Donington sees a dramatic race at the British GT title decider

Jarman leads away at the start (photo by Marc Waller)

Jarman leads away at the start (photo by Marc Waller)Donington sees a dramatic race at the British GT title decider

The 2015 British GT championship came to an exciting and dramatic conclusion last weekend as four crews battled for the overall GT3 crown in an action packed race. Going into the weekend, The Ecurie Ecosse duo of Marco Attard and Alexander Sims were favourite to take the title but with the Beechdean duo of Andrew Howard and Jonny Adam close behind. Liam Griffin and Rory Butcher of Oman Racing were also in contention a bit further back with Triple Eight the fourth team in contention. Lee Mowle and Joe Osbourne were very much an outside chance though. 

However it was the TF Sport Aston Martin of Andrew Jarmin and Jody Fanin that took pole with the Beechdean Aston Martin in second, the highest of the championship contenders.

Jarman shot off into the lead at the start of the race with Lee Mowle slotting into second and the second TF Sport of Derek Johnston making an incredible start into third with the Ecurie Ecosse BMW of Attard also getting past the Beechdean car on the first lap. Things seemed to be looking good for Attard when he and Johnston made slight contact going into Goddards. The BMW ran wide and then spun, dropping to the tail of the GT3 field. Down but not out, Attard put on a charge to try and get back to the front.

The Oman Racing Aston of Griffin was next to run into trouble as he collided with championship rival Lee Mowle in the Triple Eight BMW. Mowle quickly recovered with some bodywork damage but Griffin’s car was more badly damaged. He recovered to the pits but it was clear the car was going no further. We were now down to three contenders for the title.

Sadly it was soon to become two as Attard collided with Jamie Chadwick as he tried to lap her going into the Melbourne hairpin. Chadwick said she was unsighted and that he’d come from a long way back, Attard said he expected her to have noticed him but whoever was at fault bth cars were out. Chadwick’s car limped back to the rear entrance of the pits while Attard had tried to continue only to crash out at Goddards. Attard and Osbourne still had a slim chance of the title if their rivals also failed to finish but their title bid was realistically over.

A safety car was scrambled to recover the cars and debris. Once it was in, Mowle and Howard were battling on track for fourth and fifth after they were passed by Bradley Ellis in the RAM racing Mercedes. Ellis who was deputising for Alistair Mckinnon, was faster than a lot of the amateur drivers who were doing the first stint and had taken advantage to charge up to third at this point.

Once the pitstop window opened at 50 minutes, Lee Mowle was one of the first to pit to hand over to Joe Osbourne, not least because the damage he had sustained in the shunt earlier in the race was causing the passenger door to open which wasn’t helping his pace! They had an additional 20 seconds to wait in the stop as their success penalty after going well at Snetterton.

Jamies stranded car photo by Marc Waller)Howard and Adam stayed out of trouble to claim the title photo by Marc Waller)Winners photo by Marc Waller)The eventual winners close on their team mates photo by Marc Waller)The two TF Sport Astons were now in front with Jarman managing to keep a small margin from Johnston. This shrunk as the cars came in for their pitstops. With Johnston stopping first, his co driver Matt Bell was soon out setting fast laps and this allowed him to leap frog Fanin who emerged from his stop in second.

There was no stopping Bell now who continued to streak away for much of the race, leading by twelve seconds at one point. Fanin did dig deap to try and fight back but he was still six seconds behind as the cars started the final lap.

Derek Johnston was thrilled to take his first ever British Gt win

“We had a real tough time over the first half of the season struggling with the car, which is very different to the BMW I drove last season. But since Brands we’ve taken huge steps and the intention was to come here and score another podium. I kicked myself for messing up qualifying so wanted to come out today and make amends. I drove my heart out, probably the hardest ever actually, and then Matt did the rest to build a big gap. The team have given their all, too. Switching the car from purple to white at Brands seems to have made a difference!”

Matt Bell had made the difference for the duo and he explained how much had gone into both the win and their season;

“Finishing one-two here is down to a lot of hard work, which has finally paid off. And, personally, I’m very happy to be back on the top step. It’s been a while! Donington is mine and Derek’s favourite circuit in the country, and Derek’s local track too. You always pick one on the calendar where you want to go well and this was the one for us, so I’m really glad to have made it happen. Having said that it was probably one of the most stressful stints I’ve ever done! We lost radio contact and our fuel consumption was unusually high, so I was having to save it based on pit boards. I didn’t know how much to save or back off, so there was a lot to think about. That stint was like a swan: serene on top but paddling like hell underneath!”

GT4 winners photo by Marc Waller)Winners on the podium photo by Marc Waller)Yusuf and Kershaw took the Gt4 pro am title photo by Marc Waller)Howard and Adam are your 2015 Gt3 champions photo by Marc Waller)There was still drama to come as Osbourne and Fanin came together on that final lap. It left Fanin seventeen seconds behind the winners, but Osbourne was slowed still further and Phil Keen sneaked the team Russia by Barwell with Demon Tweeks BMW past to take third with his team mate Joh Minshaw.

Fanin explains;
“That was an interesting last lap! The gap was big enough over Joe but I knew I’d catch a gaggle of GT4 cars that would compromise my final lap and, at the first corner, had a bit of a wobble trying to pass them. I didn’t know if anything was broken heading down the Craner Curves, which isn’t the best place in the world to have that thought! I couldn’t get by the next car until after the Old Hairpin, by which time Joe was right on my tail. I defended into McLeans and Joe, trying to get the cutback, touched my bumper and spun us both around. But there was no malice in it and he came straight up and apologised after. It’s just one of those things on the last lap. A TF Sport one-two is a brilliant way to end the year after our tough start. I’m over the moon.”

Keen was very happy to steal third and help Barwell win the teams championship;
“Jon drove well after a bad start to make up ground. The Safety Car helped us a bit but we got our heads down and tried to be consistent, which paid off in the end. I think we’ve had the speed all year but just been unlucky. We were taken out of both races at Oulton Park and then again while leading at Silverstone, so we lost a lot of points early on which has made it difficult. I feel sorry for Marco and Alex on the other side of the garage because I think they deserved the title, but at the same time congratulations to Jonny and Andrew. It’s great to have helped Barwell win the Teams’ Championship; hopefully they’ll keep me on for next year now!”

Behind them came Jonny Adam. He had dropped to tenth once he rejoined after taking the car over but drive quickly and carefully to fight his way up to fifth place, enough to give him and Howard the title. Tenth place or less would have still handed Attard and Sims the championship but Adam is too good of a driver to let that happen. The Beechdean Aston generally doesn’’t break down so once Attard had gone out, the title always looked to be heading in Beechdean’s direction.

In sixth Benny Simonsen and Hector Lester took sixth in their Rosso Verde Ferrari 458. Simonsen also took the fastest lap of the race, wining the Sunoco fastest lap of the weekend award and a trip to the podium in the process. The LNT Ginetta of Steve Tandy and Mike Simpson was seventh, with Simpson racing on his birthday. The results were changed post race with the Von Ryan Mclaren of Andrew Watson and Ross Wylie being given a 16 second penalty for Watson hitting Ahmad Al Harthy’s Oman Racing Aston. They were rivals in the Silver cup (for cars where both drivers are considered pro’s) and the penalty put the Mclaren in tenth, handing the Oman car ninth and Al Harthy the Silver cup title. He had started the season with Daniel Lloyd but swapped to Alex Macdowell for the later races. The penalty also put the 22GT Racing Aston Martin of Jon Barnes and Mark Farmer in eighth place.
Mowle was given the Blancpain Gentleman driver of the weekend award and their finishing position gave them third in the final standings ahead of Griffin and Butcher.

In GT4 things were just as dramatic. The Issy Racing Lotus had taken pole with Oz Yusuf and Gavan Kershaw with the duo trying to take the Pro/am Gt4 title. The overall GT4 title had already gone to Jamie Chadwick and Ross Gunn at Snetterton. Unfortunately at the Melbourne hairpin on the very first lap, Yusuf and Chadwick made contact when the Issy Lotus was hit from behind by the Beechdean GT4 Aston. The Aston had significant front end damage but continued. The Lotus howver needed to put for repairs and rejoined several laps down.

Things were going to go from bad to worse for poor Jamie Chadwick when she went out in a collision with the GT4 BMW of Marco Attard twenty five minutes later. With two of the quicker cars running into trouble, Will Moore had taken advantage going from second place on the grid into a big lead. The safety car period after the Chadwick- Attard crash erased this and for the rest of his stint, Moore had Aleksander Schjerpen’s Century Motorsport Ginetta on his tail.

Schjerpen handed over to Fredrik Blomstedt at the pitstops and a fifteen second success penalty saw them fall away leaing Dennis Strandberg, who had taken over the car from Mooreback in a comfortable lead. Daniel Lloyd though had set his sights on victory. He passed Mike Robinson’s Ginetta on track after he took the car over and then Nathan Freke in a second Century Motorsport Ginetta was moved out of his way when they had to take a stop go penalty for a too quick pit stop.

Strandberg then ran wide in an unforced error which let Lloyd onto his tail. The two Academy Motorsport Astons then battled fiercely for several laps. Lloyd finally got past Strandberg on the GP loop but Strandberg then tried to outbrake Lloyd into Goddards. The two made contact but Lloyd stayed on track and ahead. Strandberg then found his inner wheel arch detaching. This worked its way loose and off but the time lost while it was rubbing on the wheel saw the Freke driven Century Ginetta catch the Aston. He then passed the Aston on the penultimate lap meaning the Century duo of Ian Stinton and Nathan Freke split what would have been an Academy one-two. So it was a victory for Chris Webster and Daniel Lloyd. Webster was surprised to take his first British GT win;

“It’s all a bit surreal, really! I handed the car over in P5 but Dan had a massive amount of ground to make up and it was amazing to see him claw time back lap after lap. He got up to P3 and I stood quietly thinking ‘great, a podium! This is good’. The battle with Dennis was a hairy moment but we made it. Wow! To finish first in a championship as competitive as British GT is something you can never expect. You hope and strive for it but I’m a newbie to all of this so winning feels fantastic.”

Lloyd was happy to take a victory after moving to the GT4 team from GT3 runners Oman Racing earlier in the season;

“It was nice to maintain the link with Aston Martin and their Evolution Academy this weekend. But we’d been on the back foot for much of it after yesterday’s rain and I knew there was a lot more to come after a solid if unspectacular performance in qualifying. Chris did a really good job and kept his nose clean but there was some time to be made up when I came back out in fifth. I wanted to push but also knew the tyres would go off at the end so had to be careful. I’d been following Dennis for a few laps but saw he went into the chicane a bit hot so saved myself for a lunge at The Loop. He fought back but I saw him coming, so gave a bit of room and we both made it round. I didn’t expect to win this weekend but it’s a great way to end the season, especially as I had a lot of sponsors here.”

Strandberg was gutted to lose on what had looked like a GT4 win until the closing stages;
“To be honest I’m not happy with how the race ended or finishing third. Will did a superb job to hand it over in the lead but I made a mistake braking too late and went off into the gravel, which helped Dan to close in.”

Stinton on the other hand was happy with second on his return to racing although he wondered what might have been without a penalty;
“Oh, it was fantastic! The first time I drove the car was in qualifying, which went absolutely terribly! I learnt a bit more in the warm-up but the race was the best one I’ve had for years! Passing people left, right and centre. Then Nathan did such a mega job to recover from the stop/go after being 0.2 seconds short during the driver change. He was second at the time and managed to fight back and finish there. We should have won it, shouldn’t we?!”

James Nash and Richard Taffinder took fourth in the Ultratek Lotus, their best result of the season. Beating Blomstedt and Schjerpen who dropped to fifth.

JWB took sixth with Kieran Griffin and Jake Giddings in their Aston Martin just ahead of the Tolman Motorsport Ginetta of David Pattison and Luke Davenport. The Optimum Motorsport Ginetta of Mike Robinson and Graham Johnson took an uncharacteristically low eighth but still had enough points to finish as the overall GT4 runners up. Ninth was the championship’s other female, Anna Walewska in the Bolton University Ginetta G55 alongside Rob Garofall.

The Fox Motorsport Ginetta of Jamie Stanley and Paul Mcneily was tenth after losing out in the second half of the race.

Despite their first lap incident, Yusuf and Kershaw did just enough to take the GT4 Pro-Am title as they finished in the points.

The final results are on TSL timing
 
And the final standings can also be found on TSL
 
British GT now enters its winter off period but it will be back next year with some exisiting cars and drivers and some new, including the likely return of Lamborghinis to the championship. British Gt looks set to keep up its reputation for big grids of impressive cars with close racing as it returns for 2016.

 

 

  By Marc Waller

 

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