LOGGIE: I THOUGHT I’D LOST BRITISH GT TITLE
RAM racer and Audi duo take the titles while there are first race wins in the GT3 and GT4 races for Century and Toyota, as Graham Keilloh outlines
Ian Loggie has admitted that he thought he had lost his maiden overall British GT title after spinning his RAM Racing Mercedes early on in a dramatic Donington Park showdown last weekend.
Loggie’s Mercedes and the three other title-contending crews started far down after qualifying rain mixed up the grid order. Then Loggie dropped to last avoiding an opening-turn melee, and soon afterwards lost the places he’d made up with a spin.
The amateur driver, who finished a close runner-up in the overall standings last year, told Motorsport News: “[When] I had that crazy spin, I thought ‘I’ve just sold my championship here, I’m going to be a bridesmaid again’.”
Loggie and partner Jules Gounon however recovered to finish second, more than enough for Loggie’s title, and were just shy of the Darren Leung/Alexander
Sims BMW taking Century’s first overall win.
Steller Audi R8 pair Richard Williams and Sennan Fielding took the GT4 title after also finishing second in their race.
You know what they say about judging books by their covers. Ian Loggie needed to only finish fifth in British GT’s season-concluding ‘Donington Decider’ to ensure his first overall championship. That he actually finished second suggests the RAM Mercedes racer took the title with comfort. Not so.
Consider that Loggie was last after the first turn, as he found a roadblock there from Enduro’s McLaren getting broadside after tapping the back of Darren Leung’s Century BMW, meaning Loggie had to take a detour through the gravel. Then not long later his comeback was snuffed out by spinning exiting the final turn, putting him back to last.
Yet come the end, in something that seemed from a different race, the Mercedes got to the flag in second place, more than enough to secure Loggie’s and RAM’s long-awaited championship. Loggie’s partner Jules Gounon was even pressing the victorious Century BMW shared by Leung and Alexander Sims.
Loggie told Motorsport News: “Eventually we got it done. It was a tough old start. Then I had that crazy spin, I thought ‘I’ve just sold my championship here, I’m going to be a bridesmaid again’.
“So I just kept pushing, kept overtaking, we got a safety car, kept pushing, a couple of other cars go off, we make up, we had an amazing pitstop, we get in front of the
Barwell Lambo just and no more, and then it was just a matter of [Gounon] was in second place, bring it home.”
The plot twists started in qualifying, as rain fell shortly into the first GT3 session and half the field didn’t get a dry lap in, including every one of the four title contenders who all therefore started outside the top seven. Loggie though was content, as his rivals effectively needed to win to deny him.
It set the pattern, as in the race too Loggie was aided by that none of his championship rivals had a clean run. Adam Balon in the Barwell Lamborghini had to do a Turn 1 gravel detour much like Loggie, plus the car had 15 seconds’ success penalty.
For a time the James Cottingham/Lewis Williamson 2 Seas Mercedes looked best placed to take advantage of Loggie’s early troubles, but then Cottingham ran off exiting Old Hairpin and smacked an advertising hoarding, and had to pit to have it peeled from his car. Two subsequent unrelated drivethrough penalties further kept them down.
Enduro’s Morgan Tillbrook not only experienced the first-corner woe mentioned, he got a stop/go penalty for his part in it. Still the car, that always goes well at Donington Park, showed amazing pace in both drivers’ hands and was third at the end, pressing Gounon, despite also having the maximum success penalty to take.
And it wasn’t only those with a title chance who experienced woe. Richard and Sam Neary in their Team Abba Mercedes lost a likely win to unreliability for the second time in two races. This time a broken gearbox stopped them before half distance, after Richard had not been headed from pole.
While the British GT debutant, and newly crowned GT Cup champion, Orange Racing Simon Orange/Michael O’Brien McLaren also lost a near-certain victory with a slow stop. Slow refuelling, a wheel gun problem and getting boxed in combined to lose them 35s. They finished fourth under six seconds from the win…
The Century BMW came through it all for a fine victory. It vaulted to first in the pitstop round and Sims then held off Gounon albeit with the latter constrained by Loggie’s title consideration. It was Century’s and the BMW M4 GT3’s first-ever overall British GT win.
With echoes of Loggie, the Steller Audi of Richard Williams and Sennan Fielding took the GT4 title after finishing second at Donington. In their case though, they had a 12.5-point deficit to overcome to the Newbridge Aston Martin shared by Matt Topham and Darren Turner, while the
Josh Miller/Jamie Day R Racing Aston was also very much in the mix. And just like with Loggie there were some adventures in getting there.
The Newbridge Aston was up against it after qualifying 12th of the GT4 runners; Topham didn’t get a quali lap in on slicks on a drying track. And matters were compounded when Topham got an in-race
“I just kept pushing, and kept overtaking”
Ian Loggie
penalty for passing under the safety car. Steller meanwhile ran second in the opening stint, but dropped to fifth at the stops after taking its success penalty.
Therefore just after a safety car, with just over a quarter of the race to go, the trio were almost on course for an dead heat on points, as the R Racing Aston ran second, the Audi fourth and Newbridge ninth. It was a matter of whoever could make most places would take the title.
And the Audi prevailed as in Fielding’s hands it climbed to second – including getting past Day – while Turner – in a car that was struggling to muster the straightline speed to make overtakes – could only get to seventh, two places short of getting the crown.
Williams told MN: “Odds were against us, and we had to both dig deep. After Brands we knew the team were in the right place and the car was in the right place.
“It was a very stressful race because we didn’t know what the #27 car [Newbridge] was going to be doing or what pace they had. This has been a long time coming and a lot of sacrifice.”
Also just like in GT3, the GT4 race had a freshman victor. In this case it was the Speedworks-run Toyota Supra taking its long-awaited first race win, and it was a dominant force in doing so. Indeed Tom Edgar was imperious from pole and the car even overcame losing 25s in its pitstop from being boxed in, requiring the Supra to be pivoted on the skates almost lengthways to rejoin the action. Edgar’s partner Jordan Collard swiftly reclaimed the lead from Day, and stayed there.