BRITISH GT4
Academy Motorsport is campaigning the Mustang in British GT4, which saw the 2021 season kick-off at Brands Hatch
The traditional Oulton Park Easter weekend season-opener to the SRO-run British GT Championship has been postponed until September, which made Brands Hatch the first race of 2021. The timely introduction of Step 3 of the country’s pandemic response on the previous Monday meant spectators could attend, even if the paddock and garages were only open to teams, media and essential event personnel.
The 2021 British GT Championship features nine rounds (five sprint and four endurance) at six venues over seven weekends. The championship will visit Donington Park twice, while Oulton Park and Snetterton will each host two one-hour sprint races, due to their pit-lane refuelling limitations.
The series boasts 26 full-season entries with 13 different makes – 14 GT3 and 12 GT4. Academy Motorsport has entered a Ford Mustang GT4 with a perfectly matched driver pairing for the 2021 season. Young-gun Matt Cowley (23) is reunited with Will Moore (31) in car 61. They have previously and successfully competed together in European GT4, and Will joined Matt in the Mustang for the latter part of last year’s British GT4.
Eight other teams field a varied grid of 11 other GT4 cars including five McLaren 570Ss, two BMW M4s, a Toyota GR Supra, a Mercedes-AMG, an Audi R8 LMS and a Ginetta G56. SRO’s clever Balance of Performance formula uses weight, intake restrictors and ride-height to ensure a level playing field for competition, without hampering the strengths or highlighting the weaknesses of any individual car.
Saturday’s qualification had the first three GT4 cars covered by less than a second, with the Academy Mustang third on the grid, 0.003 seconds behind the Ginetta G56. The GT4 field is split between two sub-classes based on driver career success: Silver and Pro/ Am. Academy’s Silver Cup class is typically composed of pairs of aspiring professional drivers, but these entries must serve an additional 26 stationary seconds during their mandatory driver change and carry 25kg of ballast. In theory, to stand a chance of overall race success, the first driver of a silver pairing needs to achieve close to half-a-minute advantage over the fastest of the Pro/Am entries during their stint.
The race started out well, with Moore passing the Ginetta on the opening lap and building a lead in second place, despite the unhelpful presence of an out-of-place GT3 back-marker. On lap 28, Moore was unlucky to have contact with a GT3 car inelegantly rejoining the track. The damage to the front left suspension was too great for in-race repair and the car was retired to the garage.
Once again, the Academy team’s stoical reserves were tested. With characteristic understatement, team principal Matt NicollJones said: “Our Mustang showed superb pace all weekend. However, unsolicited contact while running second sadly ended our day earlier than planned.”
Here’s hoping that the Academy team’s early-season bad luck is behind them.
There was nothing wrong with either their qualifying or race pace, so Moore and Cowley are surely owed a little more racing luck on their next dip into the ultra-competitive British GT4 Championship.
We’ll follow their progress throughout the season, so be sure to grab your copy of future issues to see how the Mustang gets on against the big guns in GT Racing.
This just has to be the ultimate one-make race series: the Amon Cup for Ford GT40s. Named in memory of the famous New Zealand F1 and sports car racer Chris Amon, race promoter Motor Racing Legends is organising two GT40-only races this season, and the first 80-minute twodriver race was at Donington Park in May.
The dreaded Covid restrictions kept some of the European cars away, but a dozen GT40s still made a wonderful spectacle.
As well as being pretty handy in a touring car, Gordon Shedden is also very quick in a GT40 and has previously won the Spa Classic Six Hours in the car owned by Philip Walker.
Sharing with accomplished historic racer Miles Griffiths, Shedden did the heavy lifting in his stint and was en route to the airport for his flight home to Scotland by the time Griffiths took the flag.
The second Amon Cup race will be at Silverstone in October, and we’ll bring you a post-race update in the mag.