ASTON RIPSUP BRANDS HATCH
BRITISH GT ACTION FROM KENT
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s lap 17 ticked by at Brands Hatch, the Flick Haigh-driven Optimum Motorsport Aston Martin Vantage led by 12.3 seconds, comfortably enough to negate the 10s success penalty she and Jonny Adam had earned for finishing third at Spa last time out.
But on lap 18, that advantage was cut to nothing as the safety car appeared to allow for the recovery of Graham Roberts’ GT4 Ginetta at Sheene. Haigh’s hard work had been for naught and Optimum was staring at defeat on a weekend that looked to be theirs for the taking.
“Our chins were on the ground,” admitted Adam later.
But clearly the two-time champion hadn’t read the script, as come the chequered flag it was Optimum on top of the podium. It was in command of the standings for the first time since the Oulton season opener, after Adam’s late pass on Jonny Cocker denied the 2004 champion and co-driver Sam de Haan their first win of the year.
At the start, Haigh converted pole to an early lead over the Beechdean Vantage of Andrew Howard and Spa winner Graham Davidson’s similar Jetstream model, which had a 20s penalty of its own to serve at the stops. Davidson then caught Howard napping at the restart to snatch second, although another safety car interruption to repair tyre barriers on the pit straight – pummelled by Mike Newbould’s HHC Ginetta – effectively ended his prospects.
That was even before a “foreign object”, understood to be a piece of kerbing, penetrated the windscreen during teammate Maxime Martin’s stint and forced the Belgian’s unscheduled hospital visit.
When the race resumed for a second time, Haigh had enough left in the tank in the four laps prior to the pit window for Adam to emerge ahead of the Beechdean car, now with Darren Turner at the wheel. The delayed Barwell Lamborghini Huracan of Phil Keen (in for Jon Minshaw) was behind also, hampered by having the final garage in the congested pitlane and was forced to wait for a gap in the train of cars to appear.
As Optimum team manager Bas Leinders put it, having the first pit bay meant “the 10 seconds wasn’t that big a penalty, it was more like three or four in the end”.
Yet that still left Adam behind the second Barwell car of Cocker, who had benefitted from an overcut after de Haan had come in a lap later than the rest to a clear pitlane.
With Turner managing an unstable rear end and focused on keeping Keen behind – until the pre-event points leader was forced to retire when radiator debris caused his engine to overheat – Adam escaped and set about tracking the leader for several laps without finding a chink in his armour.
Optimum engineer Evert van Doorn was prepared to settle for second with Minshaw/keen out of the picture, but Adam didn’t want to give up the chase and was rewarded for his persistence when Cocker’s tyres fell away. Sure enough, Cocker ran wide on the exit of Westfield with four laps to go and in a flash, Adam was alongside and gone.
“My engineer was telling me ‘remember points are key’ but when that opportunity arose it was game on,” said Adam. “I could have let Jonny go, but I just wanted to keep putting the pressure on to see if he would crack. Up to then he was bulletproof, he was driving so well, using the traffic really nicely. It was just that one mistake.”
Behind Cocker, still searching for his first British GT win since Thruxton 2007, Turner’s loose grip on third was finally ended by Brands debutant Nicki Thiim, who capitalised on traffic at Clearways and slipped ahead of the TF Sport Aston Martin on the run to Paddock Hill Bend, also four laps from home.
It capped a good recovery for TF Sport from the back of the grid, after Farmer had spun into the gravel at Paddock on his first timed qualifying lap. It was also a just reward for TF after preparing the Blancpain chassis that had entered the Spa 24 Hours the previous weekend when Farmer’s fire at Spa caused too much damage to the primary chassis.
“I feel so sorry for Jon Minshaw, but it’s just livened up the final stages of
the championship no end,” Farmer said.
The top four teams are still in with a chance of the title at Donington Park, but there is no doubting who is on top. Even with a 20s penalty to serve, Adam and Haigh hold a handsome 17.5-point buffer over Minshaw/keen and if their ongoing appeal of a 30-second post-race penalty from the first race at Snetterton that dropped them from fourth to ninth is successful, the title really will be Optimum’s to lose.
“It’s probably the best that it’s felt all year long, which is a nice bit of timing because Donington will be crucial,” Adam said. “We’ve got a hefty penalty but I’d rather go there leading with the way the car is performing than go there trailing behind.”
In scorching 27-degree temperatures, Optimum have turned up the heat on the championship fight.