewiss across the line, and then lost some momentum dipping two tyres on the grass at the Wilson Hairpin. 

That might explain the burst of red mist that descended on him a lap later, as he tried an opportunistic lunge on Callum Macleod at Agostini. He tried it from a way out, but Macleod was entitled to hold the line and Muller knocked the McLaren 720S GT3 Evo into a half-spin. Macleod held it, but the pair swapped places. The only punishment seemed to be a driving standards flag for the Porsche racer.

At the front, pole-sitter Maxi Götz was sitting pretty. A clean start allowed him to settle into a steady first stint, within the first 10 minutes he was already leading Marvin Kirchhöfer by 2.668sec and not particularly looking troubled. 

The 2 Seas racer was helped enormously by Optimum’s Marvin Kirchhöfer and Barwell Motorsport’s Sandy Mitchell absolutely going at each other for second place. The pair were duelling through traffic, with each driver aided and hindered depending on exactly where they caught the GT4 back-markers. Kirchhöfer though, was canny and he seemed to have the rub of the green as picked his way past a train of three headed by Jack Brown’s McLaren Artura.  

With them squabbling together, Götz’ lead grew to more than five seconds and benefitted him massively coming into the pits. Handing over to Kevin Tse, the Mercedes-AMG GT3 came out just ahead of Morgan Tillbrook who took over the Optimum McLaren from Kirchhöfer. 

But the status quo didn’t maintain, and with fresh tyres and drivers in each car, the lead battle changed significantly. Tillbrook was powering on and getting right onto the back of Tse. Such was their was squabbling, that it allowed Alex Martin to join up with them in the Barwell Lamborghini he took over from Mitchell. 

The trio were together for a couple of laps, but Tse proved to be a wizard through the traffic and opened up a four-second gap on one lap such was his proficiency at getting past the GT4 leaders. A few laps later and he’d grown the lead to more than seven seconds as Tillbrook and Martin continued to squabble – the latter losing time and then having to battle back after an awkward pass of Steven Lake’s Mahiki Ginetta. 

Lap after lap, Martin was looking much quicker through the twisty middle sector, but Tillbrook was too good to leave a gap and just let Martin go through. 

That was until Martin finally had the momentum on the run down to the Agostini hairpin and managed to pull alongside going out of the corner. Holding the inside line into the left-hander at Hamilton, Martin finally managed to find his way through. 

Keeping close to the back of Martin, Tillbrook looked as though he was going to hang on for a podium. But on the penultimate lap of the race, he lost four seconds and allowed Rob Collard right onto the back of him in the second Barwell Lamborghini. 

Collard needed no second invite and on the final lap he pulled off basically the same move as Martin – with slightly more door-banging being an ex-BTCC racer – and relegated Tillbrook to fourth. That became fifth very quickly as Giacomo Petrobelli, in the Blackthorn Aston Martin, thought he spotted a gap too. But heading into Oggies, Petrobelli tried to shove his nose up the inside going into Oggies, but tipped Tillbrook into a spin. Across the line, they finished fourth and fifth, but the incident is being investigated by race control. 

At the front, Tse was untroubled and crossed the line with a 13-second advantage for yet another win in the 2 Seas Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo and has closed to within 10 points of teammates Charles Dawson and Kiern Jewiss in the championship. Petrobelli and Jonny Adam are second, one point ahead of Tse & Götz. 

On the track just behind the top five, but really should have been in it, was the #66 Team Parker Porsche Nick Jones took over from Muller. Jones was running fourth and doing a good job at fending off Collard, but with under five minutes to go he missed his braking point and went a bit too deep at turn one – needing to put on all the lock he could manage to avoid hitting the barriers.

Seventh went to Dawson and Jewiss – the latter penalised with 10 seconds added to their pitstop for being out of position at the start. Eighth went the way of Mark Smith and Martin Plowman but the latter lost time in the opening stint having been muscled onto the grass by Marcus Clutton heading out of turn one. 

Spirit of Race took ninth, while Bridger Motorsport took the Silver-Am class win with their 10th overall. 

GT4

The secondary class proved to be a case study in just how fickle motorsport can be, as just hours after winning the opening race and extending their championship lead, Marc Warren and Jack Brown had a nightmare of a race and found themselves reeled back in by Century Motorsport’s Charlie Robertson and Ravi Ramyead. 

Untypical for GT4, the start was all pretty neat and tidy – everyone filtering through quite neatly. The only incident of note was John Ingram getting bumped into a spin by Phil Keen in the Team Parker Racing Mercedes-AMG GT4. The Jolt car went round at turn three and made contact with the barrier – a puncture coming from that incident meant Jolt were the first retirement of the day. 

At the front, Robertson gave himself a bit of time to scope out the relative strengths and weaknesses of Jack Mitchell out front. With a few laps done, the Century Motorsport racer spotted his chance, and braked slightly later going into Brundle and held his position through Nelson and into the Bomb Hole to wrestle the lead away from the Mahiki Racing Ginetta G56 GT4 Evo. 

The race stayed static for much of the first half of the 60-minute race, with the only real action of note was observing how long Jack Brown – in the race one-winning Optimum McLaren Artura – could hold off both Joe Wheeler and Blake Angliss’s Mahiki Racing Ginettas on old tyres. So slow was the McLaren that a gap of nearly four seconds opened up on the Robertson/Mahiki scrap at the front and Brown was hanging on for dear life. 

Come the stops, it was success penalties and Silver Cup seconds that shook up the order – combined with both the #84 Mahiki Ginetta of Mitchell and Josh Miller, and the championship leading Brown/Marc Warren Optimum Artura getting pinged for being one-second too fast on their pitstops. Both had to serve a one-second stop/go. 

At the front, Robertson handed over to Ravi Ramyeard and the pair were the picture of calm. They built up a lead of more than 30 seconds in their BMW M4 GT4 Evo, with Ian Duggan – in the #88 that recovered from being shoved off the road by Marcus Clutton during Joe Wheeler’s stint – having to absorb pressure from Branden Templeton in the second of the Century BMWs. 

They took the win with ease and, combined with the penalty for Warren & Brown, they’ve cut the championship deficit to 19.5 points with 75 still to play for across the next two race weekends at Brands Hatch & Donington Park. 

Second went to Wheeler and Duggan – a good result for the Mahiki racers as they quickly get up to speed in their new Ginetta – while third, and victory int he Silver Cup went to Templeton and Chris Salkeld. 

Optimum Motorsport eventually took fourth and sixth, Luca Hopkinson and Harry George finishing ahead of Warren and Brown. Mitchell and Miller were the meat in the Artura sandwich – a spot on the Silver podium small consolation for their stop/go penalty.