CANNING AND HAND FINISH ON TOP
Seb Priaulx and Scott Maxwell came up 1.5s short of victory and the GT4 title as third proved just enough for Tom Canning and Ash Hand to claim the spoils in a double success for TF Sport and Aston Martin.
Having not scored any points since winning on debut at Snetterton, the Steller Performance Audi of Sennan Fielding and Richard Williams went some way to making up for the fuel problem that robbed them of a podium in June’s Donington race by converting pole into victory.
This was despite Priaulx’s valiant efforts in the closing laps to snatch the place that would have secured Multimatic Motorsport the title.
Williams led for most of the first stint, until impressive 17-year-old Canning pounced on a small mistake at the Old Hairpin. However, the preevent championship leaders had a 10-second success penalty to serve, which meant Fielding was always going to resume ahead, while Hand had Priaulx – the winner in the year’s first visit to Donington – looming large in his mirrors before the safety car condensed the pack.
An aggressive move at the restart from Dennis Lind’s GT3 Lamborghini at Mcleans meant the door was left open for Priaulx to pass into Coppice.
Although he had Aston stablemate Martin Plowman dutifully following behind in fourth, the last few laps were nervy for Hand but he was confident Fielding could hold on to the lead.
“It was out of our hands,” admitted Hand. “But we always knew the
Audi was going to win, it was fast all weekend, so we had that in our head and did as much as we could.
All we had to do was stay behind the Mustang and that’s what we did.”
After a disastrous start to the year at Oulton Park in which they failed to score any points due to accident damage in both races, Canning and Hand have since been a model of consistency, closing the year with three podiums in a row after a hardfought win at Spa thrust them into the title fight. But they had to rely on Multimatic losing big points at Brands Hatch for not earthing the car before refuelling, which ultimately proved costly.
“It’s bittersweet,” reflected Maxwell. “On track we executed and, almost every single race, we had the ultimate result we figured the car could get but we had two podiums taken away for minor technical infractions. We lost the championship not on the track, we lost it off the track.”
Behind them in fourth, Beechdean AMR’S Plowman and Kelvin Fletcher completed Aston’s joy by sealing the Pro-am championship, which was largely a formality after Michael O’brien and Graham Johnson retired with engine problems on their Balfe Mclaren at Brands Hatch.