United Autosports pairing Matt Bell and Mark Patterson secured victory in the final round of the Avon Tyres British GT Championship at Donington Park, but fourth place was good enough to clinch the 2013 British GT Drivers title for Beechdean-AMR driver Andrew Howard. Declan Jones won the GT4 class race, but that was not enough to stop Ryan Ratcliffe and Rick Parfitt Jnr from becoming 2013 British GT GT4 Champions.
The two-hour season finale was played out in beautiful autumn weather at the Leicestershire circuit and the large attending crowd were treated to a mouth-watering battle between ten drivers for overall GT3 honours. Early on the race was dominated by the pole-sitting #8 888Optimum BMW Z4 GT3 of Lee Mowle, continuing the strong performance by team-mate Joe Osborne in yesterdays qualifying session. Mowle, in his first year of GT3 racing after progressing from the Ginetta GT5 Challenge last season, looked comfortable as race leader and broke the challenge of those behind him bar that of the menacing #32 Trackspeed Porsche of Gregor Fisken.
Starting sixth on the grid, Championship leader going into the weekend, Andrew Howard was quick off the mark and made an early move on 2010 Drivers Champion, David Ashburn at the Foggy Esses, and Patterson, who started seventh, also seized the opportunity and passed the Trackspeed driver.
Up and down the 32-car field there were lots of overtaking and a challenge between the Preci-Spark Mercedes AMG SLS and the Mtech-prepared Ginetta of Derek Johnston saw the G55 pit with suspension damage. Johnston did return to the track but wouldn’t complete the race, retiring after 21 laps. An early Safety Car period brought the pack together, undoing the hard work of race leader Mowle. The cause of the caution was Ashburn, who spun out of the race and then couldn’t restart his Porsche 997 GT3 R following an unsuccessful overtake on the Twisted Team Parker Racing Ginetta of Adrian Barwick at McLeans. British GT debutant Barwick recovered and continued, but he and team-mate Bradley Ellis limped home eighth in GT4.
After the restart Mowle made a good getaway and left Fisken and FF Corse’s Gary Eastwood in his wake. Fisken made one error in his stint, a spin at Goddards on lap sixteen, the Scotsman returning to the track in eighth place. This promoted Howard to third following a determined charge past Ecurie Ecosse’s title hopeful Marco Attard, and a persistent Patterson, who would eventually pass Attard with a sublime undercut out of the hairpin shortly after Howard.
While the top five squabbled amongst themselves, series returnee Gregoire Demoustier. The Von Ryan driver made an express start from seventeenth on the grid to pass Attard for fifth, going on to challenge Howard for third before the pitstops. Another driver making progress was John Dhillon in the AF Corse Ferrari 458 who was up to seventh. The past three rounds have seen the Ferrari driver improve, and the Donington round was his most accomplished race to date.
With the Pro drivers now installed, six cars were given driven through penalties for overtaking under yellow flags while the APO Sport GT4 Ginetta was assisted back on track after getting stuck in gravel . This affected Adam Wilcox (Predator CCTV-AMR), Aaron Scott (AF Corse), Phil Keen (Trackspeed), Richard Abra (Barwell Motorsport-AMR) and the race-leading BMW of Osborne.
Osborne resumed the race in the lead, principally due to the FF Corse Ferrari of Barff having an additional 15 seconds added to his mandatory stop for a podium finish last time out in Zandvoort. Following this period of changes the field settled, and the full grandstands at Donington were treated to some stunning battles; a lengthy battle between Bell and Barff, now fighting for second, saw the experienced pair bang doors halfway through the fearsome Craner Curves, and while the Ferrari was first to reach the Old Hairpin, Bell would have the last laugh, getting his man at the end of the lap.
Osborne’s lead of two seconds was obliterated when the BMW driver was awarded the first of two stop-go penalties for suspected pit lane speeding. 888Optimum hotly contested the claims, but timing provider TSL couldn’t find an irregularity, despite Osborne’s team reporting contrary. Upon leaving the pits Osborne’s car suffered a propshaft failure and the #8 BMW retired in the pit lane.
Back on track, Duncan Tappy, now in for the pacey Demoustier, was proving how wide the Von Ryan McLaren could be, preventing Jonny Adam from passing. This provided the Scotsman with a serious dilemma. Adam needed to pass Tappy to give Howard the Championship win, but cleanly; race leader Bell was now able to win the Championship by one and a half points from Howard, should positions remain as they were. Needless to say, they wouldn’t.
Tappy was soon awarded a stop-go penalty for overtaking under yellows, which opened up the race, promoting Adam to third behind Barff and race leader Bell. Try as he might, Oliver Bryant couldn’t pass the Beechdean driver, but Bryant didn’t relent and stayed within four seconds of his rival for majority of his stint.
Returning to British GT this weekend was experienced Porsche ace, Richard Westbrook. The Trackspeed driver was given a challenge of sizeable proportions when he rejoined the race in a lowly fourteenth place after team-mate Fisken pitted from eighth. Donington witness a fiery performance from Westbrook who was at times the only driver to successively post lap times in the 1:30s as he carved his way up through the field. As the flag fell ‘Westy’ took a mighty third place finish in the ‘Tartan Terror’, the best result for the #32 Porsche since he gave it a victory at the two-hour Rockingham round in May.
Bell had a comfortable cushion to Barff at the flag, an eight second lead, which gave he and Patterson second in the Championship. The win also sees Patterson crowned the inaugural Blancpain Gentlemen Drivers Trophy winner, an additional bonus for the South African who has excelled in the top national GT series.
Westbrook who was 24 seconds off the Ferrari on the penultimate lap eased off to finish 30 seconds behind Barff at the finish. The Porsche man also scooped the Mobil Service Centre Driver of the Weekend for his performances in qualifying and the 120-minute race. Behind the Trackspeed driver was Adam in fourth, with Bryant fifth, which tied up third place for the Ecurie Ecosse drivers in the points standing.
Aaron Scott continued his team-mates good work and finished sixth, taking the fastest lap of the race, an impressive 1:30.236. Von Ryan’s Tappy was seventh, still an impressive result despite their penalty, and Tom Sharp guided the CWS 4×4 Spares Ginetta G55 he shares with Colin White to eighth to claim their first points of the 2013 season.
Phil Keen again showed his ability to fightback, the Trackspeed Porsche overcoming the earlier stop-go to give team-mate Jon Minshaw a ninth place finish. Rounding out the top ten on their debut weekend in GT3 were Jacques Duyver and Charlie Hollings in the second AF Corse Ferrari. After qualifying left the pair feeling like they should be further up the grid than the eleventh place grid slot, a battling performance by both drivers resulted in a debut point and a half.
GT4
Starting from pole-position in the GT4 class, Barwick had a difficult spell in the opening laps and the damage received from the collision with Ashburn put pay to Barwick or team-mate Bradley Ellis, the 2007 British GT Champion, challenging for a class win. Rick Parfitt Jnr was an early class leader, and the Optimum driver was able to control the race from the front as his rivals contested amidst battling GT3s, but Nathan Freke would soon come to challenge his Ginetta rival.
Going into the weekend just twelve and a half points separated Parfitt Jnr and team-mate Ratcliffe from Century Motorsports’ Declan Jones. Freke, Jones’ team-mate and team boss put in a sterling effort to give Jones a cushion with which he could takeover from.
Behind the top two, Harry Whale, making his British GT GT4 debut this weekend in the Silverstone Auctions-AMR prepared Aston Martin Vantage GT4 got the better of APO Sport’s James May and Complete Racing’s Steve Chaplin, who was also in a Vantage GT4.
Before the cars pitted, Whale passed Parfitt Jnr who was mindful of the fact the Aston Martin driver couldn’t take points away from him. May’s APO Sport had an off-track excursion before the interval too, the modest British driver later admitting he was pushing too hard. After pitstops were complete it was Jones who led the pack from Ratcliffe, Zoe Wenham (who would hand over to team-mate Rory Bryant), Kiwi Aston Martin factory driver Richie Stanaway (in for Whale), Tom Wilson (in for Chaplin), Ellis and Dan Eagling in for Matt Smith.
Drama followed though as the Championship leading Optimum G50 was handed a stop-go penalty for being too quick in the pits for the mandatory stop, but such was Ratcliffe’s advantage before pitting to Stanaway, he came out still in second place. However, Stanaway got his man before the end of the lap, Ratcliffe letting the Aston Martin driver through at Redgate to avoid a potential mishap through the Craner Curves, and that is how they finished.
Jones took the win, his third of the year, and his first since the opening weekend at Oulton Park, but it wasn’t enough and Parfitt Jnr and Ratcliffe wrapped up the 2013 GT4 title by two points, finishing third on track, second in the points. Behind the top trio in fourth was Dan Eagling, put in another top performance having taken over the Redgate Lifetime Racing Ginetta from Matt Smith, himself having arguably one of his best drives of the season. The pair’s result sees them seal third in GT4, a solid result to a campaign that only saw them begin racing in the second event of the season. Steve Chaplin and Tom Wilson finished fifth on the road, taking points for fourth in class, a strong result having missed the previous two rounds at Brands Hatch and Zandvoort.
