National reports: Donington Park; Thruxton; Snetterton; Silverstone; Brands Hatch
Two new winners claimed GT3 spoils on a gloomy day at Donington Park, as British GT introduced a new format of a two-hour race followed by a one-hour sprint.
Michael Igoe and new co-driver Andrea Caldarelli took the 37.5 points on offer in the first race in WPI Motorsport’s Lamborghini, while 2018 GT4 Pro-am champions Scott Malvern and Nick Jones took their maiden outright triumph with their Team Parker Racing Bentley in a race two decided by tyre strategy.
WPI hadn’t appeared to be a factor in the first half of the opener – the grid set by aggregate qualifying times – as an entertaining three-way lead battle played out between poleman Michael O’brien in the Rocket Team RJN Mclaren, Rob Collard’s Barwell Lamborghini and the RAM Mercedes of Sam de Haan.
After 24 laps of dogged pursuit, Collard took the lead when O’brien ran wide at Coppice. De Haan followed through two laps later and O’brien – whose first wet laps in the 720S had been in the warm-up – steadily dropped back to the extent that de Haan’s team-mate Patrick Kujala was able to negate a 10s success pitstop penalty to emerge ahead of James Baldwin, in for O’brien, after the stops.
Barwell kept Collard out until lap 45 in the hope that the track would be dry enough for a switch to slick tyres but, with 41 minutes to go, the team bailed on that strategy and plugged in Sandy Mitchell.
The young Scot, who served a 15s success penalty in the pits, emerged 4.4s behind Kujala with eight-laps-fresher tyres, but the pressures were too high and that meant he was quickly swallowed up by factory Lambo gun Caldarelli and dropped to fifth.
Igoe and Caldarelli had only qualified ninth, but gained two places immediately when neither 2 Seas Mclaren made it to the grid – a small fire in the warm-up meant one of them joined the race late, and a mechanical fault was discovered on the
other, Jordan Witt arriving at the end of the pitlane 10s after it closed.
At the start, an opportunist Igoe passed Lewis Proctor when the Optimum Mclaren botched a move on Ian Loggie (RAM Mercedes) at the Fogarty Esses, then he took Loggie and fellow Lambo man Adam Balon (Barwell) in quick succession. After Caldarelli took over on lap 36, the Italian made swift work first of Baldwin, then Mitchell, and set about catching the leading Mercedes of Kujala. There was an air of inevitability about the chase and, sure enough, he powered around the outside at Redgate into a lead he would never lose with six laps remaining.
“In these conditions it’s always tricky to do an overtake,” said Caldarelli. “I knew that it was Patrick in the car and I know that he is a tough guy, so when I was two or three seconds away I was looking at where I was stronger and I knew that I had to try in the first corner. I’m happy and proud that we brought the first win to the team.”
A “pissed off” Kujala admitted defeat was “hard to swallow”, but still scored maximum points in the Silver classification. Behind, Loggie and Yelmer Buurman completed the podium in third, although RAM boss Dan Shufflebottom admitted they could have been in the lead battle without problems getting the fuel hose attached in the pits.
Balon and Phil Keen finished fourth, Keen setting the fastest lap on the final tour in a futile attempt to grab a podium place.
The race two grid was set by Pro times, with Joe Osborne (Balfe Mclaren) and Malvern – both on slicks on a damp but drying track – sharing the front row. At the start, Malvern dived around the outside at Redgate as Osborne dropped briefly to fifth behind the fast-starting wet-shod trio of Jack Mitchell, Sandy Mitchell and Buurman. Malvern too was swallowed up on the following lap, but by lap six the Bentley and Mclaren were in front and pulling away as fellow slick runners Keen and Caldarelli struggled to get heat into their tyres.
Osborne tracked Malvern to the stops, where GT3 rookie Stewart Proctor – Lewis’s dad – and Jones respectively took over. As Proctor fell back into the clutches of Balon, Jones kept it on the island amid worsening conditions to take a memorable win.
“We rolled the dice and everything came in for us,” said Jones, who had finished 11th in race one. “More than often it doesn’t work, but it did for us today.”
Balon had been coming under pressure from Igoe until the race one winner spun at the Esses, and he cleared Proctor Sr to take second and hold on to beat leading Silver combatants Witt (after taking over from Jack Mitchell) and Proctor Jr. That consistent scoring from Keen and Balon has therefore given them the points lead.