MORRIS DANCING AFTER GT4 TRIUMPH
Forsetti Motorsport made a dream British GT debut with victory in the first race at Oulton Park, but it was Team Parker Racing that came away from Cheshire with the points lead.
Series returnee Jamie Day and Mikey Porter produced a dominant performance to claim the opener in their Aston Martin Vantage, and a repeat appeared possible when Porter charged from eighth to lead race two. Their 10-second success penalty on top of the mandatory 14s for Silver crews relative to Pro-am entrants meant Day rejoined third, but he never got the chance to chase after the pair of amateur drivers he’d fallen behind due to the full-course yellow that ended the contest. That left Parker Mercedes duo Seb Morris and Charles Dawson to celebrate victory after taking second in race one.
“We were probably pretty lucky there with a long full-course yellow and there were some very quick Silvers behind us,” admitted Dawson. “We came to this championship with no expectations, we’ll just take it race by race, corner by corner.”
Day had set pole by 0.8s for the first race and romped away impressively from the squabbling Optimum Mclaren of Jack Brown and his Forsetti team-mate Marc Warren. Dawson dropped from fourth to sixth, but remained in touch prior to the lengthy mid-race caution triggered when Will Moore’s Mustang became beached at Shell Oils, then elongated when Kavi Jundu crashed the Speedworks Toyota under yellows. A longer stop for Optimum meant Zac Meakin rejoined fourth, behind Pro-am runners Will Orton (in for Warren) and Morris, but he regained third when Orton was handed a one-second stop/go for a short pitstop.
Fortunately for Orton, the safety car that followed the full-course yellow split the top four from the rest of the pack, ultimately headed by Charlie Robertson’s Century BMW, limiting the damage. “I could see the people I was battling about a corner ahead, thinking, ‘I know we have a good car in the wet’,” lamented Robertson. “I had a clear track at the end to show the pace, but couldn’t do anything with it.”
His frustration was intensified at the start of
race two. Contact on the exit of Old Hall from Tom Holland’s Ginetta sent Robertson spinning wildly in front of the pack and Jordan Albert (Audi) couldn’t avoid the BMW. Sai Sanjay (Mclaren) and Matt Nicoll-jones (Ford) were eliminated, too.
Porter took advantage of the melee to move into fifth, claimed fourth when Dan Vaughan’s Toyota was halted by a broken toe-link caused in the first-corner chaos, then pulled moves on Holland, Meakin and finally poleman Morris to take the lead. Orton followed in his wheeltracks up to third. “It was a really good fight,” grinned Porter. But Morris, the 2017 GT3 champion with Parker, kept him in sight before Dawson resumed ahead.