Spirit of the race win on track but the Team Parker Bentley claims the win

The Team Parker Bentley was declared the final winner (Photo by Marc Waller)The Spirit of the race Ferrari 488GT3 took a surprise and controversial win at Rockingham today for round three of the British GT championship with the Team Parker Bentley taking second.

But post-race the result was reversed when the Ferrari was given a twenty six second penalty for gaining an unfair advantage.

The penalty was for contact made with the Bentley of Seb Morris and Rick Parfitt which eventually claimed the win. So despite celebrating the win on the podium, Duncan Cameron and Matt Griffin found themselves leaving with the second place trophy.

Jack Mitchell and James Littlejohn claimed third for Macmillan AMR ahead of both Barwell Lamborghinis. Both Barwell cars efforts were hampered by their pitstop success penalties which teams receive after doing well at a previous round. (It’s British Gt’s version of the BTCC’s success ballast.)

So the Demon Tweeks car of Jon Minshaw and Phil Keen claimed fourth with the second Hurracan of Liam Griffin and Sam Tordoff fifth. The AMD Tuning Mercedes of Lee Mowle and Ryan Ratcliffe took sixth running as high as fourth earlier in the race. The two TF Sport Aston Martins which had started on the front row, fell to seventh and eighth by the end.

In GT4 it was pole sitters HHC that took the win with their Ginetta driven by William Tregurtha and Stuart Middleton.

The Ferrari took the chequered flag but ultimately not the win (Photo by Marc Waller) HHC took the GT4 win (Photo by Marc Waller)

 

 

 

The Black Bull garage 59 Mclaren took second with Dean Macdonald and Akhil Rabindra with 2016 champions PMW Expo Racing taking third with Graham Johnson and Mike Robinson at the wheel. PMW also took the GT4 Pro Am win.

Anna Walewska, currently the championships only female driver took seventh with her stand in team mate, George Gamble. Regular 2017 team mate, Mike Simpson was away racing in Europe.

A full race report will follow in the coming days. By Marc Waller

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