HAIGH AND ADAM

STANDTALL

The mark of a champion is to keep your cool when others lose theirs, and Flick Haigh’s resolve was certainly tested by the chaos surrounding her at Donington Park.

Needing only to finish sixth to secure the British GT title for herself and Optimum Motorsport Aston Martin team-mate Jonny Adam, a cautious Haigh found herself being elbowed down to fifth by the pitstops, but championships are won by being sensible on your off-days and not by making rash moves that lead to contact.

Even with closest title rivals Jon Minshaw/phil Keen (Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini) upholding their end of the bargain by taking victory, fourth was enough for Haigh to become the first female outright champion in series history, while Adam claimed his third crown with as many different co-drivers and teams, after sweeping up in 2015 with Andrew Howard (Beechdean AMR) and ’16 with Derek Johnston (TF Sport).

“I woke up this morning and it was a weird feeling, like ‘this is an important day’, but there was just a gut feeling that if we were sensible, then it could be ours,” said Adam.

Even with a 27.5-point buffer heading into the weekend, Optimum only had to look to Minshaw and Keen’s recent Donington track record to know that the job wasn’t done yet.

The die was cast from the off, as Minshaw romped away from pole, while team-mate Sam De Haan set about defending second from a gaggle of Aston Martins including Graham Davidson (Jetstream), Haigh, Mark Farmer (TF) and Johnston all tripping over themselves. It looked to many onlookers like clever team tactics from Barwell, but team boss Mark Lemmer insisted it was not the case.

“We joked that it really looked like a master tactic for Barwell, but it was absolutely not,” he said. “He was very defensive, but the officials didn’t see anything wrong with it.”

Once Davidson did get through, he slid on oil at Turn 1 and hit a GT4 car, leaving the Scot with a bent steering arm and out of contention.

Farmer was the next man on the move. Having muscled past Haigh, he then took De Haan before setting about reducing the gap to Minshaw, which stood at 14s on lap 22.

As De Haan continued his resolute defence, Johnston demoted Haigh further, before a slow run through the chicane allowed Rick Parfitt Jr’s Team Parker Racing Bentley to swoop past the pair of them, 2016 champion Johnston then retiring after punting the back of Parfitt.

After following the Bentley for a few laps, an overwhelming sense of relief greeted Haigh when her stint was over.

“We still had a job to do today,” she said. “Maybe I lost more places than I should have, but people were pulling some moves which weren’t really on and I wasn’t prepared to put the car in that situation, so I brought it in and I knew Jonny would be able to do the rest.”

A 20-second penalty carried over from their victory at Brands Hatch complicated matters further and meant Adam rejoined in traffic, although an engine glitch for De Haan’s co-driver Jonny Cocker on his outlap meant Adam had an easier job of passing the Lambo than Haigh had.

AMR stablemate Darren Turner (Beechdean) was compliant when Adam came through for fourth, but Ryan Ratcliffe, who had taken over the Bentley from Parfitt, was not such an easy customer.

The Welshman stuck to his task for several laps until Yelmer Buurman’s charging ERC Mercedes – which had driven around the outside of Adam at Goddards on the previous tour – took him by surprise at the Old Hairpin on lap 51, opening the door for Adam to follow through. Once there, Adam was content to drop away from Buurman, knowing fourth would do.

Up ahead, Nicki Thiim had taken over the TF Aston from Farmer and showed a lack of Donington experience was no impediment as he closed relentlessly on Keen, setting a new GT3 lap record in the process.

The Dane took the lead at the Craner Curves on lap 59 and looked set for

victory – despite briefly losing the lead when baulked by Struan Moore’s Nissan on the penultimate lap – until a 30-second penalty for exceeding track limits dropped the #11 car to second, Thiim only receiving the message after performing a victory celebration donut on the slowing down lap.

“It was a bit annoying, I got the message 20 minutes before the end that we were on the limit of track limits, so I completely backed off,” he said. “It would have been nice to end it on the top but it was good fun.”

Nonetheless, it was a fitting swansong for the V12 Vantage, which has racked up 22 wins in the championship since 2012. The ringing endorsement from Lemmer spoke volumes.

“I’m glad to see the back of the old V12 to be honest, it’s more or less impossible to beat it here.”