MITCHELL AND SCHJERPEN LUCK IN
Century Motorsport celebrated its second British GT4 win in succession, with Jack Mitchell and Aleksander Schjerpen capitalising on heartbreak for the Equipe Verschuur team of Finlay Hutchison and Daniel Mckay.
Hutchison and Mckay looked untouchable around the fast sweeps of Silverstone as they found “the perfect balance” in their Mclaren 570S GT4 – a car that has notably been difficult to set-up to find the operative tyre window.
But the pair nailed it, taking pole on Saturday and also looking unbeatable for the first two hours on Sunday, and then things took a turn for the worst.
Hutchison admitted to “messing up the start... really, really badly” and slipped back to fourth as the fast-starting Lewis Proctor shot his Tolman Mclaren into the lead from seventh on the grid in the first lap.
Undeterred, Hutchison fought back to secure the lead again shortly before handing to Mckay, who consolidated the advantage to the best part of 20 seconds. Hutchison then took over again and continued to romp clear. That was until his frontright suspension gave way, robbing the crew of a 35-second lead and a sure victory.
With the long-term leaders out, a frantic battle played out for the podium places. Ben Tuck/ben Green led the way in the sister Century BMW M4, but slipped back to third after serving their 20-second success penalty after their win last time out.
That handed the lead to Mitchell/ Schjerpen, who had kept things clean to climb up the order having lost time with a radio glitch early on.
“We did qualifying laps for the best part of two-and-a-half hours, but it feels mega to win,” said Mitchell. “We didn’t have the qualifying pace [they started ninth] but the car was so consistent in the race that we could tick the laps off.”
Jordan Albert brought the Mclaren he shares with Proctor home in second, defying its 15-seconds extra in the pits to replicate its result from the last race.
The fight for third was a thriller. Tuck held on gamely on worn tyres but succumbed to both Matt Nicoll-jones/will Moore’s Academy Aston Martin and the HHC Ginetta of Callum Pointon/patrik Matthiesen in the closing laps.
Matthiesen then launched an audacious lunge up the inside of Nicoll-jones as the pair ran into Woodcote for the last time and got the place on the road, only to have the positions reversed after contact.
Kelvin Fletcher/martin Plowman recovered from a time penalty for contact with Charlie Fagg’s Mclaren to finish sixth and win the Pro-am division after what Plowman labelled “the best stint of my life” in the RJN Nissan 370Z.