Griggs back

After a 27-year absence, Nick Griggs returned to racing at Cadwell Park in the Cooper Class of the Mini Challenge. “I used to race stock cars and Formula First, but coming back after a long lay off was brilliant,” he said. He finished ninth in both races.

The British GT Championship will not share a grid with the European GT4 Series next season at the request of teams.

Series organiser SRO has revealed the 2017 calendar, which again features the showpiece Silverstone 500km race and annual European round at SpaFrancorchamps as back-to-back events.

This season the grid was boosted by the addition of SRO’S sister European GT4 Series, which held its championship rounds on the same grid. However, the move proved unpopular with British teams after some incidents, particularly with the faster GT3 cars lapping the less experienced European runners. At the time it prompted boycott threats from some top teams. British GT4 runners also felt the swelled class entry skewed the fight for championship points.

British GT Championship manager Benjamin Franassovici said: “Next season we will not be sharing grids with the European GT4 Series.

“We had two very good races with them, which were largely clean, but ultimately as a good championship organiser you have to listen to your teams. On this occasion the feedback was clear.

“We will still welcome one-off European entries for the bigger tracks [Silverstone and Spa] so we’re still expecting big grids for both rounds.”

British GT will revert to its traditional opening round at Oulton Park over the Easter Bank Holiday, having begun at Brands Hatch for the first time this year. The Snetterton double-header moves forward, meaning the last four rounds are all worth larger points scores.