British GT’S bombshell

The withdrawal of TF Sport improves the prospects of its rivals, but highlights the fact that the championship hasn’t escaped the COVID-19 crisis unscathed

magine if Mercedes took a year out of Formula 1 on the eve of the season and Lewis Hamilton was unable to defend his crown. It seems unthinkable, but on Monday British GT experienced its own version of that scenario with the announcement that leading team TF Sport would be pulling both its Aston Martin GT3 entries for this season, leaving four-time champion Jonny Adam without a seat to defend his title.

Having won each of his championships with a different‘am’ co-driver, the Aston Martin factory ace was targeting number five this year with returning 2014 series runner-up Ahmad Al Harthy. Even amid a stacked 19-car GT3 grid, with the benefit of lessons learned in the new-for-2019 Vantage GT3’S first season, Adam reckoned the pairing would have been a strong bet at season’s end.

“Getting three on the bounce was what I was really wanting to focus on this year,”says Adam.“i really fancied trying to break that little record by doing that with three different Ams. I think we would have been a genuine challenger from the off.”

But when the coronavirus pandemic caused all motorsport activity to be paused, date clashes between British GT’S two Donington Park meetings and the rescheduled Spa 6 Hours and Le Mans 24 Hours created an unavoidable headache, as Adam was already“fully committed”to completing TF’S World Endurance Championship campaign that began at Silverstone last September.

IAlready without Adam at two rounds, for Omani Al Harthy the travel demands of such a congested calendar – with three events in August – meant his programme was no longer feasible. With the second TF entry set to be driven by 2019 GT3 co-champion Graham Davidson and graduating GT4 victor Tom Canning also falling by the wayside, TF Sport has been forced into a one-year hiatus from GT3. It will continue with its two-car

GT4 programme and campaigns with Salih Yoluc in WEC and GT Open, before a planned return next year.

“It’s a shame. I know how much effort Ahmad has put into doing British GT this year but a lot of people are in the same boat,”says Adam.“you can’t fault SRO because they’ve restructured the calendar to get a season of racing in, but unfortunately those date clashes are unavoidable.

“It will be weird just watching, but hopefully this is just a year out and next year we can try to put something together.”

Adam will still have a vital role to play off-track, his expertise in getting the most from both car and customers making him a useful asset for Aston’s lone 2020 GT3 customer Beechdean AMR – the squad with which he won his first title alongside Andrew Howard in 2015 – and an invaluable mentor to the four young chargers in TF Sport’s GT4 line-up. But his absence from the entry list certainly leaves the door open for new challengers to take up the mantle.

But before we get ahead of ourselves, we can’t presume that TF will be the last team whose 2020 plans are impacted by the pandemic. A pessimistic take perhaps but, in a championship that counts wealthy amateur drivers as its lifeblood, it must be a point of consideration for series organiser SRO.

Motorsport remains a luxury activity for those with disposable income and, in times where business owners are tightening their belts, racing an expensive GT3 car at the weekends quickly ceases to be a priority. As Davidson puts it:“i’ve just got to play the sensible game. You can’t have all the toys all the time, can you?”

Of course, none of that is British GT’S fault, and removing the annual trip to Spa from the calendar has gone some way towards cutting costs for participants.

Autosport understands another entry is being finalised to replace the second TF car and bring the GT3 ranks back up to capacity, following the Matt Griffin and Duncan Cameron Ferrari announced on Monday (see page 70). What may play to SRO’S advantage is a recognition from amateur drivers originally looking to race in Europe – like Cameron, who traded his planned International GT Open assault for British GT – that getting their fix closer to home may be a better bet in this year of uncertainty.

“I do think things will shift, these are strange times,”says Griffin, who last raced in British GT in 2017.“There’s a big appetite for racing, that’s still there, but I think people will shift what they’re doing based on their personal preferences.

For every race team, professional driver and promoter out there, it’s all a little bit up in the air and 2020 is going to be a season you need to get through and reset for in 2021.”

Even though they won’t be doing all the rounds due to the Le Mans clash, the return of a pairing that first won a British GT round in 2009 – and in a brand-new car to boot – is a welcome boost for the championship and supports Adam’s cautious optimism that Pro-am racing can survive the brunt of the pandemic.“the impact is definitely going to affect motorsport in different ways,”he says.“but customer racing hopefully will still continue.”

There will be many people at SRO hoping he’s right.

“We can’t presume TF will be the last team whose 2020 plans are impacted by the pandemic”