BENTLEY DELIVERS A TITLE
PARFITT AND MORRIS CLAIM BRITISH GT CROWN
British GT’S Donington Park finale had a distinctly retro feel to it, with both the GT3 and GT4 races being won by the 2016 champions, before both winning crews handed their titles over to new owners.
Bentley celebrated its first British GT Championship, courtesy of a levelheaded performance from both Rick Parfitt Jr and Seb Morris, as Barwell Motorsport duo Jon Minshaw and Phil Keen again had to suffer finalround heartbreak.
But while the title battle focused on events further down the order, TF Sport showed what it could achieve with no championship pressure. Last year’s GT3 champions Derek Johnston and Jonny Adam led home an Aston Martin onetwo ahead of Mark Farmer and Jon Barnes to cap a truly dominant weekend for Tom Ferrier’s squad.
But while Aston took the immediate silverware, the attention centred firmly on the Team Parker Racing Bentley garage, which was a scene of utter jubilation.
Before the celebrations broke out, that same garage was a picture of total calm all weekend. Not what you expect from a relatively young team in the thick of its first real British GT title fight.
“We know we’re chasing it, and the Bentley isn’t the fastest around here, so actually we don’t care about permutations or who finishes where, we’re just going to drive around, have fun and see what happens,” said Morris before the race. That attitude summed up Team Parker’s unflappable attitude that ultimately landed the crown. Neither driver made a single error, often under extreme pressure.
Despite holding a 10.5point lead, Parfitt/ Morris had to serve an extra 20 seconds in their pit stop, having won last time out at Brands Hatch. That would likely rule them out for the win, whereas the rival Lamborghini of Minshaw/keen had no extra time to serve. Game on.
The Bentley also wasn’t the fastest car last weekend, however neither was the Huracan. Instead the older Aston Martin looked in a league of its own.
The strong traction and sheer grunt of the Vantage, aided by a 15kg weight reduction, gave the Aston an advantage on the undulating Donington surface that left both the Lambo and the Bentley chasing.
TF’S cars topped both practice sessions, and locked out the front row in qualifying as Farmer/barnes just edged Johnston/ Adam to top spot.
Keen was convinced the Lambo could live with the Astons in ideal conditions, but suggested going the wrong way in setup limited the car to third in qualifying, meaning it would start alongside the pointsleading Bentley on the second row.
At the start both Astons shot away and rubbed as they ran level into Redgate, that nudged Johnston wide and allowed Minshaw to split the two as Parfitt was delayed by contact in the pack and dropped to fifth behind Liam Griffin.
That was good news for Minshaw, who piled the pressure on Farmer knowing that a win would secure Barwell the title, regardless of what the Bentley did.
However, it all came to nought when Minshaw lost it on the exit of the chicane. “I caught a bump and the rear went light, and when you’re running heavy fuel it just acts like a pendulum,” rued Minshaw, who was dumped down to ninth.
That handed the advantage to Parfitt/ Morris as the time lost by the spin essentially eroded any deficit they had from their pit penalty. Parfitt then pulled a sweet move on Griffin to snatch third when he reacted first to the end of a yellow flag zone down the Craner Curves.
As the two TF cars cleared off up front, Parfitt did well to stay in sight of them before diving in to hand across to Morris.
Meanwhile, Minshaw had been on a charge and managed to recover to fifth before relaying Keen. The Lambo did jump the Bentley in the stops, but it wasn’t by much.
Keen rejoined in third, but with Morris in fourth he needed to make up ground to have any chance of gaining the title.
Keen pushed hard and closed the gap to secondplaced Barnes, whose car had lost the lead to the sister machine after serving its own pit success penalty.
Keen closed to within two seconds, but could never get close enough to make a true challenge.
Up front, Adam brought the outgoing champions’ car home for a comfortable race victory.
“Derek set that up for me,” he said. “We knew Mark and Jon had a longer stop than us so we didn’t need to do anything silly. It’s nice to finish the year with a win, even if we’re handing the big trophy over.”
Barnes did well to hold second, despite having to leave some time on the table due to the car being on its last track limits warning. “We didn’t want to risk losing great team result so I couldn’t use all the car had,” he said.
Keen crossed the line third to at least secure a podium on the road, but the party had started at Team Parker as an emotional Morris took fourth.
“It’s just unbelievable,” said Parfitt. “We tried to escape the pressure this weekend but I’ve never been so nervous as anything could happen over that last few laps. I’m just over the moon and Seb has been ballistic all year and the team have been simply perfect. This is such a special result.”
To add insult to injury, Keen and Minshaw were later excluded from the result for overtaking under yellow flags, handing the final podium place to Parfitt/ Morris. Griffin/sam Tordoff took fourth in the amended result to at least secure the teams’ championship for Barwell, giving the squad something to celebrate.
The retro theme was replicated in GT4 also, with last year’s class champions Graham Johnson and Mike Robinson taking a dominant victory after issues
befell almost all of their rivals. However, once again they were the ones passing on the main laurels as Will Tregurtha and Stuart Middleton secured this year’s crown with second place.
The Academy Motorsport Aston Martin of Will Moore and Matt NicollJones started on pole and broke clear into a healthy lead in the hands of Moore before an electrical issue caused a spin at the Old Hairpin. The problem cost the car the lead and then manifested itself again in an event that would effectively decide the championship.
Only the Lanan Racing Ginetta crew of David Pittard and Alex Reed could deny Tregurtha and Middleton the crown, and the pair had a tough weekend. After mistakes in qualifying Reed was working his way up the order from eighth when he was caught in a tangle with Moore at the Old Hairpin. Moore was recovering when the Aston’s engine died down the Craner Curves, and when he restarted it the gearbox defaulted to first, causing the car to slam to a halt and Reed to spear into it with nowhere to go.
“It’s just one of those things, pure bad luck,” said Reed. “It’s still been a great year… despite the last two rounds!”
They weren’t the only frontrunners to hit trouble. The Track Club Mclaren suffered an engine issue, while Stefan Hodgetts’ Toyota departed the track when its leftfront wheel parted company at Mcleans. Sandy Mitchell’s Black Bull Mclaren had a puncture and Joe Osborne’s Tolman Mclaren was spat off from second with a braking problem.
All of that left Johnson and Robinson well in the clear to take their first win since switching to the Mclaren.
“We’ve worked hard on setup and this win shows that we’re on the right path to try and get the title back,” said Johnson.
For Tregurtha and Middleton the result didn’t really matter, as they were ensured the title as soon as Lanan dropped out, but their second place at least put them on the podium to celebrate it. The result makes the pair the youngest pairing to ever win a British GT title at a combined age of just 35 years.
“It’s a great result but I do feel sorry for the Lanan boys,” said Tregurtha. “We all wanted a good race to the finish, but it’s amazing to win the title.”
Jacob Mathiassen and Niall Murray rounded out the podium in their Century Motorsport Ginetta.